[Reader-list] Sex Work is Different from Trafficking

[shohini]

Dear Lehar:

I think sex work and trafficking are two entirely different things. The
moral brigade in India and abroad have conveniently collapsed issues of
coercion and consent. Force and coercian in any profession is a violation of
human rights but it is important to understand (and accept) that not all sex
work is forced.  I think Shuddha's comparison with forced agricultural
labour is a good one.

 There will be a debate on whether Prostitution should become legal in JNU
on September 5 at 5:30pm. I will be speaking in favour of
"decriminalization". The phrase "legalization of prostitution" is wrong -
because prostitution happens to be legal in India. In fact, the use of this
phrase is an indication of how clueless people are about this issue. Only
certain aspects of sex work according to the law on "immoral Trafficking"
are criminalized. Confusing issues of consent and coercion will only lead to
women losing autonomy over their bodies because the crucial distinction
between sexism and sexual explicitness will be lost. It is time that
sexuality in India gets debated within a framework of "sexual rights"
instead of an alarmist context of "sexual wrongs", violence, abuse and
atrocity.

Warmly
Shohini

----- Original Message -----
From: Lehar sethi zaidi <leharz at hotmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2003 1:29 PM
Subject: [schoolworkshop] TOI Alert: Disturbing Data on the sex industry in
Asia


