Slavery in the 21st century

May 13

How do you define slavery in the 21st century? That’s the question faced by the High Court this week. Five Thai prostitutes whose passports and airline tickets had been confiscated had to work off a $40,000 debt before they received any wages. Is this a valid employment arrangement, or modern-day slavery?

Transcript

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

Damien Carrick: In a few hours’ time the High Court will be hearing a case about something most of us assume doesn’t even exist: slavery.

This morning our country’s leading legal minds will be pondering, what is a slave? And what is it to possess a slave? And this isn’t some obscure legal point, in fact a sizeable number of investigations, prosecutions and convictions are all awaiting the outcome of this case.

Wei Zhou is a Melbourne lawyer who does voluntary work with Project Respect, an organisation that works with trafficked women. She’s followed the Wei Tang case as it has wound its way up through the Victorian courts, all the way to the High Court.

Wei Zhou: Wei Tang was the owner of a brothel located at 417 Brunswick Street in Fitzroy, in Melbourne.

Damien Carrick: Which is a pretty trendy restaurant strip, isn’t it?

Wei Zhou: Yes, it is, it’s a cultural centre in Melbourne.

Damien Carrick: And what was she found guilty of by a jury some time back?

Wei Zhou: She was found guilty of five counts of possessing a slave, and five counts of using a slave.

Damien Carrick: Now that case was overturned on appeal, and is now before the High Court. But let’s go back to the beginning of the story. What were the facts in this case? Who did it involve?

Wei Zhou: It involved Wei Tang. She was the defendant and the victims in the matter were five women; they were all from Thailand, and what we do know from the Court of Appeal decision is that they recruited in Thailand, they were approached by some people who said to them, ‘Look, if you want to come and work in the sex industry in Australia, you can make lots of money.’ We don’t know very much about the contracts; they were told different things, but essentially when the women got to Australia, they were told that they owed approximately $40,000 to $45,000 and that in order to pay off that debt, they had to work in a brothel. They were sold for approximately $20,000 to Wei Tang who was the owner of the 417 brothel. There’s a little bit of contention in relation to the degree of knowledge they had about the amount of debt, and it appears that each woman had a different understanding of what they were agreeing to.

Damien Carrick: These women came to Australia on tourist visas?

Wei Zhou: That’s correct.

Damien Carrick: So they were sold by the Thai brokers to Wei Tang and some other people?

Wei Zhou: Yes.

Damien Carrick: Wei Zhou, what happened when these women arrived in Australia? What happened to them then?

Wei Zhou: They were met by someone associated with the brothel owner, Wei Tang, who then took them to a residence in Fitzroy. They were told that they would have to work at the 417 brothel and their passports were taken from them as well as their return airline ticket, and that was locked away in a locker at the 417 brothel.

Damien Carrick: Where did these women live once they arrived in Australia?

Wei Zhou: They lived in a residence in North Fitzroy, which was owned by one of the managers of the brothel. She lived there with them, and it appears that there were three or four women sleeping in one room. There was also another apartment across the road from that residence, and some of the women also lived there. It was, I think, a one-bedroom flat.

Damien Carrick: Now what were the working arrangements of these women at the brothel?

Wei Zhou: Essentially to pay off the $40,000 to $45,000 debt they had to work, and the arrangement was that for every man they saw at the brothel, they would pay off $50 of that debt; it worked out to be approximately 800 to 900 men, and they also worked six days a week at least for 10 to 12 hours per day.

Damien Carrick: And what about that seventh day?

Wei Zhou: That seventh day was what they called a ‘free day’, and they could either not work on that day, or in order to make money for themselves, they could elect to work, and which they would be paid that $50 for themselves.

Damien Carrick: Were the women free to come and go around Melbourne? Were they under lock and key? I mean were there bars on the window in the place or in the brothel?

Wei Zhou: It appears that there were many bars at the house. There aren’t any bars at the brothel. However because they lived with the manager, essentially someone was with them at all times. They spent 10 to 12 hours a day at the brothel, and the time that they spent at the house was, you know, essentially for sleeping and all that sort of stuff. Some of the women felt that they were locked in, although there’s no evidence that they were. On one occasion there was evidence that they had been physically locked in.

Damien Carrick: Were they free to travel around Melbourne as they pleased?

