Global Sex Workers Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition PDF

# Global Sex Workers ## Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition ### edited by - Kamala Kempadoo - Jo Doezema ## 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, delegates...

# Global Sex Workers ## Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition ### edited by - Kamala Kempadoo - Jo Doezema ## 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, 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." - The "forced" distinction, ironically, criticized the Trafficking Convention for making a distinction between "voluntary" and "forced" prostitution. - The distinction between "voluntary" and "forced" prostitution has largely replaced the abolitionist model of prostitution in international discourse. - This would seem to imply a recognition of the right to self-determination. - However, this dichotomy creates divisions between sex workers. ### 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. - 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.” - 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 women 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. - After the repeal of the Acts in 1883, the focus of the campaign shifted from the rejection of government attempts to monitor sexuality to the promotion of repressive measures designed to end vice. - The campaign was helped enormously by sensationalist journalists seized on the titillating tales of deflowered innocence. - The typical story involves white adolescent girls who were drugged and abducted by sinister immigrant procurers, waking up to find themselves captive in some infernal foreign brothel, where they were subject to the pornographic whims of sadistic, non-white pimps and brothel-masters. - By the turn of the century, most of the existing regulatory systems in Europe and the United States had ended, and international efforts had begun to target the "white slave trade." - In the five years before the end of the nineteenth century, three international conferences on the prevention of trafficking in women were held. - In the early years of the century, two international instruments concerning the trade were created: the League of Nations adopted two conventions dealing with the traffic in women and children. - In 1949, the UN adopted the Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, which combined and superseded the earlier agreements. #### Current Approaches - After the 1949 Convention was adopted, both feminist and international concern for prostitution and the traffic in women abated for a time. - But since the middle of the 1980s, there has been a new wave of feminist-backed campaigning against trafficking in women, child prostitution and sex tourism. - Campaign efforts have succeeded in putting prostitution back at the top of the international agenda. - The modern anti-trafficking campaign is split along ideological lines on views of prostitution. - The fundamental difference of opinion concerns the question of whether or not a person can choose prostitution as a profession. - Some feminists argue that all prostitution constitutes a human rights violation. - Most feminist discourse limits itself to the fight against "forced prostitution," the "voluntary" prostitute is not condemned, she is ignored. #### Changing the Dominant Discourse - The abolitionist viewpoint has defined the terms of the international discourse on prostitution for almost 100 years. - This discourse is being challenged by those who see sex work as a legitimate occupation. - An examination of relevant UN instruments shows that there has been a shift away from mechanisms based on abolitionist ideology and towards an approach that respects the right to self-determination. - The watershed for the shift can be located in the mid-1980s. - Before then, UN instruments were abolitionist in character. - Since that time, the majority make a distinction between voluntary and forced prostitution. - Prostitution is dealt with in many different UN bodies. - The Preamble to the 1949 Convention for the Suppression of Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others states that "prostitution and... traffic in persons for the purposes of prostitution are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person..." - The convention has come under attack from both "sides" in the anti-trafficking debate. - Modern abolitionists criticize the Trafficking Convention for making a distinction between "voluntary" and "forced" prostitution. - Generally speaking, the UN adopts an abolitionist approach and does not make a distinction between forced and voluntary prostitution. - "The 1949 Convention does not draw an explicit distinction between coerced and voluntary prostitution and represents the then-current consensus on an 'abolitionist' model." - The Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery (WGS) is responsible for reviewing developments in the field covered by the 1949 Convention and for recommending action to be taken. - The Convention on The Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) was adopted in 1979. - Article 6 deals with prostitution and trafficking in women. - The Convention uses the same wording as the 1949 convention, calling upon state parties to "take all appropriate measures to suppress all forms of traffic in women and the exploitation of prostitution of women." - This would seem to imply that the drafters' intent was abolitionist., but the text was being drafted, Morocco introduced an amendment to Article 6 which called for the suppression of prostitution in addition to the suppression of the exploitation of prostitution. - General Recommendation 19 of CEDAW (1992) on violence against women includes specific paragraphs relating to Article 6 of the Convention. - It reaffirms the requirements of Article 6 for states to "suppress all forms of trafficking in women and exploitation of the prostitution of others," but also states that "Poverty and unemployment force many