George W. Bush seems to take one human rights campaign seriously—he decries human trafficking as “modern slavery” and a “special evil.” Indeed, he used sex slavery to mobilize his evangelical base during the 2004 campaign. The evangelicals are not alone. In 2000, they formed an uncommon coalition with feminist groups to lobby for a new law combating human trafficking. The resulting… return to article
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Reader Comments (45)Page 1 of 1 pagesWomen have the **right** to control our own bodies. We can choose to be prostitutes or not - it is no ones else’s business (and frankly, given the choice between working for pennies at McExplotation or on my back for real money, it is not that difficult to choose). We are not children to be protected - we are women and will do as we please.
The laws against prostitution should be repealed immediately. As for “forced” prostitution - it should be pursued and punished to the full extent of the law.
Posted by Sarah on Mar 14, 2005 at 3:58 PM I’d like to see Ann Coulter kidnapped and forced into Iraqi prostitution.
Posted by Lefty on Mar 14, 2005 at 7:21 PM I’d like to see Hillary Clinton kidnapped and forced into Iraqi prostitution (a 3-way with Coulter? Maybe that is the way to bring the left and right together?).
Posted by Idiot on Mar 14, 2005 at 7:36 PM As pointed out in this article, financial disenfranchisement is almost always the reason one seeks a career in prostitution. If a woman has a sufficient education, job opportunity and a society that allows her outside the home, one would not see the number of prostitutes seen worldwide today.
If we would spend the money educating and empowering women and then actually pursue and prosecute those who put unwilling women and children in sex slave bondage, we might actually get somewhere.
Also, I will second that Ann Coulter proposition.
Posted by Margaret on Mar 14, 2005 at 8:30 PM I think it is only wise to separate prostitution from slavery. I would think that the majority of foreign sex workers are forced. I think the problem is far worse than anyone wants to admit or realize.
I think a better substrate of social funding would keep some from prostituion, but I don’t think that would have any effect on trafficking. That’s where the real progress is to be made.
Individuals and communites each have an incentive to fight this, but it is only relative to the intensity of the temptation, whether it be sexual or financial.
The world needs an adult conversation on sexuality that leads to discussion and policies regarding the mathematics of population and sustanence. If no-one was hungry or illiterate or diseased it would be more difficult to sell people for money. The motivation would be only sexual.
The kidnappers and pimps could get removed from the equation, which is many magnitudes more pressing as a moral problem than whether two consenting adults choose to engage in such a transaction.
That no administration can export this concept or enforce it at home is yet another pressing and serious challenge to the the thought everything is “ok” in the world - reinforced on TV with politicians in crisp suits.
Posted by shubert1966 on Mar 15, 2005 at 12:46 AM Coulter kidnapped? Forced prostitution? I empathize with your anger regarding revenge and punishment. However, fantacizing the “conversion” of Coulter or Clinton, or any else, by pain and/or torture is shortsighted at best and berift of any sense of morality. Your desires do not guarantee any result other than the enjoyment of watching and enjoying another’s pain.
There is an old saying that says that ‘the fish dies from the head down.’ Railing about Coulter, as horific as she is, is not the answer. It is the leadership at the top that needs to be changed. Until that happens, we will have to endure the rotting stench of Bush and the neocons and suffer the stinky enablers like Coulter, Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Hannity and the many minions spewing forth from the Heritage Foundation, the AEI and the rest of their ilk.
Lets put our emphasis on the real problem and not be sidetracked by the rantings of the Christian radical right and wingnuts like Coulter. We need dramatic regime change!
Posted by Merlin on Mar 15, 2005 at 1:08 AM It is always the logical direction to take to decry prostution as an externally imposed evil, but as anyone who lives in Southeast Asia will tell you, it’s just not that simple. Girls leave their villages in the North to come to Bangkok to make money to send home to their father who can’t work anymore and brothers and sisters who aren’t yet old enough to take the family’s starving buffalo out into the rice paddies. They are considered heroes in their villages, and when they return with money enough to get the family back on its feet, it is regarded as a sacrifice of love. This is more common than many would care to believe. But then again most Thais do not suffer Western demonization of the sex act between adults (an important qualification). 95% of prostitution is Thai-to-Thai, with brothels outside any town, and everywhere in the cities. (Although there are the Cambodian and Burmese children forced into sex slavery, unfortunately as much victims of egregious racism and neglect as of their wretched clients and handlers.) Sex trafficking functions on so many levels here, the University student sleeping around to be able to buy a new cellphone or cover next term’s tuition. But how is it different from some nobody from Alabama sleeping with an LA producer because he is rich or famous, or promises to make things happen for her? We would would do well to shed this ethnocentricity and self-righteousness, we are no city on a hill. Before we embark on a crusade to save the world from these transactions, we should examine our own anomy at home, extend the definition of prostitution to the darker corners of our selectively lit ideology.
***And before a string of insults erupts with regard to my own place in this seedy world, I have none. It’s not for me, but I do not judge it as readily nor see it as simply as I did when I lived in America.
Posted by Jeff Silvio on Mar 15, 2005 at 7:12 AM Further thoughts on my post above.
It is my belief that when we respond to the wingnut enablers, we are doing exactly what they want us to do! In my view, we have no need to defend our position (nor explain it as Jeff has done so well here.) They delight in stirring up the folks on the left and will happily “use” our words against us when we say emotionally far out things (like kidnapping Coulter, for example.) I often think this when I read comments that are from obvious “trolls” (with names like ‘redstate’) trying to stir up trouble.I suggest we stop wasting our good time railing about what the nuts on the right are saying and concentrate our efforts on the 2006 elections.