Wei Zhou: They were driven from the brothel to the house and vice versa, and they were taken—escorted, essentially—to the shops and all that sort of stuff, and sometimes on weekends they were taken to the karaoke bars and things like that for a bit of recreation. But from the evidence it appeared that the women essentially expressed that they didn’t feel that they were free, although it wasn’t ever really explicitly spoken that they weren’t free to come and go.

Damien Carrick: What was the relationship, the personal relationship between the Thai women and Wei Tang and the other people who worked at the brothel?

Wei Zhou: They seemed to have a fairly complex relationship. The Court of Appeal held that there were aspects of ownership. However, it also appeared that the women called the woman that they lived with ‘Mummy’, and she was the manager of the brothel, and they did go to her with problems, and some of the women expressed that they had a good relationship with her.

Damien Carrick: So it was a complex relationship? It wasn’t one of fear and intimidation?

Wei Zhou: Not necessarily.

Damien Carrick: Now these five women came to the attention of authorities when there was I think a raid by Immigration officials on the brothel. At the time of the raids, two of these women had in fact paid off their debts, hadn’t they?

Wei Zhou: That’s correct.

Damien Carrick: And the restrictions placed on them had been lifted and their passports had been returned to them, and they were free to choose their hours of work, and they were then at that point being paid for their prostitution, and they were also free to live in accommodation of their own choosing?

Wei Zhou: That’s right.

Damien Carrick: And once they had paid off the debts, they had chosen to continue working in the brothel?

Wei Zhou: That’s right.

Damien Carrick: After the raid on the brothel, charges were laid against Wei Tang. This case went to trial; what did the jury find and what sentence did Wei Tang receive?

Wei Zhou: The jury found at first instance, at the first trial, found that they couldn’t come to an agreement, so there was a hung jury on all ten counts. Wei Tang was then re-tried. She was found guilty of all ten counts.

Damien Carrick: Of possessing a slave?

Wei Zhou: Yes. Five of possessing, and five of using a slave. She received a 10-year term of imprisonment, with six years to serve as a non-parole period. The defence then lodged an appeal with the Court of Appeal, and the Court of Appeal quashed the convictions.

Damien Carrick: Melbourne lawyer, Wei Zhou.

It was about a year ago that the Victorian Court of Appeal quashed Wei Tang’s convictions. The court ruled that the trial judge had erred when he directed the jury about the elements of the offence. The trial judge had told the jury there were three elements, first, that the women were slaves, second that Wei Tang possessed them as slaves, and third that Wei Tang knew they were reduced to slaves.

The Appeal Court ruled that the trial judge was wrong about this third element. It wasn’t enough that Way Tang knew they were reduced to slaves; she also had to have the intention to assert ownership over the women.

Jennifer Burn is an immigration lawyer; she’s also the director of the Anti-Slavery project at the University of Technology in Sydney.

Jennifer Burn: The main question before the High Court is the definition of slavery in the criminal code. And the actual slavery offences are that a person who intentionally possesses a slave, or exercises over a slave any of the powers attaching to the right of ownership. It’s very difficult to know what that means, whether it refers to slavery as it was understood when slaves were transported across the Atlantic between Africa and other countries; or whether it encompasses what we now know as a modern form of slavery.

Damien Carrick: And presumably a whole bunch of other investigations, prosecutions, and convictions will rest on how the High Court comes down on this question?

Jennifer Burn: It’s very important. We have been testing the criminal law; significant amendments were made in 1999 and then 2005, but the High Court determination is absolutely critical. So it will be a major advantage to everybody when there is some clarity from the court.

Damien Carrick: Now this is the first time a trafficking case has come before the High Court. Last year, for the first time, a trafficking case came before the New South Wales Victims’ Compensation Tribunal. Tell me about that case.

Jennifer Burn: The case was about a young woman who was trafficked to Australia when she was only 13.

Damien Carrick: A child.

Jennifer Burn: A child. In 1995. And she brought a case for victim’s compensation last year in 2007, and she explained that she had come to Australia with the agreement of her father, who thought that she was coming here to work as a nanny to look after children. But instead of that, she was placed in sexual servitude. She was also told that she had a debt of about $35,000 that she had to pay off by having sex with women. She was restrained, she had no freedom of movement, she didn’t have any money and her identity documents were confiscated. She was eventually detected by Immigration compliance officers, after she’d been in Australia for ten days. But the evidence to the Victims Compensation Tribunal was that during those ten days she had had sex with 100 men. Now after that, she was interviewed, and returned to Thailand. And following this case, we are in the process of exploring with other women who’ve been trafficked to Australia, the applications for Victims Compensation.