> Dear friends
> Thanks for your fdback on this issue..attached below are some emails on
this
> issue..and people's overwhelming concern at this regressive phenomenon..
>
> tomorrow NDTV has taken up TOI debate and they are having a programme on
> 'should prostitution be legalised in India?'
> The effort is on to open the sex industry market in this country.. a la
> Thailand..Asian women being in 'demand' etc.
> DATA from the UN, and Australian and US govts:
>
> The United Nations has estimated that trafficking in the global sex
industry
> generates a US$5 billion to US$7 billion profit annually.(13)
>
> In any market there are demand and supply forces at work. Some argue that
> the commercialisation of sex on the Internet and satellite television have
> increased the demand for women and children from the developing world to
be
> trafficked into these new sexual entertainment industries in the western
> world.(14) Rather than organised criminal syndicates being at the centre
of
> the growth of trafficking in women and children, according to some
experts,
> the key players in the international sex industry in the 21st century are
> more likely to be entrepreneurs operating in a liberalised global
> market.(15) These entrepreneurs offer products in high demand by consumers
> prepared to pay substantial sums of money for the commercial sex services
> they offer.(16)
> ( Mary Sullivan and Sheila Jeffreys, 'Legalisation of Sex work: The
> Australian Experience', Violence Against Women, vol. 8, no. 9, 2002, p.
> 1145.)
>
> On the supply side, the rise in displaced persons during the 1990s and
> decreasing opportunity for regular migration are other factors
contributing
> to the international growth of people trafficking. Refugee camps for
> displaced persons provide a ready pool of vulnerable women and children to
> be recruited into the global sex industry.(17) According to the United
> Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) there are currently 19 783
> 100 persons of concern in the world. For a large number of displaced women
> and children, this displacement 'ends in sexual exploitation and debt
> bondage'.(18)
>
> Estimates of the number of people trafficked around the world annually for
> sexual exploitation and other forms of exploitation vary from 700 000 to 4
> million.(19) In Europe the figure has been put at somewhere between 200
000
> and 500 000 women and children.(20) In any one year it is estimated that
> around 50 000 women and children are trafficked into the United States, by
> lure, force, deception or coercion to work in the commercial sex
> industry.(21) Many believe they are migrating across international borders
> to work as domestic workers, waitresses, or models for the fashion
industry
> not the sex industry. Some women aware they are going to work as sex
> workers, are deceived about the conditions of work and find themselves in
> debt bondage, servitude or slavery.
>
> -----
> Other references
> Transnational Prostitution: Changing Patterns in a Global Context
>
> Ian Taylor and Ruth Jamieson, 'Sex Trafficking and the Mainstream of
Market
> Culture', Crime, Law & Social Change, vol. 32, 1999, p. 257; Donna Hughes,
> 'Humanitarian Sexploitation', The Weekly Standard, Washington, 24 February
> 2003; Susan Thorbek and Bandana Pattanaik (eds), Transnational
Prostitution:
> Changing Patterns in a Global Context, Zed Books, London, 2002, p. 1;
Linda
> Meaker, 'A social response to transnational prostitution in Queensland,
> Australia', in Susan Thorbek and Bandana Pattanaik, (eds), Transnational
> Prostitution: Changing Patterns in a Global Context, Zed Books, London,
> 2002, p. 57.
> ---
>
> - The commercial sex industry in South-east Asia has grown into a key
> economic sector that accounts for anywhere between 2 to 14 percent of
Gross
> Domestic Product (GDP), says a new study by the International Labour
> Organisation (ILO).
> And Asia's economic slowdown, which is throwing many workers out of jobs,
is
> bound to swell the ranks of sex workers further, says Lin Lean Lim, the
> report's author and director of women's concerns for the Geneva-based ILO.
>
> Based on research done in 1992 and 1993 in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand
and
> the Philippines, the ILO study launched here says the region's sex
industry
> shows little sign of waning.
>
> "The scale of prostitution has been enlarged to an extent where we can
> justifiably speak of a commercial sex sector that is integrated into the
> economic, social and political life of these countries," Lim wrote in the
> study, 'The Sex Sector: The Economic and Social Bases of Prostitution in
> South-east Asia'.
>
> "The sex business has assumed the dimensions of an industry and has
directly
> or indirectly contributed in no small measure to employment, national
income
> and economic growth," she added.
>
> Researchers' estimates show that the sex industry's contribution to the
GDP
> of the four countries range from more than 2 percent in Indonesia to 14
> percent in Thailand -- the high-end estimates for those countries.
>
> Trafficking Sexual Labour: A Trans-national Crime
> The globalisation of the world economy has provided new and lucrative
> opportunities for criminal entrepreneurs to be relatively free from
> detection and prosecution.(1) With the compression of time and distance,
> alongside the rapid development of information technologies, criminal
> syndicates operate in a global village criss-crossing national borders.(2)
> Yet the majority of the policy and legislative instruments and resources
for
> responding, prosecuting and preventing crime tend to be limited by the
> boundaries of nation states. As such, single countries are strategically
> disadvantaged in curbing trans-national crimes involving fraud, money
> laundering, tax evasion, drug importation, firearms smuggling, terrorism,
> sex tourism, cyber-crime, people trafficking and the like. By operating
> outside the boundaries of the legal regulation of nation states,
> trans-national crime syndicates have been effective in evading law
> enforcement activities.(3) Consequently their regulation poses a
> particularly difficult challenge for the 21st century.(4)
>
> http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/CIB/2002-03/03cib28.htm
> ------
>
> Asia's Sex Industry Is Growing Rapidly, Threatening AIDS Efforts, WHO
Says"
> David Thurber, Associated Press (08.13.01)
>
> [AEGIS] CDC HIV/STD/TB Prevention News Update 08/13/01
>
> In a report prepared for a conference promoting government condom