We lost in 2000 and 2004 by talking about individual issues. About the facts of those issues, and about what is wrong with Bush, instead of creating a strong positive liberal position. We allowed BushCo to set the agenda and responded to it, instead of making them respond to ours. The voters had no viable alternative to Bush (Kerry appeared like ‘Bush Lite.’)And still we almost won. Imagine what we can do when we are no longer fooled by the traps and techniques that Rove and his ilk are using (the Slime Boat Swifties, the Max Cleland smear campaign, the Daschle smear and the current social security lies and distortions to name a few.)
Posted by Merlin on Mar 15, 2005 at 7:59 AM I think you are all taking the Coulter joke a little too seriously. Obviously I can’t believe that anyone would TRULY wish that on anyone, but sometimes the frustration of the “screaming” heads on conservative tv and radio just makes one say or think something outrageous. We can all see what being genteel and courtly got John Kerry.
That being said, however, you’re right in that we should not sink to their level.
Jeff, I am going to Thailand as an English teacher in October and am going to be working with a Christian group to try to establish an economic environment for the women of Thailand, especially the hill tribes and assylum seekers, to earn a living without sex. Financial stability is the initial key, and then the sense of worth that strengthens their resolve will help to make a small dent in this enormous problem. And while most of you will vehemently disagree with me, it is a pillar of strength to know that God is there with you and supporting you. When you consider this thought in terms of the children forced into sex, it is a worthwhile goal, I feel.
Posted by Margaret on Mar 15, 2005 at 5:16 PM Margaret said: “We can all see what being genteel and courtly got John Kerry.” That’s what I was about to tell Merlin, in less genteel terms.
As for my original statement that Ann Coulter should be kidnapped and sold into the Iraqi sex slave market (tacitly implying that it would do her some good to be forced to service a harum of 50 horney Iraqis), I was just kidding. No, really!
Posted by Lefty on Mar 15, 2005 at 6:47 PM As for my original statement that Hillary Clinton should be kidnapped and sold into the Iraqi sex slave market (tacitly implying that it would do her some good to remember what sex is like with a man), I was just kidding. No, really! (But i still would like to see her in a 3-way with Coulter!)
Posted by idiot on Mar 15, 2005 at 9:06 PM Lefty, Idiot and Margaret,
Yes, I knew you were joking. That you said so was what I had wished for. If you have not done so, check out the freepers blogs and see the vitriol oozing from their posts! Reading them, from my very liberal perspective, disgusts me. I feel like I am cleaning out a stuffed up toilet with my bare hands. I have a Republican friend who reads the liberal blogs and feels similarly when he finds equally negative statements he finds offensive. We all have negative fantasies that are great fun to consider. To voice them privately with folks of like mind is not the same as voicing them in a public forum. (Look at Cheney’s remark-f**k you-in the Senate, for instance. I suspect that virtually everyone has said or thought that at one time or other.)I wholeheartedly agree we must call a spade a spade. “Playing sweet and nice” is a loser’s game. Boxer’s withering attack on Rice is what needs to be done all across the board. There does appear to be some stirring in the dem ranks and hopefully their long lost backbone will be found in time for ‘06. It can be done without sinking (even in a joking way) to their level of vitriol.
Cheers to you Margaret and my best wishes on your mission. I applaud your goals, your resolve and your energy.
Posted by Merlin on Mar 16, 2005 at 12:53 AM Merlin, if Ann Coulter had her way, she’d kidnap you and force you into Iraqi prostitution…
Posted by ann coulter's bitch on Mar 16, 2005 at 7:49 AM Merlin - i agree with you about the massive amount of vitriol oozing around both cyberspace and the real world. Somehow it has become not only tolerated but encouraged to disparage people on the other side of the political spectrum - this applies to both the left and the right. I applaud that you have a conservative friend - it seems like some people are unable to have friends on the other side of their political “faiths”.
It appears to me that many people think that if others disagree with their political viewpoints, they are either stupid, arrogant, stooges, etc. I personally believe it is useful to be able to understand and argue BOTH sides of an issue (and to some out there, yes there IS at least TWO SIDES, both valid, both honorable).
Personal attacks serve very little purpose other than to release venom. I also agree that the Democrats on the hill need to be much more aggressive in their pursuit of their agenda.
Posted by seriously on Mar 16, 2005 at 2:58 PM Can we keep the comments on a hgiher level than wishing ANY woman to be kidnapped and forced into prostitution? Hell? That’s a kind of mysogyny that I find disturbing—especially from alleged progressives.
As for prostituion (forced and “chosen”), its not always so easy to distinguish between the two:whether a Thai girl of 14 who’s helping her destitute rural family or a white, runaway 14 year old on the streets of America, who’s been sexaully abused at home, ‘escapes”, only to find herself re-vicitimized. The AVERAGE age of GOING INTO prostitution in the US is 16. Is this the ‘ideal” of the (male) fantasy of consenting adults ‘choosing” sex as a “fun and wewll-paid” occupation?
Surveys of American porstitutes also suggest taht 80% were sexually abused as children—-which gives the message that “all you’re good for is sex”. How does this impact “choice”?
I know some feminists want to talk about “sex work” in a Suzy Bright “sex postive” way. As a journalist, I’ve met many women doing sex work from tricks on the street to call girls working hotel trade for $300 a trick or more.None of them seemed especially happy—though some were certainly more ‘savvy” than others. I know a woman who put herself through law school as a call girl.Our aim should be DEcrinminalization and HARM REDUCTION. Prostittuion should be ONLY in REGULATED “houses” for that purpose, 18 year olds and up, with women’s safety and public health the priroity. ..plus, these are jobs that should be UNIONIZED. If there were ever a “job” that needed unionizing, prostitution is it!
But, let’s not do the “Pretty Woman” or Xavier Hollander glamorization routine of prostitution either.Few women actually doing sex work would recognize themselves in these fantasies.
Posted by Red Emma on Mar 16, 2005 at 3:03 PM One positive step Americans could take would be to send their one dollar to the 34 Million Friends of the United Nations Population Fund grassroots campaign. (www.34millionfriends.org) UNFPA works for the equality of the women and girls of the world every day and for their access to food, education, and health care. UNFPA treats the underlying causes of trafficking which are closely related to the low status of women in many countries and to extreme poverty.