I think the case was important also for another reason: it really signals the progress that’s been made in Australia since 1995. Really, it’s almost a before and an after snapshot. In 1995 there were no slavery offences in the criminal code. In 2007 there are now offences of trafficking, trafficking in children, and debt bondage.

Damien Carrick: Now Nin was a child; I mean presumably there are also adults who come to Australia who don’t understand that they’re going to work in Australia as prostitutes. But is it fair to say that most women who do come understand that they will be working as sex workers?

Jennifer Burn: Many women do know that they’ll be working in brothels in the sex industry. Other women don’t know. But for the purposes of the criminal code, it doesn’t really matter whether they knew that they were coming to work in the sex industry or not. It’s really a whole lot of other factors around that that are critical in the identification of the trafficking and the slavery offences.

Damien Carrick: What are those factors?

Jennifer Burn: They include whether a woman was deceived, for example; about whether she’d be providing sexual services; or even if she knew that sexual services were part of the deal, whether she was deceived about the nature of the services, the conditions of work in other words. Whether or not there was deception about whether she would be free to leave the places that she worked, whether she’d have freedom of movement. And whether there’s a debt. So these are now factors that are incorporated into the criminal code, and indeed there’s a specific offence of deceptive recruiting for sexual services.

Damien Carrick: Does the state of mind of the woman count? I’m thinking here, we’re talking about women from desperately poor developing countries, who might make, in their own mind, a calculation that this is a rational choice, an opportunity.

Jennifer Burn: And it may be a rational choice for them. It’s very easy to forget about the global world when we live in Australia, and in very many parts of the world, there is extreme poverty. And it might not be seen as being a hindrance in the mind of a woman who decides to come to Australia to work in the sex industry. But I suppose what the law says is that the law is concerned to ensure that things are appropriate, that there’s not exploitation, that there’s not fraud or deception, that there is no harm, that there isn’t a harsh and unreasonable debt, for example. So the law will look at all the conditions around the entry to Australia and the experiences faced by the woman while she is here.

Damien Carrick: Now earlier this year, there was a raid on a brothel in Sydney involving I think something like 10 Korean women; what do we know about that case?

Jennifer Burn: Well that case was reported in the press, and one of the interesting things about that case is that all those women held visas that entitled them to work in Australia. Again, just referring to the media reports, travel documents were taken from some of the women.

Damien Carrick: The Law Report is today looking at women from developing countries who work in Australia’s sex industry. It’s an issue that was even raised at the recent 2020 Summit.

Elena Jeffreys: I was lucky enough to be representing Australian sex workers at the 2020 Summit recently in Canberra. Scarlet Alliance, the Australian Sex Workers’ Association, took to that Summit the importance of reorienting anti-trafficking measures in Australia from a prosecution focus to a prevention focus, and we would include more humane access to visas for migrant sex workers, as a key part of preventing human trafficking into Australia.

Damien Carrick: Elena Jeffreys is the president of the Scarlet Alliance, the Australian Sex Workers Association

Elena Jeffreys: Human trafficking is a transnational crime. However, by the time surveillance and detection and prosecution has taken place, the human rights abuse has already occurred. So a fully thought out response to trafficking into Australia will include a range of prevention measures, including allowing women to travel into Australia on visas that they can access themselves without having to go through third party agents and therefore be vulnerable to trafficking.

Damien Carrick: If Australia changed the laws to allow more women from developing countries to come in on work visas to work, bet it in the sex industry or any other industry, it would pull the carpet out from under the traffickers, by allowing women to travel here independently to work and they wouldn’t have to resort to third parties or agents.

Elena Jeffreys: What we’re calling for is a human rights framework where sex workers receive equal treatment to other people. That is, that sex workers aren’t singled out to be denied visas to enter Australia; that we treat women or men wanting to travel to Australia for work from South East Asian regions with the same dignity and respect as we would treat what we traditionally understand as a skilled background wanting to migrate into Australia.