programs,
> the World Health Organization (WHO) said today that Asia's sex trade is
> making efforts to control AIDS more difficult. While Asia has managed to
> greatly reduce AIDS with prevention programs encouraging condom use, the
sex
> trade's move away from traditional districts and into bars, karaoke
parlors
> and restaurants has made condom distribution more difficult.
>
> Asia's sex trade is expanding because of rising income disparities as the
> region develops; poverty among women; the increased mobility of people;
and
> an increase in consumerism, the report said
>
>
> The report cites estimates that Thai women sex workers in the cities remit
> nearly 300 million U.S. dollars annually to families in rural areas. In
> Thailand, prostitution produced between 22.5 and 27 billion dollars income
> from 1993 to 1995.
>
> In Indonesia, where there are brothel complexes tolerated by officials,
the
> yearly income produced by the sex sector ranges from 1.2 to 3.3 billion
> dollars a year. This accounts for between 0.8 and 2.4 percent of the
> country's GDP, the ILO study says.
>
> The ILO report estimates that the number of sex workers ranges anywhere
from
> 0.25 percent to 1.5 percent of the total female population in the four
> countries.
>
> The report cites estimates of the number of sex workers, mainly women,
made
> in 1993 and 1994. It puts the figure at 140,000 to 230,000 in Indonesia,
> 43,000 to 142,000 in Malaysia. The Thai ministry of public health recorded
> 65,000 sex workers in 1997, but ILO cites unofficial figures of 200,000 to
> 300,000.
>
> Rene Ofreneo of the University of the Philippines, a co-author of the
> chapter on the Philippines, says the estimated 400,000 to 500,000
> prostitutes in the country approximated the number of its manufacturing
> workers.
>
> But the number of South-east Asians earning a living directly or
indirectly
> from prostitution -- including waitresses, security guards, escort
services,
> tour agencies -- could easily reach "several millions", the ILO report
> explains. The commercial sex industry, which grew during Asia's boom
years,
> also operates with increasingly international networks, uses modern
> technology and has become a highly organised business.
>
> But for all the economic impact of the sex industry, many governments do
not
> have policies on it and do not even concede it exists. "A major hurdle, to
> date, is that policymakers have shied away from directly dealing with
> prostitution as an economic sector," the ILO report said.
>
> She added that figures relating to the sex industry "are not in labour
> statistics or in development plans" though they impact heavily on human
> rights, the work force, crime, and health issues like the transmission of
> HIV/AIDS. The extensive reach and deep economic and social roots of the
> commercial sex industry make it imperative that governments do not simply
> close their eyes to it, especially now that unemployment figures are
rising
> in South-east Asia.
>
> While the ILO study was made before the Asian crisis, Lim says evidence in
> the Asian slowdown of the eighties show that "those who lost their jobs,
> like in factories, were drawn into the sex sector".
>
> Often, they did so not just to earn money for themselves but to continue
> supporting their families, many in rural areas, that rely on their income.
> Lim also expressed fears that as more and more children drop out of
school,
> many would end up in sex work to earn money. "With the rising number of
> children not in school, there is danger that the number of child
prostitutes
> will rise," she pointed out.
>
> "In countries without social safety nets, people have to find a way to
> survive. The danger (of ending up in sex work) is much greater," Lim
added.
> Poverty rates in the region have been soaring since the Asian crisis
struck
> last year, with poverty incidence in Indonesia hitting 40 percent of its
220
> million people.
>
> The ILO study argues that governments need to approach the sex industry in
> all its aspects, whether in human rights, health, or as an economic
> activity. Definitely, Lim says, "it is not just a question of morality"
and
> "it is not a case of absolute poverty solely driving the sector".
>
> "Any meaningful approach to the sex sector cannot focus only on individual
> prostitutes," she said. "An effective response really requires measures
> directed at economic and social bases."
>
> She suggests that governments start by making a distinction between child
> prostitution -- a violation of human rights -- and adult sex work. With
that
> distinction made, government will find it much easier to deal with adults
> who are forced into it or those who choose to go into sex work, Lim
> explains. For those forced into the sex industry, governments should work
on
> breaking up networks of forced recruitment or trafficking into
prostitution
> and rehabilitate its victims, the study said.
>
> Conceded Lim: "Because of the sensitivities, it is very hard to come up
with
> clear or single perspectives on this". The ILO is not suggesting that
states
> decriminalise or legalise sex work, but is laying out their options, Lim
> says.
>
> -----
>
> So is India next on the line after Thailand? IF the Delhi tiems ahs its
way,
> definitely.
>
> After the 'modelling'revolution, its the sex indusry.. the ultimate
> commodification of women.
> IF it prostutionis legailised many of the headaches will go.. esp it makes
> traficking easier and gives 'added incentives'to women to join the sex
> trade- considering that entire tribal villages have been uprooted and
forced
> to enter the flesh trade, many oppressed castes have become 'prostitues'
for
> the upper caste village headmen etc. in this era of urbanisationand
> globaisation. This move is simply aiding ina further consumerisation of
this
> expoloiation.
> Times of INdia has a mala fide intent.I would have nderstood it if some
> women;s group had made therequest.. and even then..
>
> Please wriote innto the TOI and also to feedback at ndtv.com
> NDTV invited me and some other colleagues as audience..would you be
> interested in coming for this programme and making ur views heard..? they
> still need more voices.
> please let me know on 98684 36944
> best
> Lehar.
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
> An al Haqq- I am the Truth
> Mansoor al Hallaj, Sufi saint, 932 AD
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >
>
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