Global Sex Workers

Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition

Kamala Kempadoo, Jo Doezema, Kamala Kempadoo, Jo Doezema

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317958673
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Femminismo e teoria femminista

Global Sex Workers presents the personal experiences of sex workers around the world. Drawing on their individual narratives, it explores international struggles to uphold the rights of this often marginalized group.

Part One
Rethinking Sex Work

Introduction

Trafficking, slavery and pathology have defined prostitution since the mid-nineteenth century. In the past two decades, however, ideas about forced and voluntary prostitution, female migration and sex workers’ rights have entered the discourse, shifting and changing the terms of debate and conceptualizations of prostitution. In this section, various sex workers’ rights activists and feminists review and discuss the old and new definitions in policies, laws and theory, examining the implications for sex workers in the global sex industry. Each essay signals an urgency for a liberated and informed discourse by and about women and men in the contemporary sex industry.

In the first chapter “Forced to Choose: Beyond the Voluntary v. Forced Prostitution Dichotomy,” Jo Doezema argues that the distinction between forced and voluntary prostitution needs to be rethought, as it produces a framework that implicitly supports an abolitionist agenda and serves to deny sex workers their human rights. She analyzes assumptions embedded in UN conventions and international campaigns on prostitution, showing that from the late nineteenth century to the mid-1980s an abolitionist perspective dominated the discourse, defining prostitution as a violation to human rights, and aiming to ultimately abolish prostitution itself. The prevention of trafficking of women for prostitution was the lynch-pin around which arguments revolved and instruments designed. Since the 1980s, however, a shift in definition is discernible, and two ideological positions are today evident in the anti-trafficking debate. One is characterized by the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) founded by Kathleen Barry, which furthers the older abolitionist position, the second is internationally represented by the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women (GAATW) which distinguishes between forced and voluntary prostitution and respects the rights to women’s self-determination. The two positions are also reflected in various UN declarations and conventions, although much ambiguity and confusion reigns when the two positions meet in one document. Doezema observes that while the “forced v. voluntary” distinction is now dominant in the international discourse and is supported by various sex workers’ organizations, it remains problematic. Even though this position recognizes workers’ human rights and self-determination, the international instruments, organizations and campaigns against trafficking do not actually deal with voluntary prostitution or offer any support for sex workers who are not trafficked. Policies, conventions and activities still remain exclusively focussed on eradicating trafficking and forced prostitution. Furthermore the distinction has created a false dichotomy between sex workers. Ideas have been constructed of, on the one hand, liberated Western “whores” who are free to choose their professions, and on the other, forced, trafficked Third World victims. Combined with the idea of a difference between “guilty” and “innocent” prostitutes, the dichotomy reinforces the notions that (Western) women who freely transgress sexual norms deserve to be punished, while (non-Western) young, innocent women forced into prostitution by poverty, traffickers or age, need to be rescued. As yet, no international conventions or anti-trafficking organizations exist that explicitly support sex workers’ human rights.

Alison Murray’s essay “Debt-Bondage and Trafficking: Don’t Believe the Hype” extends the analysis in the first chapter. Writing from an Australian and Southeast Asian sex worker’s perspective, she critiques the Asia Watch Report on the trafficking of Burmese women into Thailand, and anti-trafficking campaigns at the Beijing conference, stressing the importance of the sex worker’s voice. Murray contends that the report, despite the publicity and widespread acceptance it gained, is flawed in many ways. Not only did the researchers fail to contact sex workers organizations that work with Burmese women and know the field, but based their report on a highly selective sample of prostitutes. The voices and experiences of all but a few trafficked sex workers were thus completely ignored by the researchers. Furthermore she shows that the definition of trafficking in the report remains extremely vague, yet is used in a sensationalist and hyperbolic fashion. Statistics, figures and claims are not substantiated or referenced, yet the document has been widely embraced as irrefutable truth. Both the report and anti-trafficking campaigns informed by the report have detrimental effects on sex workers, and in particular reproduce the stereotype of the passive, diseased Asian woman. Sex workers’ perspectives have had some impact on changing this discourse. Nevertheless, Murray concludes, it is still imperative that existing law and conventions that are aimed to protect women, young men and girls from slavery, non-consensual sex and exploitation, need to be ratified by all states, and that governments need to start decriminalizing prostitution, eradicating racism and providing support for sex workers’ organizations.