Damien Carrick: But is providing women from developing countries with bona fide work visas really going to solve the problem? Earlier this year there was a raid on a brothel in Sydney involving I think something like 10 Korean women and some of those, or all of those, did have work visas, and there were questions there about trafficking and about exploitation.

Elena Jeffreys: We have had in Australia what would appear from the outside to be an ad hoc raid and deportation approach to Asian-background sex workers in Australia, and millions and millions of dollars have been poured into that program with very few actual trafficking convictions in Australia. So we wouldn’t like anybody to jump to conclusions about any of the women that were picked up in March until those cases are held in court. We can’t say for sure that that’s what was being busted in March.

Damien Carrick: If you did have these visas, would that mean that women would come to Australia and not come through an agent or a third party and find themselves entering into a kind of a contract, whereby they have to pay off a debt before they even start earning money from the work that they’re doing?

Elena Jeffreys: The vast majority of migrant sex workers in Australia are from an Anglo background, from the UK. The second largest demographic would be from New Zealand and America. And yes, there is also a demographic of sex workers from South East Asian countries, Thailand, South Korea and China, and other countries around the region as well. Most of the women that are coming into Australia for sex work are accessing visas independently. Some of the women coming in to Australia for sex work are accessing visas through migration agents, or third-party contracts where they will agree to have all of their flights paid for, their accommodation paid for and generally their food paid for, and a lot of their transport paid for when they get to Australia. And they have a place of work when they get here. And in return they will work for a period of time paying off the debt contract to the migration agent that has helped arrange their visa and their travel and their transport.

Those debt contracts, the overwhelming majority of those debt contracts, are trouble-free and arranged in a way that both the sex worker and the person arranging the visa are happy at the end of it, and have a good relationship, and the person has a great time working in Australia, pays off their contract, stays and earns some money, sends money home, saves up some money while they’re here, and goes home and has an amazing story to tell their grandchildren about the time that they travelled to Australia, and how much fun and how interesting it was.

Some of those debt contracts have been arranged in a situation where people have taken advantage of the vulnerability and the perceived lack of rights that an individual who’s coming in to Australia for sex work may have, and some of those contract fees are ridiculously over-priced. This is when situations arise that we understand as human trafficking. When a person has been deceived, when their freedom is being curtailed, when their income is being withheld, and when they’re basically in slave-like conditions, where they don’t have control over their labour in a slave-like situation, with the person who has arranged their contract.

Damien Carrick: Like Elena Jeffreys, Jennifer Burn agrees about the need for strong prevention strategies. But unlike the Scarlet Alliance, Jennifer Burn maintains that Australia’s current focus on investigations and prosecutions is a good use of resources. And she doesn’t think visas in themselves are the answer.

Jennifer Burn: I’m not so sure that I share the Scarlet Alliance view on this. I look at the numbers of people who are coming to Australia on lawful visas, and I’m also mindful of levels of exploitation. I don’t think that a visa itself is going to reduce or minimise exploitation, and in the 2007 year there were 130,000 working holiday visas granted to young people aged between 18 and 30, who want to come and holiday in Australia. There were also almost 230,000 student visas granted, and over 132 temporary work visas, such as the 457 visa. And we know that there have been many accounts of exploitation of people who hold these visas. So I don’t think that a visa itself is going to operate to reduce or minimise slavery.

Damien Carrick: But coupled with the implementation of a sort of comprehensive labour rights framework for short-term visitors from overseas, that could be a way of minimising exploitation.

Jennifer Burn: I would agree that the issue is that in Australia we do not have a proper system of protection of overseas workers, and there are a whole lot of systems and reforms that could be introduced that would go part of the way towards minimising the possibility of exploitation. And I think that the debate in Australia will continue to canvass these issues and I hope that organisations and individuals concerned about these things will contribute to the government review of temporary work visas.

Damien Carrick: What do you say to the argument that sometimes contracts are not in themselves exploitative? Because often women from developing countries have no way of financing their trip unless they enter into a contract.

Jennifer Burn: Well the contracts that we’ve read about, and that we know about through the court processes and other kinds of evidence, are enormous. The going rate seems to be $45,000. It seems to be exploiting women in the region. We wouldn’t imagine a situation in Australia where an Australian worker would consider such a contract. So I think that we need to look at these kinds of issues in a bit greater depth.

