While President-elect Obama rejects prostitution and trafficking, as abuses of human rights, and calls for better tools for prosecuting within the United States, the U.S. Attorney does not even use the tools he already has and gives johns like Eliot Spitzer a free pass. At the August 2008 Candidates' Summit in California, in answer to a question from Pastor Rick Warren, Obama saw the intimate connection between prostitution and trafficking: "What we have to do is to create better, more effective tools for prosecuting those who are engaging in human trafficking and we have to do that within our country. Sadly, there are thousands who are trapped in various forms of enslavement, here in our country, oftentimes, young women who are caught up in prostitution. So we've got to give prosecutors the tools to crack down on these human trafficking networks. It is a debasement of our common humanity, whenever we see something like that taking place."

By contrast, Mr. Garcia and Justice Department policy turns a blind eye to men like Spitzer, whose demand for paid sex drives the sex businesses that exploit mostly young, mostly poor, most often women of color, in prostitution.

Mr. Garcia's approach is at odds with a growing global awareness of the harms of prostitution, including its adverse effects on the safety of nonprostituting women as well as those in it. Prosecuting johns does make a difference, as Sweden has discovered. Sweden levies serious legal penalties against johns whom the Swedish law rightly views as predators, while decriminalizing the person being purchased. Since the Swedish law on prostitution was passed in 1999, prostitution there has been reduced by more than 40 percent, according to a conservative estimate by the Swedish police. Women in prostitution are now offered exit services instead of arrest. And trafficking of women for prostitution into Sweden has precipitously declined since the law was passed. Sweden now has the lowest rate of sex trafficking in the European Union.

Mr. Garcia's serious error reflects the unjust approach of the Justice Department toward the most vulnerable among us. His decision is a gift to human traffickers everywhere. Its message is: men, you can buy a woman for sexual use as long as you're not caught and as long as she has had her 18th birthday. If by some mistake you get caught, then quit your job, say you've sinned, and we'll give you a get-out-of-jail-free pass.

Melissa Farley is founder and executive director of the nonprofit group Prostitution Research and Education in San Francisco.

Norma Ramos is the coexecutive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women in New York.

© 2008