Appointee on Women’s Issues Supports Legal Prostitution

By | May 18, 2023

Geeta Rao Gupta

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 19 (C-Fam) Senate Democrats voted to confirm President Joe Biden’s nominee for Ambassador-At-Large for Global Women’s. The vote was close and partisan.  In addition to her support for abortion, Dr. Geeta Rao Gupta has also taken the controversial position of advocating for the decriminalization of prostitution and decreased stigma around so-called “sex work.”

Gupta was nominated in December 2021, and her confirmation vote fell largely along party lines, with all Republican senators and one centrist Democrat voting nay.

Gupta formerly worked as head of the pro-abortion International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), along with stints at multiple UN agencies, including UNAIDS, UNICEF and the WHO.

During her time at ICRW, Gupta urged the U.S. government to modify the requirements of the  President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program to eliminate its anti-prostitution pledge, which required that grantees not use PEPFAR funds “to promote or advocate the legalization or practice of prostitution or sex trafficking.”

She also called for an end to PEPFAR funding for messaging promoting abstinence or sexual fidelity, and called for the reversal of the Mexico City Policy restricting U.S. funds to foreign-based organizations that promote or provide abortion.  She criticized what she saw as “dictates that emerge from the misguided morality of a few.”

In 2009, Gupta advocated for the decriminalization of prostitution at a speech at the 9th International Congress on AIDS and Asia in the Pacific.  “An enabling legal and policy environment should also allow consenting adults to make independent choices about their sexual behaviors and sexual identities,” she said. “This should include the decriminalization and reduction of harm associated with sex work.”

While the U.S. has historically taken a stance against the legalization of prostitution in its foreign policy, anti-human-trafficking advocates have expressed concern that the Biden administration is moving steadily toward a pro-decriminalization position.  U.S. officials have begun to use the phrase “sex work” instead of “prostitution” and remained silent during important debates over language about decriminalization in UN negotiations.

Some UN agencies, including UNAIDS and the WHO, have openly opposed laws restricting the selling of sex. In contrast, UN Women has attempted to maintain neutrality, drawing criticism from women’s advocacy groups on both sides of the issue.

The U.S. Office for Global Women’s Issues was established in the Department of State during the Obama administration, and is tasked with promoting “rights and empowerment of women and girls through U.S. foreign policy.”

Speaking to the UN General Assembly’s 26th Special Session on HIV/AIDS in 2001, Gupta criticized attitudes and policies that stigmatize prostitution and homosexual behaviors, again returning to the subject of morality: “We cannot and must not let our misguided morality, or for that matter, our politics, stand in the way of public health imperatives.”

During her confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate, Gupta said, “women’s equality is a moral and economic imperative of U.S. foreign policy.”  As her long career makes evident, Gupta’s morals, as well as her politics, are consistent with those of the Biden administration, and her appointment to lead the U.S.’s international women’s initiatives is a further step by the administration toward a position in favor of the decriminalization—and normalization—of the selling of sex.

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