Damien Carrick: On that point, the Scarlet Alliance say the great bulk of foreign women who come to Australia and work in the sex industry are women from other rich world countries, and that shows that having foreign women working as sex workers in Australia is not necessarily exploitative.

Jennifer Burn: Oh no, it’s not. I mean I think that’s absolutely clear, and I’m not commenting about those situations. Many women do choose from such countries to come to Australia and work in the sex industry in Australia. In most parts of Australia the sex industry is not criminalised. It is possible to work safely in a good environment, and I’m sure that that’s part of the decision in the minds of many women when they come to Australia to work as migrant sex workers…when they’re not in an exploitative situation.

Damien Carrick: And when we’re talking about people from developing countries, can you think of ways which would make working in Australia safer, less prone to gross exploitation?

Jennifer Burn: Nothing is going to work 100%. But it would be very useful in such countries if there was clearer information provided to people who are obtaining Australian visas, about the Australian legal and social environment. This information should include information on a person’s rights and responsibilities; information about the police system that we have; the systems of support that we have. When people are coming on work visas, then there should be information that’s given to them about where they can get help: what kinds of work conditions are considered acceptable in Australia? These are some of the areas of information that I would like to see given to foreign workers, especially from developing countries, where English might not be the first language. This would help minimise the risk of exploitation. So it’s a bundle of ideas in country of origin, and then information that would apply in Australia, even information such as 000 is the number for emergency police help across Australia. This is not routinely provided to those who are coming here to work or to visit, and I think it would be a good idea.

Damien Carrick: Immigration law expert, Jennifer Burn.

Anne Gallagher is an international lawyer. She’s a former adviser to the UN on trafficking and she’s worked in over 50 countries.

She reckons that people trafficking needs to be looked at as part of the larger issue of labour movement from poor to rich countries.

Anne Gallagher: Worldwide there have been very few prosecutions relative to the agreed size of the problem. And there’s a few reasons for this. I think the main problem is probably the most intractable. The economies of many countries depend to a greater or lesser degree on a disposable workforce, a group of people who can perhaps not be subject to the same kind of protections that the regular workforce is, a group of people who are being paid at a lower rate, and a group of people who can be very quickly moved out, or moved on, if the situation changes.

Damien Carrick: It does throw up some very tricky issues. I mean if you’re a woman from a desperately poor developing country, and you choose to work as a prostitute in a Western country as a contract girl, whereby you pay off a debt by sleeping with men and after you’ve paid off that debt, you can then work and keep the wages, and sometimes apparently they can be very good wages. From the perspective of that woman, that can be a good choice, can’t it?

Anne Gallagher: Well I guess there’s a couple of points here. First of all the scenario that you paint is an illegal one. It’s illegal because it’s exploitative according to the laws and standards that have been established in this country. But I guess what you’re asking is whether a judgment about what constitutes exploitation should depend on the perspective of the individual who is being exploited or not. And for me that’s a question about human rights, and it’s a question about whether we accept that a migrant is subject to a lesser standard than in this case an Australian citizen. Should we accept that employers deserve to work at a higher profit margin? For example, just because their employees are foreigners. And we can look at other examples that really don’t differ from the example that you just presented. Should Thailand tolerate Burmese workers being paid less than $1 a day to work in a glove factory because that Burmese person is getting more than if they’d stayed at home? And even here in Australia, should Australia tolerate farmworkers form China being paid less than the minimum wage, just because it is still much more than they could hope to make in China. And I think if we answer No to those examples, then the question becomes Why should it be different for sex workers?

And I also think we shouldn’t pretend that working in a brothel is like working in a shop. It’s not. This is an industry that, as the Netherlands has discovered, no matter how well it’s regulated, attracts criminals and exploiters. And there are also very specific occupational hazards that make prostitution different to other jobs, and that needs to be taken into account as well.

Damien Carrick: Anne Gallagher, a former adviser to the UN on trafficking issues.

That’s The Law Report for this week. A big Thank You to produce Anita Barraud and to technical producer Kyla Brettle.

Guests

Elena Jeffreys,
President, Scarlet Alliance - the Australian Sex Workers Association

Wei Zhou,
Melbourne Lawyer who does voluntary work for Project Respect

Anne Gallagher,
International lawyer, former adviser on trafficking to the UN

Jennifer Burn,
Immigration lawyer, Director Anti-Slavery Project, UTS

Presenter

Damien Carrick

Producer

Anita Barraud

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lawreport/stories/2008/2241462.htm

Australia: Landmark slavery case to be heard by High Court

May 13, 2008

A landmark case testing the effectiveness of Australia’s anti slavery laws will go before the High Court today.