women...into prostitution. - The first document to make a clear departure from an abolitionist view of prostitution is the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (1993). - The Declaration on Violence Against Women is the standard against which the activities of the international community must be measured. - The implicit distinction between forced and non-forced prostitution recognized by the Declaration signalled that the international community’s view of prostitution had changed. - The Vienna Declaration and Program of Action of the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights recognized women's rights as human rights, urged state parties to adopt the Declaration on Violence Against Women. #### Beyond Voluntary/Forced - So should sex worker organizations be jumping for joy that the right to self-determination is being recognized, at least implicitly, at international level? - Does this mean that the United Nations and other international organizations are now going to start taking sex workers' human rights seriously, instead of cloaking moral condemnation of sex work under paternalistic "save us for our own good" rhetoric? - Before we break out the party hats, we should look at how the concept of self-determination and the distinction between free and forced prostitution are interpreted and being translated into policy by NGOs, governments and intergovernmental agencies. - Are the same old stereotypes and moral judgments now being expressed as loathing of forced prostitution? #### Criticisms of the Campaigns - The distinction between free and forced prostitution has implicitly been recognized by the international community. - But international actors and agreements are rarely as vocal about promoting prostitutes rights as they are in condemning forced prostitution. - The campaigning efforts of anti-trafficking groups have been instrumental in creating a climate wherein the great majority of sex work, and practically all sex work involving young men and women and women in developing countries is seen as abuse. - Forced prostitution, child prostitution and sex tourism are linked together and made indistinguishable. #### Innocent Victims - In any given year, many thousands of young women and girls are lured into forced prostitution. - For the general public and bodies concerned with this issue, forced prostitution is very much a matter of coerced innocence. - The picture of the “duped innocent” is a pervasive and tenacious cultural myth. - High profile campaigns by NGOs and in the media, with their continued focus on the victim adds yet more potency to the myths. - In the new discourse of voluntary/forced prostitution, the innocence of the victim determines which side of the dichotomy she will fall under. - One of the consequences of thinking about prostitution in terms of choice and force is that it becomes necessary to show that instances of abuse are in fact "forced prostitution." - “It becomes necessary to show that instances of abuse are in fact "forced prostitution. - In reports on trafficking, it is often stressed that the women did not "choose" to be prostitutes. - Emotive words like "duped", "tricked" or "lured" are used time and time again to show that the women involved did not know what they were letting themselves in for. - "Many women from Russia, Hungary, Poland and other countries in the region are tricked into prostitution in the West, where they had been promised jobs in offices, in restaurants, or as domestic servants. Instead, they find themselves locked up in a brothel, their papers are taken away and their earnings are kept back to repay their 'debts'." #### Reality: So What’s Going On? - When subjected to scrutiny, the image of the "trafficking" victim turns out to be a figment of neo-Victorian imaginations. - Just as the turn of the century obsession with the "white slave trade" turned out to be based on actual prostitute migration, the Dutch Foundation Against Trafficking in Women (STV) and the GAATW, in their report on trafficking to the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, conclude that slavery-like conditions in sex work are primarily problems for those already working in the sex trade, thus for prostitutes who migrate. - The campaign juggernaut remains unaffected by fact. - From the Arab sheikh's harem slave to the village girl chained to her bed in the brothels of Bangkok, the image of the defiled innocent has a particular fascination. - A number of today’s campaigns have become a platform for reactionary and paternalistic voices, advocating a rigid sexual morality under the guise of protecting women, and incorporating racist and classist perceptions in their analysis of the sex industry in developing countries. - If it is recognized that the majority of those in the sex-industry who end up in debt-bondage or slavery-like conditions were already working as sex workers, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that it is prostitutes whose human rights are being violated on a massive scale. - Most feminist discourse on trafficking limits itself to the fight against “forced prostitution,” the “voluntary” prostitute is not condemned she is ignored. #### Conclusion - The distinction between "voluntary" and "forced" prostitution has largely replaced the abolitionist model of prostitution in international discourse. - This would seem to imply a recognition of the right to self-determination. - However, this dichotomy creates divisions between sex workers. - The most frightening "division" created by the voluntary/forced dichotomy is that it reproduces the whore/madonna division within the category "prostitute." - The campaign for sex workers' rights began with challenging the myths surrounding prostitution and women's sexuality. - Claiming that prostitution could be a choice was a major step. - Yet now, as old myths are being given new impetus under the guise of accepting choice, it is time to reconsider the usefulness of "choice" versus "force" as the model of sex workers' experience.