Posted by Jane Roberts on Mar 16, 2005 at 5:02 PM Merlin, if Ann Coulter had her way, she’d kidnap you and force you into Iraqi prostitution…
Posted by ann coulter’s bitch on March 16, 2005 at 1:49 AM
It’s interesting that you know Coulter so well (being her bitch and all)! Just how close to her are you? Of course I doubt that I would be so “fortunate” as to be chosen for such work. An old man would be punished differently, probably just eliminated. I am a 69 year old male with bad vein valves which no longer function well enough to allow me to get hard. (And sadly there is no fix for that.) So that leaves passive sodomy and active oral sex. Frankly, I can’t see a young person fantasizing an old man into a young one so I don’t think they would find me their meat. I’m afraid your thought is more fantasy than anything else. Got any other good suggestions?
Posted by Merlin on Mar 16, 2005 at 10:06 PM Responding to Jeff Silvio’s post above, the dynamic he describes in Thailand etc also exists to a great extent in the Philippines. However, there are two other aspects I would add, whether they obtain outside of the Phils (a place I formed a great affection for in my years there) I cannot say. Perhaps one of you can inform me.
One that likely is true all over is that sex trade is not just more lucrative than the earnings available in a remote village, it’s also more lucrative than virtually any line of middle class work found in the city. In Metro Manila, ladies who work 10-14 hours per day in office jobs and the like make about one third to half what a girl turning tricks out of a bar can get in a month. Professionals in the areas of education, law, medicine, etc etc, investing years of study and hundreds of thousands of pesos that are very difficult to save up in the straight economy, still make less than a sex worker by a far stretch. This is because of wealthy sex tourists from the West, Japan, and Korea who skew the wage picture when they can easily pay a few thousand pesos for a night of entertainment. Your typical employee in a straight business has to work for two or three weeks to get that same amount.
There’s another thing dismaying about this picture. Having known a few sex workers there (no, not as a customer), I heard the tale several times that “she” (actually 3 or 4 women) was the sole breadwinner of the family. Every time I heard this, I would ask if there were any other people of working age, who were healthy enough to get some sort of job, and questions of that kind. In every case, the answers were affirmative. And local culture discourages one from refusing to serve the family (or the neighbors) when money or other assistance is asked for, so emotional pressure is sometimes very harsh. I formed this picture of women who were, sad to say, raised to be prostitutes, whose preparation for adulthood as far as education or job skills was almost non-existent, because she was pretty or thin or had some other “marketable” feature (in one case, being the daughter of a Filipina sex worker from Subic who was impregnated by an African-American serviceman; her mix of genetic heritage apparently made her more of a commodity, it seemed.
I’m not moralizing, and in fact I provisionally agree with the decriminalization and unionization of sex workers. But my conversations with quite a few of these ladies led me to form a picture that was far from rosy, and in a lot of cases, really dismal.
Posted by Kuya on Mar 18, 2005 at 6:51 AM Legalizing prostitution has failed everywhere it has been attempted and it is currently failing in the Netherlands, Germany and Australia where all the supposed “harm reduction” that was supposed to happen has actually turned out to be making prostitution worse than it was before legalization. Where legalization goes, gang activity increases, STDs increase, child prostitution increases, illegal street prostitution and illegal brothels flourish, and sex workers are not treated any better than before. For internationally peer-reviewed research on global sex workers and the failures of legalized prostitution, check out www.prostitutionresearch.com
I have been assisting survivors of the sex industry in the US Northwest for several years. In the beginning, before I knew what the hell I was talking about, I thought legalization and unionization would help. I was wrong. I’ve lost people I cared for very much because they were prostituting themselves to death and I stupidly stood by, the sexee wexee feminist who thought she was so cool with her all sex worker friends, and enabled their continued exploitation and abuse.
I’m not in college anymore and I’m not as invested in male approval anymore. Some of my closest friends from junior high school are dying of AIDS, some dissappeared altogether, and one finally got her shit together for the sake of her kid but still struggles with post traumatic stress disorder and predatory men who seem able to smell the poverty on her.I am very disheartened by the empty rhetoric of the Bush administration on this issue, but I can’t say I’m surprised. None of us in-the-trenches folks really thought anything but politiking would come of it, but we still were glad for the increased media coverage and public education. At working sessions with federal officials we literally begged them to focus on men’s demands for prostituted bodies and not to arrest and/or punish poverty-stricken women and children.
The Swedish model of decriminalizing prostitutes but placing harsher penalties and jail time for tricks is the model that has shown the most success in harm reduction so far. Teaching 6-year-old girlchildren in Cambodian brothels to say, “Please use a condom” in German, Japanese, French and English is not harm reduction.
For more information about the revolutionary 1999 Swedish law on prostitution, where prostitution is recognized as violence against women, please read Sweden’s Prostitution Solution: Why Hasn’t Anyone Tried This Before? http://www.justicewomen.com/cj_sweden.html
Posted by Sam on Mar 22, 2005 at 9:59 PM Trafficking, prostitution, sex work, etc. are indeed complex issues. For the uninitiated, default positions tend to be based on preconceptions formed from sensationalized news stories and television dramas or limited and one-sided “research,” filtered by us through a lense of moral codes we were indoctrinated with as children.
As a sex worker myself, I have had to overcome the stigma attached to women who not only are very free with their sexualities, but also that attached to women who are willing to exchange sex for monetary compensation. It is most certainly not all doom and gloom as some would have you believe. I actually find it very fun and rewarding work. Just put “escort” in google, and see how many of us are out there, making plenty of money. One to start with is Agente Provocateuse (could not post URL) At $1.5m a day, I doubt she is a victim or is a risk for suicide.
