#HANDSOFFOURBODIES

#HANDSOFF OUR BODIES !
Demonstration in front of the European Court of Human Rights
for the non-commodification of women and girls

Strasbourg, 27 November - 1pm
Dear Judges...
#Listentosurvivors
NGOs
HANDSOFF !
We, French and European feminist, frontline and survivors-led organisations, are calling for a gathering on Monday 27 November at 1pm in front of the European Court of Human Rights, Allée des droits de l'Homme in Strasbourg.

At a time when the French law aimed at stepping up the fight against the prostitution system is being challenged before the European Court of Human Rights, we wish to reaffirm loud and clear the importance of the principle of the non-commodification of women and girls and the need to criminalise sex buyers for this purpose.

A society based on equality between women and men and social justice cannot be achieved as long as men are able to pay for access to women's bodies, particularly those that are most discriminated against.

Let's come together for a fairer, more feminist society where the purchase of sexual acts has no place!
Commodification of women & girls in europe:
IT'S STILL NO !
Mobilisation in front of the ECtHR on 27 November at 1pm followed by a press conference at 3pm in support of the French Abolitionist law challenged before the European Court of Human Rights.

On 27 November 2023, our French and European feminist, survivor-led and grassroots organisations will be mobilising to defend the non-marketing of women and girls in Europe. While France's abolitionist law, and in particular its provision penalising the purchase of sexual acts, is currently being challenged before the European Court of Human Rights, we wish to clearly affirm our support for the law and for the societal commitment to equality between women & men and social justice that it embodies.

Our collective will be organising a protest in front of the European Court of Human Rights from 1pm to 2pm. We will be joined by activists from France, Germany, Spain and Ukraine. The various speakers will take the floor in front of the ECtHR. We invite all concerned citizens to join the gathering to safeguard the rights and dignity of women and girls in Europe.

Press conference at 3pm

Following the protest, a press conference will be held at 3pm at the Mouvement du Nid offices at 6 Rue d'Ingwiller.
PANELISTS
Survivors of prostitution and activists from France, Germany, Spain and Ukraine will be present, as will representatives of grassroots organisations and the CGT, who will share their views on the importance of criminalising the purchase of sexual acts in the fight against the commodification of women and girls in Europe.
ROSEN HICHER
Survivor of prostitution & activist (France)
“ Whatever their situations “sex buyers” are always agressors. They are not victims, nor sweet, kind or normal...”
AMELIA TIGANUS
Survivor of prostitution and activist, author of La Revuelta de las Putas and President of the Federation of Abolitionist Women (Spain)
“Abolishing prostitution is to legislate in favour of human rights and a truly democratic society for all women.“
JULIA DOROKHOVA
Survivor of prostitution, lawyer and director of the NGO “All Ukrainian League of Legalife“ (Ukraine)
JONATHAN MACHLER
Executive Director, Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution
"The sexual act obtained by prostitute "clients" is always coerced, either by the physical force of traffickers and pimps, or by the socio-economic coercion that systematically traps women and girls from the most marginalised groups in the prostitution system. This is a form of violence against women that must be abolished as a matter of urgency".
CLAIRE QUIDET
President, Mouvement du Nid (France).
“As long as men are entitled to sexually dispose of women in exchange for money, we will continue to condone relationships of power and domination, and no real equality between men and women will be possible.”
SABINE REYNOSA
Member of the trade-union CGT (France)
“To the law of the market we oppose the principles of inviolability and non-patrimoniality of the human body, which are the corollaries of the respect for the dignity of the person.”
DELPHINE JARRAUD
Executive Director, Amicale du Nid
“The violence of the prostitutional system is part of the continuum of violence against women and girls. The first chain of this system is are the sex buyers, overwhelmingly men, who, in the name of their "urges", reduce to commodities not the bodies of women and girls (but also of other men, boys and trans people), but their entire persons, with both physical and psychological consequences for the victims. This commodification is at the intersection of sexist, economic and racist oppression. As with all acts of violence perpetrated against others, the buyer must be penalised.”
YVES SCELLES
President, Fondation Scelles
"We must maintain the abolitionist law and penalise the purchase of sexual acts because prostitution is nothing other than a rape organised by pimps and perpetrated by sex buyers. It's rape, rape and only rape."
Représentante de la Coordination Française pour le Lobby Européen des Femmes
HELENE FRITZON
Member of European Parliament, S&D, FEMM, Sweden
“It should not be possible to buy girls' and women's bodies in the EU's internal market.”
ANNE-LISE ROBIN
Programme Officer, OSCE Office on Combatting Human Trafficking

“If demand is the driving force behind all forms of trafficking, its role is even more pronounced in cases of trafficking for sexual exploitation, regarding the absence of distance between the exploited victim and the final "user". Users cause a serious and direct prejudice to the victims, by encouraging the market of trafficking and by the sexual act itself."
MARIE KALTENBACH
Activist and member of the Steering Group of the Bündnis Nordisches Modell (Allemagne)
“The German legislation considers prostitution as a job and has clearly failed by worsening the situation of prostituted women. It does not only offer any protection, but it also refuses to recognise the violent and harmful reality of prostitution. That is unacceptable. Germany needs the Equality Model.”