The case involves the owner of a Melbourne brothel, who in 2006, was convicted of possessing sex slaves, namely Thai women smuggled into Australia.

Wei Tang successfully appealed against her 10 year jail term and conviction.

The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions is now appealing against that ruling and the matter has been set down in the High Court for two days.

Wei Tang’s lawyers are expected to argue that the legislation is unconstitutional.

An organisation which works with trafficked women says the outcome of the case could have implications on Australia’s anti slavery laws.

Nina Vallins from Project Respect, says the case is the most crucial test of the effectiveness of the laws on slavery ever to go before an Australian court.

She says the victims in this case have been in virtual limbo for five years.

Ms Vallins says more support should be offered to the victims of sexual slavery.

“The Australian Government only offers visas to women who are persons of interest to the police,” she said.

“So that if the police are interested in investigating their case and the women are able and willing to co-operate, then the women can access a comprehensive system of support.”

“If police aren’t interested in investigating the case then the women are returned home,” she said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/13/2242867.htm?site=melbourne

Australia: Judge warns many could be snared by slavery laws

AUSTRALIA’S anti-slavery laws could be interpreted in a way that netted employers who exploit workers, High Court justice Michael Kirby has warned.

Speaking from the bench in a sex-slavery case yesterday, he said if the court did not define “slavery” with care, “then a lot of harsh employment contracts are going to slip over into ’slavery’ and are going to be prosecuted with a potential of 25 years’ imprisonment on conviction”.

“There are an awful lot of people in this country working in back rooms of restaurants and in the rag trade (whose employers) would be susceptible to … prosecutions for slavery, and that cannot be what Parliament intended,” Justice Kirby said.

The lawyer before him, Wendy Abraham for the Crown, said: “But really, with respect, Parliament cannot have intended either that it is OK to possess somebody.”

Justice Kirby was part of a full bench of the High Court hearing an appeal against the conviction of a Melbourne woman on 10 slavery-related charges.

In 2006 Fitzroy brothel owner Wei Tang was convicted by a County Court jury of having possessed and used as slaves five Thai women she imported to work as prostitutes.

The women were told they had debts of up to $45,000 to work off, which would involve servicing up to 900 men. The prosecution alleged their passports were taken away, they were denied freedom of movement, and had to work six days a week for no payment other than reduction of the “debt”.

Wei Tang was sentenced to a minimum of six years in prison, but was released on bail in 2007 when the Court of Appeal ordered a retrial. The Crown appealed to the High Court against that decision. Wei Tang has cross-appealed to the High Court asking for an acquittal.

Wei Tang’s lawyers say she believed she had an employer relationship with the women. The Crown argues that it is not necessary for her to have knowingly enslaved, only that she knowingly set up the conditions that effectively made the women slaves.

The landmark case challenges the constitutionality of the laws. The federal Attorney-General and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission are appearing to defend them.

Justice Kirby said it would be naive “if we did not keep in the back of our mind that there are very large movements of populations in the world today, including of commercial sex workers … who do so for economic advancement, and that is just part of the reality of the world we live in”.

Ms Abraham replied: “It is considered, in effect, a modern form of slavery, because in many instances what is happening is similar to what happened in this instance. “

But Justice Kirby said: “The fact that these were women who had worked in the commercial sex industry in Thailand and came to this country in pursuit of an arrangement which they made there, and stayed on in the brothels after they had paid off their debt, is at least arguably evidence against notions of involuntary slavery.”

Justice Kirby said that when he was an articled clerk there were many elements of his employment that were “very similar to slavery: long hours, lack of food and various forms of oppression. But no one would have said it was slavery.”

 

This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/05/13/1210444438501.html   

Thailand: Empowering words

New dictionary hopes to help redefine the world’s oldest profession

ONSIRI PRAVATTIYAGUL

While most of us never challenge or even consider the role of linguistics in our daily lives, Empower, a charity offering support for sex industry workers, has braved the norm and created the Bad Girls Dictionary, in which typical meanings of words are reworked in a new light. For the creators of the new book, the real definition of a word involves “not just its meaning, but also the context in which it is used”. Written in the first person, the text works to present old ideas in a new prejudice-free light.