I have to point out here that we must not conflate legalization with decriminalization. This happens far too often by people with the best of intentions. Here is an interview addressing this very issue:
http://rapids.canoe.ca/cgi-bin/NewChat/NC-transcript.pl?CHAT_NAME=Flirt-32&W WATCHER_ID=1503466&ACTION=TRANSCRIPT&LAST=999999There is a very heated debate within the feminist community on prostitution/sex work. Some feminists believe that ALL women who participate in prostitution are victims (whether they realize it or not), while others contend that this is a personal choice (however limited a set of choices may be), and as the first message on this board points out, is up to the woman to decide for herself.
Here is a site detailing different feminisms’ approaches to the issue:
http://www.feministissues.com/index.htmlAs a sex worker (and, granted, a privileged one) my position on this issue is clear. I think it is very admirable that Sam is assisting survivors of traumatic experiences in prostitition, but I would caution anyone to not presume all womens’ experiences are the same. Much of the research conducted and published on prostitutionresearch.com was conducted mostly with women who were in prison, in shelters, or otherwise compromised and victimised. As one sex workers’ rights advocate put it: if research on marriage was conducted mostly on women found in battered womens’ shelters, we would want to make marriage illegal too. I have not seen much research done with women such as Agent Provocateuse. Or the Educated Escort and her peers:
http://www.educatedescort.com/(to be continued)
Posted by Anjelica on Mar 24, 2005 at 2:20 AM I concur with Jeff’s post above. Having researched sex work in Thailand extensively, it will be interesting for many of you to know that due to the Thai interpretation of Theravada Buddhism, women cannot be considered “religious people,” only men can. Thus, even though many women practice a devout ascetic form of Buddhism as nuns, they are still, by law considered laypeople. In much of SE Asia, filial piety is practiced (which means that children bear the financial responsibility for supporting their parents when they can no longer work). In Thailand, this is called Bun-Khun Reciprocity. Now, men can join a monestary for as few as three days and be absolved of this responsibility, so the economic burden falls on women, being perpetual laypeople (no matter how long their devotion to Buddhist asceticism). This is a large push factor in the decision of a young village girl becoming a sex worker. Not to mention the determination of Thai Theravada that women are lower incarnations than men, and they therefore feel that by serving men they are increasing their chances of being reincarnated as men in their next life.(1)
Further, at about US$110 per month for minimum wage in Bangkok (when observed) and $75 per month in rural provinces (as of 2004)(2), it is no wonder women pursue sex work when one considers that this can bring in up to US$800/month. “Why work in a factory for 2,000 or 3,000 baht a month [$80 to $120], when one man for one night is maybe 1,000 baht?”(3)
This is a self-explanation of Thai sex workers:
http://www.chiangmainews.com/ecmn/2004/jan04/1213prostitution.phpAnother informative paper on trafficking, migration, and sex work:
http://www.choike.org/documentos/migrations_agustin.pdf
Notes
1. Truong, Thanh-Dam. 1990. Sex, Money and Morality: Prostitution and Tourism in Southeast Asia. London. Zed Books Ltd. and Bishop, Ryan and Lillian S. Robinson. 1998. Night Market: Sexual Cultures and the Thai Economic Miracle. London. Routledge.
2. http://www.csr-asia.com/index.php/archives/2004/09/25/minimum-wage-increase-in-t thailand/
3. Moreau, Ron, “Sex and Death in Thailand,” Newsweek, 20 July, 1992: pages 50-1Resources- prostitution/sex work
http://www.iswface.org/studentinfo.htm
http://www.feministissues.com/index.html
http://www.spoc.ca/
http://www.nswp.org/
Resources- trafficking/migration
http://www.nswp.org/mobility/analysis.html
http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/1763.html
http://www.gaatw.org
Posted by Anjelica on Mar 24, 2005 at 2:20 AM We all know that Bush talks with a forked tongue.
Whatever he says has nothing to do with christianity. He is just full of BS and I can’t understand why people can’t see through him.
We have had prostitutionaround since before Christ. It seems to me it should be legal by now for anyone who wishes to do this for a living. If anyone should be punished it is the pimps. Most of them force women to sell themselves and they pocket the biggest share of the womans money and they do nothing to earn it.
If women are waiting for Bush or congress to do something about this problem, they are out of luck I’m afraid. We are not going to see laws passed to help women or the middle class of America during this administration. As far as Bush telling others how they should do things, it’s a wonder a snipper hasn’t picked him off already.
Posted by Pat Grzybowski on Mar 24, 2005 at 1:15 PM Anjelica, what you have said about the peer-reviewed research on prostitution is simply not true. Sometimes I question debating with internet-using, privileged sex industry profit-makers whose profit motive necessarily affects how they view sexual capitalism and its effects on all society, but I’ll do so here for the benefit of others reading. I’m an unpaid volunteer with one of the 3 orgs in my 1.5 million population city helping survivors of the sex industry after the sex capitalists have used them up and spit them out. That there’s not one, not two, but three orgs dedicated to helping these most vulnerable, most brutalized victims in “Pornland, Oregon”...
You malign hundreds of researchers when you say, “Much of the research conducted and published on prostitutionresearch.com was conducted mostly with women who were in prison, in shelters, or otherwise compromised and victimised.”
The methodology used to conduct the various collected research is very clearly presented and does not accord with what you have written here. Anyone can go and read how these particular researchers found the 475 people in 5 countries they spoke with http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/fempsy1.html
How would it even be possible that all the studies (and I do mean all) on prostitution in the past 30 years it has been seriously studied have concluded that the vast majority of prostituted people are outrageously poor, drug addicted, child sexual abuse survivors who want out of sex work immediately? I have never seen one single study suggesting anything less than 90% of prostitutes think it is a living nightmare and want to get out right now but have no other “choices”.