The following two chapters are illustrations of the recent anti-trafficking approach both providing insights and details into the reconceptualization of prostitution from this perspective. Jo Bindman’s contribution, “An International Perspective on Slavery in the Sex Industry” is from a talk she gave to one of the oldest feminist prostitution-abolitionist organizations, the Josephine Butler Society, in London. She describes the position held towards prostitution by Anti-Slavery International, the London-based organization that led the nineteenth-century British campaign against Black slavery and which today continues to fight against all forms of slavery. Bindman defines slavery as a condition that exists whenever and wherever workers are denied basic human rights and freedoms. Explaining that although slavery is not inherent to the sex industry, she points out that it is still possible because laws on prostitution and social distinctions made between prostitutes and other women in society exclude those working in the sex industry from the human rights that are offered to other women and workers in society. A labor analysis of prostitution that makes visible commonalities and shared forms of exploitation between prostitutes and other workers is the approach that Bindman advocates. It is an analysis through which it becomes evident that existing human rights and anti-slavery conventions are sufficient to eradicate slavery in the sex industry.

The chapter by Marjan Wijers “Women, Labor and Migration: The Position of Trafficked Women and Strategies for Support” is a reflection on ten years of work with the Dutch Foundation Against Trafficking in Women (STV), a sister organization of the GAATW. She defines trafficking as a form of exploitation within informal and formal labor market sectors, and more specifically as the process through which migrant women are brought into prostitution through the use of violence, coercion, deceit, abuse or violence, and are denied human rights and freedoms. The essay identifies basic principles of support that the STV has developed over the years to assist trafficked women, principles that are based on the needs and aspirations of the women themselves. Wijers argues that it is important to recognize that trafficked women are first and foremost migrants—persons seeking economic, social and political opportunities away from home—yet, due to restrictive laws and policies and limited opportunities for women, are relegated to informal sector work. State polices and laws furthermore serve to position migrant women as “undesirable aliens” and criminals, yet yield benefits for traffickers. The author outlines the four main types of legal state systems towards prostitution: the prohibitionist, regulationist, abolitionist, and decriminalist, pointing out that it is only in the latter system that women can make claim to legal protection. In the other systems, women are severely disadvantaged and their lack of confidence in the police system, fear of deportation and fear of reprisals from the traffickers forces them into silence and extreme forms of dependency. Wijers underlines the fact that migrant women find themselves in trafficked situations precisely because they are enterprising and courageous agents, willing to take initiatives to improve their living conditions—quite the opposite to the “passive victim” stereotype that is widely circulated about them. She concludes with describing two types of strategies—repressive and empowering—that are commonly employed to combat trafficking.

The final two chapters in this section critique dominant discourses on prostitution in specific areas of the world. “Discourses on Prostitution: The Case of Cuba,” by Amalia Cabezas, leads us into the Americas with an essay that examines U.S. media coverage of, and studies about, sex workers in Cuba. She argues that this discourse positions Cuban jineteras as pathological deviants, failing to produce an analysis that takes into account women’s resistances and the current economic situation in Cuba. This dominant discourse, she explains, draws from paradigms informed by nineteenth-century scholarship on prostitutes as well as Christian religious mores about sexuality. Whereas in the United States, such discourse has been challenged and changed through the efforts of new social movements and new scholarship—this shift is barely evident regarding the situation in Cuba. Cuba’s realities indicate that the country’s economic crisis in the 1990s and the globalization of capitalism has disproportionately affected women, yet when they turn to sex work to make a living they are usually blamed for doing so—or are charged with exhibiting a lack of revolutionary consciousness. This treatment of jineteras stands in contrast to the way in which Cuban men are represented, the latter being either completely ignored as sex workers or portrayed in neutral or heroic terms when described with coping with the economic crisis. It is the young women who are singled out for condemnation and stigmatization. Cabezas seeks to shift the level of analysis for the Cuban situation, proposing that what is needed is an analysis that encompasses the complexity of forces that inform sex work.