To paint a clearer picture of the radical dictionary, let’s take a look at a couple words.

Prostitute n Prefer sex worker. The name others call our profession. Politicians blaming each other for corruption and vote selling also use it, enhancing its negative association. In Thailand, the abbreviation “P” is commonly used to refer to women who have regular STD checks, and researchers use it in statistical analysis. When we hear prostitute or “P” it has the negative connotation of something underground and subversive.

Journalist n Our regular customers; our good friends and supporters; people who like making money from Empower stories; however, sometimes after a story runs, the police crack down, and the women blame Empower.

Fat adj Fat old men, etc. Many fat old men are very respectful, kind, entertaining, generous and polite customers. We’re not prejudiced.

Bush Policy exp During 2003, after Bush’s policy failed to make any impact on the global problems of drugs, arms and terrorism George W. Bush had a new idea. He mistakenly deduced that migrant sex workers were moved by the same channels that drugs, guns and Osama were. Therefore he used us as a scapegoat in unrelated issues.

Along with its colourful entries, the book also includes a sassy 20-FAQ section which is highly recommended for anyone interested in the sex industry. It includes questions such as, “If a customer offers to pay more money, will women agree not to use condom?”

And the given answer, “If you ask this, we understand you believe we are stupid and greedy women who will do anything for money even risk our lives. Would a paratrooper not use a parachute if offered more money?”

So now you’ve got the idea. There’s also an entry on Thaksin, but we won’t spoil the surprise.

Co-written by former sex worker and Empower coordinator Pornpit Pukmai, former nurse Liz Cameron, Empower founder Chantawipa Apisuk and designed by artist and activist Chumpon Apisuk, the Bad Girls Dictionary encompasses words that possess political, social, cultural, historical and educational aspects that directly and indirectly relate to the sex-worker industry. The entries were gathered from sex workers around the country. The dictionary aims to create understanding between two different two culturally divided groups - sex workers and non-sex workers.

“Typical dictionaries only offer definitions of words. They don’t provide any attitude or thought behind them. Our dictionary wants to convey the definitions in a wider context,” said Chantawipa.

“Our dictionary might be viewed as a ‘peasant’ text because traditionally only high class people have produced such reference material. Instead, this one is made for and by people who are regarded to be at the bottom of society. We think of it as an anthropological study,” said Chumpon.

The Bad Girls Dictionary is also an opportunity for sex industry workers to tell their story, in their own words. “The right to define, create and adapt words and languages is often seen as the right of academics alone. They invent a term and push its acceptance, even though the very people it refers to wouldn’t acknowledge or identify with the term in any way. [As sex workers] we have our own understanding of the vibrant living language we use in our daily lives,” reads the dictionary’s introduction.

The idea of the book stemmed from the frustration Pornpit often feels at conferences she regularly attends on behalf of Empower.

“When I go to conferences as a representative, I sometimes run into hurtful, misleading and incorrect interpretations of words. So I want to correct those misconceptions in our community. It’s also a good way to present the realities of the injustices we are forced to face in our industry,” she said.

Pornpit also recognises the power of words. She notes that by employing certain vocabularies, the authorities can instil subtle yet controlling policies that propagate prejudiced attitudes. This in turn can effect every aspect of society, including the sex industry.

“Words are sometimes constructed to rid us of our rights. For example the term “commercial sex worker, or CSW” has been translated in Thai as ying archeep piset (irregular career female), which speaks volumes about prejudicial linguistics. Unaids recognised the unfairness and committed to stop using the term in all of its communications and documents in 1997, but its usage prevails because no punishments for disobeying the directive have been defined,” she said.

The book project started two years ago, and involved much communication between the writers and the sex worker communities around the country. It sparked many dialogues and called for lengthy debates over which words should be included.

“The dictionary has really been a communal effort. Many definitions were decided upon though consensus, which requires the involvement of a lot of people. It’s been such a joyful process that we almost wished it didn’t have to end! Words kept pouring in even after the manuscript hit the printing machine,” said Cameron.

The Bad Girls Dictionary offers both Thai and English translations, but they are not literal versions of one another. Both language entries were derived independently, thus avoiding the trappings of direct translation, the writers said.