When sex workers around the world are asked what they want, they say they want help getting out, not better working conditions that would make them more contented to serve as semen spitoons (at best) for endless numbers of men. I have personally asked Robin Few, Nina Hartley, Norma Jean Almovodar and others pressing for prostituted women’s rights (though Few and Almovodar have been convicted on pimping charges) to provide one study
just one
that demonstrates they are responding to the direct requests of prostituted people when they attempt to make reproductive organs and bodies into rentable property, and I have not yet gotten anything back in all my requests. Sex workers, when asked, say they want out, not help staying in, and the “worker’s rights” advocates simply refuse to listen to them.
If the most abused, raped, burned, beaten, whipped and battered prostituted women, men and transgendered in the world can tell hundreds of researchers their stories, why can’t the mythical legions of Happy Whores tell theirs in any substantive way?
I’ll tell you this too, if there were the smallest shred of credible evidence that legalization and/or decriminalization actually succeeded with their purported harm reduction goals the results of that research woud be spread all over the world and heralded as The Solution to Prostitution by wealthy pornographers, pimps and tax-greedy governments. Lots of people from pro- and anti- perspectives have done studies and there is no way advocates of legalizing and/or decriminalizing would sit on such profitably good news. Instead, journals and government reports are chock full of evidence that these approaches have not served to benefit prostituted people and have actually exacerbated all the harms of prostitution by enlarging the sex industry as a whole without dealing with the inherent physical, medical and emotional traumas of prostitution.
The 1999 Swedish Law on Prostitution is the best, most effective policy for addressing this form of systemitized violence and exploitation.
Posted by Sam on Mar 25, 2005 at 10:19 PM I am no fan of Bush, and I agree that he has been ineffective against trafficking. What I am wondering is this: If Kerry had been elected, would things be any better? Or if a Democrat/Liberal/Progressive is elected in ‘08, can anyone give me any substantive reason to believe anything will be better handled re trafficking? I’m not saying it won’t be, I’m just curious to hear how it might be - from those who may know better than me.
What I do know is that for some reason pornographers seem to fear Bush and the Republicans. They very much didn’t want Bush elected again. Pornographers seemed very much to want the Democrats elected. (Pornography being filmed prostitution, being “sex-work”, and using the same populations of females as trafficking - so therefore being relevant to this discussion as an example.) Why is this? And does it really relate to prostitution and trafficking and how things would be if the Democrats were in power? Pornographers (pimps for filmed prostitution) seem to think things would be much rosier for them if the Dems were in charge. I am wondering if other pimps - such as those in the areas of prostitution and trafficking feel the same. I would think they might.
To the best of my knowledge, pornography, prostitution, and trafficking are all fueled by DEMAND. (Johns.) And to the best of my knowledge “pro-sex” and “sexually liberated” liberals, progressives and Democrats are just as well represented as johns as those on the Right. So I’m wondering if and or how things would really be any different if the Dems were in power. Are they not they not just as much users of the sex trades as anyone else?
Please feel free to enlighten me on this. I am sincerely interested to find some answers on this issue.
Posted by Jennifer on Mar 28, 2005 at 12:46 AM Sam, thank you for responding to my post. I have read the 5-country, 475-person study you referred to above. It is difficult for me, however, to put much stock in this study, as in the third sentence of the abstract, it clearly lays out its bias:
“From the authors’ perspective, prostitution is an act of violence against women; it is an act which is intrinsically traumatizing to the person being prostituted.”
Further, the women interviewed in San Francisco were women from the streets:
“In San Francisco, we interviewed 130 respondents on the street who verbally confirmed that they were prostituting.”
Women who work the streets represent only 10-15% of all prostitutes in the US (1).
Not to mention the fact that Farley, et al, unfortunately do not address the issue of cultural sensitivity/difference while conducting interviews. How did they control for cultural differences in interpreting the answers to questions they asked? Many scholars are suspicious of multicultural studies due to the fact that it is very difficult to control for cultural biases.
Women interviewed in many situations in this way also do not give corretc information to researchers. This has been documented by Laura Agustin, a prominent researcher in migration.(2)
Much damage has been caused to women in other countries by those from this country wishing to “help” those women. As G. Spivak put it in terms of the British colonial project in India, “White men going to save brown women from brown men,” only these days it is both white men and women, and they purport to save brown women from both white and brown men.
Groups of so-called human rights workers flock to Bangkok and enter bars on Pat Pong Road, and tape conversations with women in the bars. They then take the tapes to the government to prove that prostitution is, indeed, solicited in these locations (duh!). The government is then obliged to respond by holding a raid on the specified brothel and up to 20 women at a time are “saved” from the work they are doing to support their families. In one particular case, every single woman who was “saved” and being held in an orphanage building on the 7th floor escaped through the window by tying bedsheets together. One woman died from breaking her back when she fell, and another woman broke a leg. Hey- at least those two were certainly saved, eh?
(cont)
Posted by Anjelica on Mar 28, 2005 at 2:44 AM (cont)
Sex workers in Thailand (as well as Cambodia, Burma, and everywhere these “White Saviors” have taken it upon themselves to play moral police) are saying they do not need to be rescued. They want the same rights as those in other types of work enjoy. They want to be able to go to the police to report a violent manager or client without risking rape, extortion, or other violence from the police themselves. (3,4)Also, I specifically remember the uproar in SWEAT when Shane Petzer found out about the Farley study- Shane was extremely angry and upset at how the data collected was used, and at the deceitful method by which Melissa Farley gained access to SWEAT members by misrepresenting herself as a member or friend of COYOTE from San Francisco.
You should ask the prostitutes in Sweden if they are happy with this law you promote as a panacea to the ills of prostitution. I have read (and heard through personal communication with sex workers there-via the internet) that the new laws have forced their business further underground, as they can no longer get clients from the streets. They now are obliged to work for “pimps,” as these people are often the only link between those who wish to pay for sex and those who wish to receive money for sex. Do you honestly think that women who wish to do this type of work will simply quit because buying what they’re selling is against the law? Or because you refer to us as
“internet-using, privileged sex industry profit-makers”?I would argue that the ills you allude to in the description you’ve given to the individuals you pointed out above, “outrageously poor, drug addicted, child sexual abuse survivors” are not caused by sex work. They are certainly horrible and traumatic experiences, but I would argue that many people fit this description who have never participated in sex work.