“Prostitution, Stigma and the Law in Japan” is a roundtable discussion between a group of six Japanese feminist intellectuals who examine the assumptions that underlie definitions of prostitution in Japan. The chapter is a translated, abbreviated version of an article that appeared in the Annual Report of the Women’s Study Society in Japan in 1995, and represents an attempt to shift the debate in Japan from an abolitionist perspective to one that empowers women. The group “Sisterhood” addresses the construct “women who have sex with unspecific men” as used in the context of Japanese laws on prostitution to define prostitutes, noting the way in which this construct supports a division between women and morally condemns the prostitute. Evoking the “voluntary v. forced prostitution” distinction the group grapples with the conceptualization of free will and choice in the sex industry, their discussion reflecting some of the pitfalls Doezema and Murray point out about the dichotomous framework. Nevertheless, the members of Sisterhood agree that the criminalization of prostitution in Japan forces women in the sex industry into underground sectors and organized crime, and propose that legalization of prostitution would solve part of that problem. Furthermore, they suggest, if prostitution is defined as work in Japan, within a framework of legality, women in the sex industry would be able to claim labor rights and could press for secure working conditions. Ultimately Group Sisterhood argues for the abolition of the existing Prostitution Prevention Law in Japan and, in its place, laws that punish sexual violence, such as rape, sexual harassment and forced prostitution, based on women’s rights to sexual freedom and self-determination.

Kamala Kempadoo

1
Forced to Choose

Beyond the Voluntary v. Forced Prostitution Dichotomy

Jo Doezema

Introduction

At the 1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, I and other delegates from the Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) and the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women (GAATW) lobbied to ensure that every mention of prostitution as a form of violence against women in the final conference document would be prefaced by the word “forced.”¹ Because sex workers’ human rights were not mentioned in the draft document, it was impossible to introduce this concept at the Conference. The best we could do was “damage limitation;” keeping abolitionist language out of the final document. Ironically, I found myself lobbying for a recognition of the distinction between voluntary prostitution and forced prostitution, a distinction I and other sex worker activists had come to realize had been subverted in such a way that it had become a new justification for denying sex workers their human rights.

Does this mean that I deny that some women in the sex industry work in slavery-like conditions or that I deny that it is possible to choose prostitution as a profession? It does not. It means that I argue that the voluntary/forced dichotomy is the wrong theoretical framework with which to analyze the experience of sex workers. The necessity to critically examine the form this theory is taking is all the more pressing now that it is replacing abolitionism as the dominant model of prostitution at the international level.

In this chapter I examine the rise to prominence of the “voluntary” versus “forced” model of sex worker experience, and the implications and consequences of this rise for sex workers’ rights. In the first section, I give a short history of feminist attempts to get prostitution on the international political agenda. Second, an examination of relevant international instruments demonstrates that the voluntary/forced dichotomy is replacing the abolitionist model of prostitution. Finally, I seek to show that this dichotomy has become another way of denying sex workers their human rights.

Prostitution and International Politics

A Brief History

Early attempts to deal with prostitution internationally were heavily influenced by nineteenth-century feminist activism. It was women like Josephine Butler who first brought the issue of the “white slave trade” to international attention, via a campaign to protect morals of both men and women. The feminist campaign, founded by Butler, began with attempts to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts in Britain.² Under the acts, any woman identified as a “common prostitute” was forced to undergo a fortnightly internal examination. Infected women were interned in specially designated hospital wards, “pseudo-medical prisons for whores.”³

Feminists in the repeal movement were ambivalent in their attitudes to prostitutes. They recognized a commonality of interests with prostitutes, realizing that the Acts were a threat to the civil liberties of all women. Because any woman could be identified on the word of a police officer as a “common prostitute,” any woman, especially a working-class woman, on her own in a certain area at a certain time could be detained and forced to submit to an internal examination. On the other hand, prostitution was seen as “the great social evil,” and prostitutes as victims of male vice, who needed to be rescued. Thus, controlling male vice was seen as the key to ending prostitution. Regulation of prostitution was condemned as an official licensing of male vice.

After the repeal of the Acts in 1883, the focus of the campaign shifted from the rejection of government attempts to monitor sexuality...