Migration, Prostitution and Human Trafficking

The Voice of Chinese Women

Min Liu

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351505444
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

"Migration, Prostitution, and Human Trafficking examines the nature, magnitude, and gravity of prostitution and sex trafficking--and the relationship between them--in contemporary China. By researching the backgrounds, circumstances, and other factors that drive Chinese women to migrate to Shenzhen, China, Liu hopes to shed light on the underlying reasons for their entry into the sex industry."

1

Economic Reform, Migration, and Prostitution

Prostitution, one of the oldest professions in the world, has existed in China for over 2,000 years (Ren, 1993; Gil and Anderson, 1998; Zhou, 2006), despite economic development, cultural traditions, changes in social systems, and authoritative suppression. Historically, prostitution has been a topic of research in differing disciplines, such as law, psychiatry, penology, sociology, history, geography, and social work (Davis, 1993). To date, however, few studies have examined the relationship between the increase in prostitution and the development of a society, that is to say, the extent to which economic development, industrialization, and urbanization affect the development of prostitution. In the United States, it has been observed that prostitution evolved into a highly visible business along with the economic development, industrialization and urbanization of the mid-nineteenth century (Barry, 1995). In China, although prostitution prospered under several dynastic reigns, it did not reach its peak until the country opened its door to the outside world during the second half of the nineteenth century (Zhou, 2006). Coincidently, from 1978 onward, as the Chinese government began implementing economic reform, and adopting an open door policy, and as China began experiencing rapid economic development, moving towards industrialization and urbanization, prostitution has seen a revival. It is increasing rapidly after approximately 30 years of purported abolition.

After examining changes in prostitution in Shanghai from 1849 to 1949, Henriot (1996) concluded that prostitution could only prosper in a context where the population is growing rapidly and is diversifying; where foreign trade has opened, and people from all walks of life relocate with the hope of making a better living and attaining prosperity. Even if it is accepted that the advancement of a society, especially in the form of economic development, is inevitably accompanied by thriving prostitution, the question still remains: Why has prostitution in contemporary China been developing so rapidly in the presence of Western culture and a growing economy? Does the current climate of economic reform inevitably engender prostitution? What social changes have occurred in China since 1978, and how do these changes give rise to prostitution? The present study attempts to examine prostitution in China within the context of a society in transition—an isolated, agricultural and underdeveloped country transforming into an open, industrialized, and urbanized one.

Economic Reform and Floating Populations

When China ended its isolation from the outside world in 1978, the government initiated a policy of economic reform and opening to the outside that has profoundly changed people’s lives. One of the most prominent results of these new policies, in other words, China’s economic boom, has been double-digit economic growth rates, lifting millions of people out of poverty and bringing the poverty rate down from 53 percent in 1981 to only 8 percent in 2001(Ravallion and Chen, 2004). In 2001, there were 400 million fewer people living in extreme poverty than 20 years previously (World Bank, 2005).

The economic reform and open door policy, however, has also restructured the lives of Chinese people in a negative way. Not all the reform strategies have achieved their intended results, nor are all beneficial to people from all walks of life. These less desirable changes, especially noticeable in urban areas, include the abolition of government subsidies for education and the loss of free housing and medical services provided by work units. The loss of these benefits, along with a high unemployment rate, has affected the welfare of the Chinese people very significantly.

Significant Economic Reform Policies

Chinese economic reform has gone through a number of phases, affecting people’s lives in different ways. With the initiation and enforcement of a range of reform strategies, many people have become unemployed and have consequently sought jobs in areas offering more opportunities, while others were encouraged to migrate in search of alternate sources of income.

Changes in economic strategies resulted in a large number of unemployed and underemployed people in urban areas, and surplus labor in rural areas. Generally speaking, three significant nationwide reform measures gave rise to this high unemployment rate and the huge floating population. The first is the rural economic reform policy. The initial reforms in the late 1970s and early 1980s targeted the agricultural sector, which is the most important economic sector of China, through the institution of the Family Production Responsibility System (the FPRS) in agriculture. The FPRS contracts farmland to individual households to be cultivated for whatever purposes they see fit as long as they meet the crop quotas for their collective unit. Those who meet the quotas keep the surplus harvests and net profits. Later, in 1993, the government abolished the 40-year-old grain rationing system, leading to more than 90 percent of all annual agricultural produce being sold at market-determined prices (Findlay and Chen, 2001). This reform gave more power to each family to meet its individual needs, and as a result, the farmers have become more energetic and productive. They have been able to retain a surplus from their individual plots of land.

However, although China’s agricultural output is the largest in the world, only about 15 percent of its total land area can be cultivated (The World Factbook: China, 2008). As China’s industrialization continues, vast amounts of agricultural land are being converted into industrial land, aggravating the historical problem of limited space for farming. Farmers displaced by such urban expansion often become migrant labor for factories. They are encouraged to leave their rural homes to seek jobs outside of the depressed agricultural sector and to find multiple income opportunities in urban areas.