Thank you, but I do not want, nor need, to be saved by anyone. And please try not to extrapolate your experience to all women, as many of us- the “mythical legions” of us- do not have the same experiences as those you work with.
1: Shaver, Frances M., Department de sociologie et d’anthropologie, Univeristé Concordia: “Traditional Data Distort Our View of Prostitution” from “Demystifying Sex Work,” When Sex Works: International Conference on Prostitution and Other Sex Work
September 27-29, 1996, UQAM, Montréal (Qc)
2: Agustin, Laura, “Alternate ethics, or: Telling lies to researchers” Research for Sex Work, number 7. http://hcc.med.vu.nl/pdf/rfsw7.pdf
3: Pong, Ping, “‘We don’t want rescue, we want
our rights!’ Experiences on antitrafficking
efforts in Thailand,” Research for Sex Work
http://hcc.med.vu.nl/pdf/rfsw6.pdf
4: Surtees, Rebecca, “Brothel raids in Indonesia – Ideal solution or further violation?” in RFSW 6
http://hcc.med.vu.nl/pdf/rfsw6.pdf
Posted by Anjelica on Mar 28, 2005 at 2:44 AM Jennifer,
Yes, you are correct in that people all across the spectrum participate on the demand side of sex work (and on the supply side as well). I think the difference is in the making and the execution of policies against trafficking. The present administration seems to be on an all-out witch-hunt, pointing political fingers at countries around the planet, sending them scurrying around, arresting prostitutes and shutting down brothels. The US does this by naming them as Tier1, Tier 2, or Tier 3 countries in their annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report.
This does nothing to address trafficking in its truest sense (the word “trafficking” gets conflated to include all sex work). It merely vilifies prostitutes, as they are the ones who pay legally and physically for these draconian measures. The women who are chained to beds as slaves in Bangkok are not going to be found by the methods prescribed by this administration, nor are they going to be found by the groups of “human rights activists” I referred to above. As a matter of fact, it is rare that anyone from the west will find them, as they exist in places where westerners are not permitted to go. They are in Chinese tea houses in Yaowarat and such places, deep in basements, serving local men for about a buck per time (paid not to the slave but to the owner of the tea house). They are mostly, but not always, women smuggled in from Cambodia and Burma. Thai women understand they can make significant money from international tourists in Bangkok, Patong, Pattaya, etc., and will refuse to work for locals. So the unscrupulous owners of these tea houses capture and enslave the unsuspecting women from surrounding countries.
(Cont)
Posted by Anjelica on Mar 28, 2005 at 3:47 AM (cont)
In Japan, they have recently passed a law making it difficult for foreign women to obtain entertainers’ visas as a result of this finger-pointing by the US. The new law insists that women applying for the visas have two years of professional education, and have worked as a professional singer/dancer/etc., in their own country prior to entering Japan on this visa. This eliminates the possibility of renewing visas for over 80,000 Filipina women who continually travel back and forth to support their families back at home. A significant percentage (I believe 68%) of the Philippines’ GDP is comprised of remittances sent back to the country by men and women from that country working abroad in domestic, construction, and sex work. Mostly sex work. This law, then, will seriously affect the economy of the Philippines. So much so that the Philippines’ minister of foreign affairs made a diplomatic visit to the authorities in Japan to try and get more lenient requirements. It didn’t work.While I don’t deny that there are women trafficked in very tragic circumstances in Japan, this is by far not as wide-spread as the media would have us believe (see this article: http://www.nswp.org/mobility/doezema-loose.html , and this: http://www.nswp.org/mobility/analysis.html ). I personally worked with many of these Filipinas and I myself entered Japan on such a visa. We certainly weren’t trafficked (although by the current definition of trafficking according to this administration, we were).
In Cambodia, authorities are continually conducting brothel raids on the back of the TIP report, again, arresting prostitutes, and not even coming close to any traffickers. The women suffer.
In Korea, again, the authorities have shut down brothels and put thousands of women out of work. This angered the prostitutes there so much that they took to the streets in protest. The women asked how they could take away their jobs without offering them any other way to support themselves and their families. The government subsequently agreed to give them a small stipend to “re-educate” themselves for another job. Not only was the stipend paltry in comparison to the money they are used to, but anything they might “re-educate” for will hardly pay as much. Now more and more prostitutes are being arrested.
In a certain Eastern European country, a colleague of mine is working in a government office dealing with policies in trafficking of women and children. She met last week with the US ambassador to that country, who happens to be a close friend of Bush, and the head of the US Baptist org. Apparently, the US wishes her country to set up a trafficked women’s shelter on the border- fair enough. But the head of the US Baptist organization is supposed to run it…
The difference between the dems and the repubs in this falls in who is believed as far as best practices goes. Clearly, the Victorian and fundamental Christian ethos followed by the present administration will have tragic and unintended consequences for women they will never meet.
Posted by Anjelica on Mar 28, 2005 at 3:47 AM If the US were really interested in stopping trafficking, it would use the enormous amounts of money it throws at countries to stop trafficking for programs to increase higher paid economic opportinities for women in those countries instead.
Posted by Anjelica on Mar 28, 2005 at 3:56 AM As I said, you have not presented any evidence to indicate anything other than what dozens of studies around the world have demonstrated, what commen sense demonstrates about what it’s like to be sexually exploited: the majority of prostitutes do not want to be prostitutes and in fact consistantly around 90% explicitly say, “I want out of prostitution right now.”
