CHASTE - A Statement From Carrie Pemberton

25 March 2007 marks 200 years to the day that a Parliamentary Bill was passed to abolish the slave trade in the British colonies.Ê However although Slavery from Africa finally came to an end in the Americas in 1888, the United Nations still estimates that there are tens of millions of people still in forms of servitude today.

One of these forms of enslavement is in the suffering and bondage experienced by those Trafficked for Sexual Exploitation today. This exploitation of sexual labour was present in the original enslavement of African women and children three hundred years ago, where women and the girl child were captured, branded, transported and sold for leisure sex for land owners and their agents, and for reproduction of the enslaved classes across the Caribbean and the Southern states of America.

Today the provenance is no longer exclusively Bantu or Nilotic. Every ethnicity is embroiled in a globalisation of contemporary sexual enslavement. It is predominantly represented by women and the girl child, although there is some evidence of young men caught up in being trafficked for sexual exploitaion in Europe and Africa.

CHASTE is calling for Abolition of sexual enslavement in 2007 to mark this bicentennial year. Not for Sale Sunday May 20th 2007 will be bringing to the attention of the churches and to policy makers the key elements which are needed for this movement for Abolition to get underway. We take heart from the example of Sweden which in 1999 introduced a law which crimalised the buying of sexual services whilst those who offer sex for sale are offered multiple routes for exiting prostitution and are not prosecuted. The law was part of an overall package to address violence against women, secure womenÕs rights and diminish the risk of young girls from entering into prostitution. The ÔsignalÕ effect of this law has been strong.

CHASTE, founded in 2004, has been on the forefront of developing provision of safe housing for those who have been trafficked into the UK for sexual exploitation. Over the course of the last three years CHASTE has been the point of referral of over 87 women who have experienced the scarring of this contemporary form of enslavement. The CHASTE network of safe house providers now furnishes the UK with 2/5 of its safe bed space for women who have been trafficked into enforced prostitution. Now CHASTE is turning its attention to the significant area of changing our cultureÕs toleration of pay as you go sex with all its risks to the lives of young women caught in prostitution, whether UK nationals or those trafficked into this country by criminals.

CHASTE has commissioned Freefall to develop the production and to give voice and expression to the silenced women who have experienced horrendous abuse whilst furnishing their traffickers with wealth from their enslaved bodies Ð sold for as little as £25 a half hour. Each sale exploiting their humanity, their integrity, their soul-space, their health, their futures, Their voices and their aspirations will be expressed in this dynamic new production of freshly commissioned material. So also will be the voices of those who use and abuse, and those who desire a more equal world, where no-one is sold into sexual slavery anywhere in the world, and no-one ever purchases Ð not even for a quick half hour.

To find out more about CHASTE's ground breaking work and our network of partners log onto www.CHASTE.org.uk,

Carrie Pemberton
CEO CHASTE