The abolition of the rationing system (whereby only urban residents could have rations of food, clothing, etc.), the loosening of recruitment policies governing urban enterprises, and the demand for labor by newly established private and joint-investment companies have motivated farmers to move to urban areas, especially those along the southeastern coast, for economic reasons. With differences between urban and rural life becoming increasingly more prominent, more and more rural farmers are enticed by the diversity and high quality of city life. Incomes from jobs in the cities are much higher than those from farming, especially in areas where the land was not arable to begin with, providing another incentive that motivates farmers, especially young people, to join the increasing “floating population.” With China’s urbanization accelerating over the last decades, more than 200 million people have left the land. Currently, over 120 million rural workers are “on the move,” making their way into towns (China Labor Bulletin, 2007a).

Unlike rural residents who are emancipated from the land, the floating populations from urban areas are people who are unemployed or underemployed as a result of a series of reform measures carried out in state-owned enterprises. During the Maoist period, the majority of urban residents in China were attached to a work unit, an enterprise or institution which provided comprehensive social security for its employees in the form of housing, children’s education, pension, and health services. Most urban residents spent their entire lives in the same work unit upon entering the labor market. This was referred to as the “Iron Rice Bowl.” One of the hallmarks of China’s socialism, the Iron Rice Bowl gave urban residents the promise of employment, and virtually lifelong tenure, by recruiting local urban residents, particularly family members of its current employees. This is one of the reasons why rural residents did not have any chance to work in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) during the pre-reform era. Urban residents were allocated by the local government to a work unit which provided them with a comprehensive benefits package. This employment policy was once touted as one of the advantages of socialism over capitalism. However, the inherent problem with the Iron Rice Bowl raised its head soon after its implementation. The unintended consequences included overstaffed industries, and a reduction of workers’ incentive due to job security. As a result, reformers regarded the labor market as unproductive, and a number of strategies were introduced to address this issue. One of these strategies was the termination of the Iron Rice Bowl, which meant that a lot of urban residents lost their jobs, and many young people were no longer guaranteed a job as they entered the labor market. As the economic reforms progressed, government-controlled job allocation declined sharply from 76 percent to 52 percent of the total job market between 1980 and 1992 (China Labor Bulletin, 2007b). The Iron Rice Bowl was shattered, and guaranteed lifetime jobs were replaced by performance-based labor contracts. Those worst affected by these changes were poorly educated, unskilled workers. As a result, unemployment has become one of the Chinese central government’s most pressing problems.

Another policy contributing to the high unemployment rate in urban China was the reform of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Economic reform entered a new era with the dismantling of inefficient and unproductive state-owned and state-managed industries and enterprises, and the development of social security systems (Ren, 1999). The most affected areas were provinces with a high concentration of state-owned enterprises established by the Communist Government, especially those in northern China. In some severely affected areas, SOEs started to lay off employees, or were shut down due to economic reasons. Families with several members working in the same industry or work unit were the most adversely affected. Unfortunately, such situations, in which several family members worked in the same unit, were very common because of the Iron Rice Bowl employment policy. Thus, unemployment began to increase significantly at the end of 1990s, as the government’s big push to reform SOEs got underway. About 20 million SOE employees became unemployed as enterprises restructured, merged, or declared bankruptcy (China Labor Bulletin, 2007a).

As stated earlier, the closing of inefficient enterprises meant not only the loss of jobs, but also loss of the benefits provided by the work unit. When the old welfare system was dismantled, a new system had not yet been established. The socialization of welfare made the lives of those who lost their jobs even worse.

The extent to which the closing of state-owned, inefficient enterprises affected Chinese people can be extrapolated from the changing components of the Chinese economy. Once predominantly state controlled, less than one-third of all enterprises are now state-owned. As of 2005, the private sector was responsible for approximately 70 percent of China’s gross domestic product (GDP), while the state ran about 200 large state enterprises, mostly utilities, heavy industries, and energy resources (China Industry, 2008).

The pattern of change in the employment rate reflects the tremendous effect of economic reform on urban Chinese residents. China’s official unemployment rate has remained at between two or five percent for the last two decades. Even in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the effects of economic reform and SOE restructuring were at their most intense, the rate barely exceeded four percent (China Labor Bulletin, 2007). However, the official unemployment statistics only include urban residents who have registered as unemployed. Neither the rural unemployed nor urban employees who have been laid off are included, as these latter retain an “employment relationship” with their former employer. Unemployment is more severe in the poorer western and central regions and the northeastern provinces that had a high concentration of SOEs. In 2005, the highest official unemployment rate was five percent in the northeastern province of Liaoning (China Labor Bulletin, 2007a). Enterprises in the southeastern coastal areas, such as Guangdong and Shanghai, which opened up to foreign investment much earlier, were far more capable of providing employment opportunities to workers.

Thus, the cessation of the Iron Rice Bowl and the closing of unprofitable state-owned factories resulted in millions of unemployed laborers in urban areas. Along with surplus laborers from r...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Economic Reform, Migration, and Prostitution
• 2 Human Trafficking and Feminist Debates
• 3 Explanations of Prostitution and the Rational Choice Perspective
• 4 Pre-Prostitution Life
• 5 Paths to Prostitution
• 6 Life on the “Job”
• 7 Prostitution and Human Trafficking: Underlying Reasons
• 8 Legal Responses and Conclusions
• References
• Index