You can try to attack the individual credibility of hundreds of prostitution researchers one by one, but I’ve never seen anything showing other than the overwhelming majority of sex workers don’t want it legalized, they want out altogether. I sincerely doubt all these researchers are the deceitful, vindictive, anti-woman types you paint them as. If you point me to a study showing a majority of global sex workers want help staying in and not help getting out I could investigate the credibility and research methodology of the persons involved with those findings myself.
I used to believe in legalization, but once I saw the results and read the facts I could no longer support it. The Swedes are not moralizing puritans, they are extraordinarily pro-woman and progressive and for many years Sweden, like me, accepted the normalization of prostitution as work despite what we knew of men’s violence because we truly hoped it would work to make things better. It has not. Legalization has utterly failed to make life better for sex workers and Swedish decriminalization is working well, even according to many prostitutes who sometimes turn tricks in to Swedish police and who have been making use of extra funding towards housing, career training, child support and other social services to help prostituted women around the world get what they almost all say they want, out.
There are a lot more globally-oriented research papers at the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women website www.catwinternational.org
Posted by Sam on Mar 28, 2005 at 6:35 AM Hi Jennifer,
I’ve been on this earth 62 years and have seen quite afew administrations in DC. In my opinion, if our congressmen or anyone close to the President can make an extra buck off of something, they are gung ho for it. There’s very few men who have held the position of President of the United States of America who didn’t have some vices. I feel like drugs have not been eliminated in this country is because some very influential people are making tons of money off of it. Most politicians do not give two hoots in Hell what happens to the poor or the common man who votes them into office. The only time you hear from them is when they want to get re-elected. So no I don’t think they are going to do anything about prostitution, trafficking or any other illigal goings on that they might be making bucks on or some of their co-horts are making money on. This president unforuntately seems to want some kind of supreme power over the whole world. I’m worried about the stink he has raised with a lot of the other nations who now want to get America. I hope I’m wrong, but I pray to God every morning to please make him stop and to save our nation and the people in it. I hope he is listening don’t you.
Posted by Pat Grzybowski on Mar 28, 2005 at 7:50 AM Thanks for your honest response, Pat. I appreciate it. I too hope the president shapes up, and does better things for the US and the world - especially all sexually exploited, oppressed, and abused women and children.
As much as I feel this president has done the US harm, I don’t hold the masses innocent either - whether liberals or conservatives. In my opinion many on both sides have contributed greatly to the bad situation we are in. If it were just the president and other top officials that were the problem, I think the world would have taken note of this. But 50% of the voting population did vote for Bush, and there’s some complicity right there. And many of these are wasteful conspicuous conusmers, polluting the planet and greedily gobbling up the world’s resources like there is no tomorrow. On the other hand, for instance, liberals revel in sexual consumerism and do nothing about the horrifically misogynistic and violent porn (and toxic American pop culture in general) that is poisoning the minds, lives, and behavior of young people around the world. So frankly, if I were someone living in Europe or elsewhere around the world, I would be angry at the US no matter who is in power - because it seems judging by actions that neither side REALLY cares much about the lives, humanity, and dignity of women and children. (Unless something about American politics radically changes.) But that’s just my very biased viewpoint…
Posted by Jennifer on Mar 28, 2005 at 12:17 PM I think it is an erroneous oversimplification to state that “libertals revel is sexual consumerism”. In Thailand, most sexual tourism is engaged in by traveling executive salemen. I think that would be a stretch to believe them to be anything other than predominantly conservative Republicans. But, the truth is that people will seeks sexual pleasure that is normally considered unacceptable when the “forbidden fruit” is something they can get away with, regardless of their political viewpoints.
Posted by Margaret on Mar 29, 2005 at 5:40 PM Thank you for correcting me, Margaret. I don’t like it when others use sweeping generalizations, and I should have avoided doing so myself. It was wrong of me.
What I should have said instead was something more like this: “On the other hand, for instance, I have observed many liberals who revel in sexual consumerism and do nothing about the horrifically misogynistic and violent porn (and toxic American pop culture in general) that is poisoning the minds, lives, and behavior of young people around the world.” This would be a true and fair statement for me.
If anyone is aware of major organized groups of liberals or progressives who are fighting against pornography, please do let me know. I would be very happy to learn of them and would like to connect with them.
Posted by Jennifer on Mar 29, 2005 at 10:31 PM Jennifer,
You didn’t sound like a one sided person to me when we talked before. How can you lump a mass of people together like the left wing and say they do not care about porno, trafficking and prostitution. Well, here’s how I feel about it.
It has been from my observations that orn again christians like to take parts from the Bible and use it out of context to make their point. Well Bush professes to be a born again christian and he lies like the devil, so I wondering about the rest of you. I feel just as many ring wing citizens are opposed to porno, trafficking and prostitution as you left wingers are. You are fighting a loosing battle because government does not care about what you want, we right wingers have descovered this a long time ago. They may say they do, but they just want your vote.
Posted by Pat Grzybowski on Mar 30, 2005 at 12:35 PM After reading an article on what could be considered the most horrific crime, how could anyone wish this on a fellow human being? Ann Coulter, regardless of whether or not you hate her, is a human being. Obviously, the left’s supposed claim to moral superiority is just as relative as their ethics. How dare you, wish something so cruel on someone who simply disagrees with you.
Posted by Aaron on Apr 20, 2005 at 3:53 AM Oh yes, Margaret, Sarah, Lefty… I hope someday that you are doing more harm to the left than the good you think you are doing. At least we all know that either way, you are failing.
Posted by Aaron on Apr 20, 2005 at 3:56 AM “the left’s supposed claim to moral superiority”
?
I thought the right had claimed that corner of the market.
Posted by Anjelica on Apr 22, 2005 at 11:16 PM Address by Rosinha Sambo to the
Taipei Sex Worker Conference 2001
on the Situation of Sex Workers in SwedenTo be a sex worker in Sweden, is dangerous. It’s a hell- mostly dangerous. We don’t know anymore, what, or how to do it. What we have in Sweden, it’s a law who doesn’t make us any good, and doesn’t give us any choice. Government in Sweden wants to rehabilitate us, to rehabilitate the sex worker, just like we are victims of some kind of dangerous sickness. Rehabilitate us as we could spread around this sickness.
I have, in vain, tried to explain, for politics, feminists, and other ignorant intellectuals, that this is a work, and that’s why this is also a choice. I have tried to explain that we should instead, have classes, on sex work. To do it more safe, and better- especially for the younger generation of sex workers in this country now….
From: http://www.bayswan.org/swed/rosswed.html
Sexworkers Critique of Swedish Prostitution PolicyBy Petra Östergren
2004-02-06In this article I will not deal with the complex issue of whether prostitution is socially or otherwise desirable. Rather this article seeks to document some of the experiences and opinions of female sexworkers in Sweden. I have been concerned by the fact that the very women who are at the center of prostitution policy are so rarely heard and so often feel discriminated against. If equal rights for women is important, then the experience of sexworkers themselves must surely be central to our discussion, regardless of what position one takes on prostitution.
The law against procurement of sexual services (promotion or deriving profit from prostitution) and a recent law prohibiting the purchase of sexual services introduced in 1999 are the two main ways the Swedish state sees itself as “combating” prostitution. Swedish politicians and feminists are proud of the state’s prostitution policy. They insist that it has positive effects. Sexworkers are of a different view. Most of the female Swedish sexworkers I have interviewed voice a strong critique of their legal and social situation. They feel discriminated against, endangered by the very laws that seek to protect them, and they feel under severe emotional stress as a result of the laws.
The material in this article stems from my interviews, informal talks and correspondence with approximately 20 sexworkers since 1996, as well as published and broadcasted interviews with sexworkers in Swedish media. It is also based on interviews with people working with women selling sex to support a drug habit (most whom also are homeless).
This article also contains a summary of reports conducted by Swedish authorities after the introduction of new legislation (the criminalization of clients)...
http://www.petraostergren.com/english/studier.magister.asp
Posted by libertarias on May 16, 2005 at 11:29 PM Action: Sign on letter opposing US global AIDS and trafficking restrictions
********Please send your organizational sign-on (Organization, City, Country), or individual sign-on (name, title, organizational affiliation) to SHEATON@GENDERHEALTH.ORG by Tuesday May 17th!
Dear Friends,
We have had a phenomenal response from throughout the world to the sign-on letter to President Bush expressing concern that U.S. anti-HIV/AIDS and anti-trafficking efforts will be undermined by restrictions on interventions protecting the lives and health of women and men in prostitution, and of trafficked persons. Please sign your organization on to this letter by Tuesday, May 17th. Below is the letter and current signatories as of Monday morning.
If you need additional information, please contact Sarah Heaton at sheaton@genderhealth.org.
[Couldn’t post letter here because too long but abailiable at Healthdev Sex-Work forum]
Posted by libertarias on May 16, 2005 at 11:44 PM It seems when we talk about trafficking the focus is always on prostitution. The prohibitionists like Hughes, Farley, Hotaling; (the list goes on and on) use trafficking and child prostitution as weapon’s against sex workers. They trot out the Swedish model to show their compassion for women. They use words like pimp and pedophile to discredit people, like myself, who are fighting for their human rights. During our campaign in Berkeley to decriminalize prostitution Melissa Farley pulled out all the plugs, using lies and unscrupulous tactics to defeat the very prostitutes she purports to protect.
We have learned the hard way in this country that prohibition doesn’t work. Our prisons are crowded with women and men who are convicted of non-violent consensual crimes. The number of women in prison has increased almost 500% since 2000. Most women that enter prison started their penal careers with prostitution arrests. These prostitutes were not trafficked. Unfortunately we hardly ever find trafficked women or catch their traffickers. When John School was started prostitution related arrests doubled in San Francisco, now we have AB22 The California Human Trafficking Act and DA Kamala Harris has asked for 2 more attorney’s to prosecute trafficking, although she admits that she hasn’t had any convictions or arrests thus far. I am sure that with the added attorney’s and money given by the Bush administration to the local authorities and NGO’s all of that is about to change. We will see the number of women who travel around the country convicted on inter state trafficking charges. We will see the people that they work for or with prosecuted for trafficking although there wasn’t any coercion.
In 2003 for example, according to Department of Justice statistics, 1276 individuals were arrested in San Francisco, the vast majority of who were men (893). Because there are so few arrests made in the gay community for vice related crimes, it is safe to assume that those 893 men were predominantly prospective clients of prostitutes. It wasn’t until the SFPD instituted the ‘School for Johns’ that arrests among clients became so disproportionate compared to arrests of street-workers. In 1993 for example, using the same DOJ statistics, San Francisco reported the arrests of 586 men and 1160 women. The first year the District Attorney and Police began operating the ‘School for Johns’ in 1997, was the first year in San Francisco history that the number of arrests of men for solicitation out-paced that of women, by nearly 1.7 to 1.I for one am sick of the rhetoric. I am sick of the Farley’s and Hotaling’s in this country. I am empowered by the brilliant women who I see bantering about on this article and I want more. We need to put our money where our mouth is. If we are going to defeat the Bush administration and the feminist dinosaurs that reek havoc on our community, WE MUST FUND IT. We must become more involved in our salvation and our salvation is decriminalization. Empower the women, repeal the laws, take away the crime and the criminals.
Posted by Robyn on Jun 29, 2005 at 8:55 PM I am a sex worker in Thailand. Margaret please stay home until you can come meet us as equals. We are adult women and the proud providers for our families. What have you got to offer anyway?Unlike the US the average age of starting in sex work here in Thailand is 25years, we just are younger and better looking than most of our western sisters. 80% of us are mothers before we begin sex work. DONT COME OVER HERE PLEASE!!!!!!
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