Even though the dictionary is earnest and refreshing, Chantawipa accepts that a minority audience might misinterpret it. She is, however, undaunted by the challenge.

“We’re exercising our basic right of expression. It might be a subject that has traditionally been taboo, but we’re confident that people will find it interesting. And we’re introducing a new way of researching and reporting,” she said.

Wider exposure and a general release are far from their minds since they know that regular channels of distribution will not be satisfactory for the eccentric publication.

“We’re selling it by ourselves. I don’t think any publisher will be sympathetic to our cause. It caters to a niche market, and we’re happy to keep it within that community. If it reaches a wider audience, there is the danger that people who don’t really understand the industry [but don't really oppose either] might become shocked and turn against it,” said Chantawipa.

The four creators agree that if the response is strong enough, a second edition could easily eventuate, as there are many more words waiting to be explained, developed, debunked and deconstructed. There might also be a market for other occupations such as taxi driving. Another project in the pipeline is “Dear PM”, a compilation of letters and petitions that Empower has submitted to the prime ministers over its 23-year history.

The creators have confessed to enjoying nothing more than adjusting people’s attitudes towards sex workers, and they hope to establish a platform to develop a greater diversity of opinion through the education of society about the industry.

“I think people could be a lot more understanding and open minded if they read more books like this one. Hopefully, they’ll realise that every single word uttered can profoundly affect other human beings,” said Pornpit.

The ‘Bad Girls Dictionary’is available for 200 baht at http://www.empowerfoundation.org . Call 02-526-8311 for more information.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/Outlook/14May2008_out001.php

Former Escort Teaches Online Prostitution 101

City Seeing Increase In Online Escort Services, Officials Say

 

POSTED: 8:57 pm PDT May 13, 2008

UPDATED: 11:16 pm PDT May 13, 2008

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Veronica Monet, who is preparing to give a lecture at the University of Pacific, pulls out a small suitcase that has a leather whip inside and says, “I like to teach people how to have better sex.” 

This is not something one expects to hear from a college teacher. But, then again, Monet’s not giving a math or science lecture: she is a former-escort-turned- sexologist. 

“I like to consider myself a lifetime whore,” Monet said.

Monet, a former online escort who claims she got paid $15,000 a date, teaches couples how to have better sex and gives guest lectures and seminars to college classes up and down the state about the business. 

Monet said she is not teaching students how to sell sex online, but instead showing and explaining why technology has made the sex business so appealing — to both the customer and the seller. 

“If some body decides to take some of this information and do something lucrative with it, I have no knowledge of that, nor do I want to,” said Monet, who called it quits as an escort a few years ago. 

The special investigations unit at the Sacramento sheriff’s department said they are seeing an increase in online prostitution in Sacramento, with escorts coming into town from the Bay Area or Fresno. 

Sheriff’s spokesman R.L. Davis said privacy and perception are the driving forces behind online prostitution. 

“The perception is your going to have a higher quality the Hollywood-style escort that we see on TV,” Davis said. 

For the students in David Hall’s human sexuality class, who are sitting in on Monet’s lecture, the idea is find out why people would make prostitution a career. 

“The ways people satisfy human needs, it’s really important. Not that they’re (students) going to do it — not that their going to become prostitutes,” Hall said. 

Monet, who wrote a book about the secrets of great sex she learned on the job as an escort, said there is a major drawback to the profession. 

“I just got tired of being on the wrong side of the law. It’s nerve racking,” Monet said.

http://www.kcra.com/news/16260081/detail.html

MOVIE MADAM

May 13, 2008 — WE haven’t heard the last of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the DC madam who committed suicide last week rather than go to jail. Literary agents Marianne Strong and Jason Allen Ashlock are discussing doing a documentary on Palfrey with producer Beverly Camhe, and they have also commissioned legendary biographer C. David Heymann and Gerry Visco to “pen a book looking inside the sex industry, with Palfrey as the touchstone. Perhaps her life won’t have been taken in vain,” Strong told us.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/05132008/gossip/pagesix/movie_madam_110593.htm

Nigeria: After my prostitution, regret is the next thing

Off-Day Dating
By BOLANIRAN OMOKOREDE,
Saturday, May 10, 2008
 
Life has ever been sour and bitter to me. I wish I yielded to so many words of advice I was privileged to get from loved ones. They would have saved me from the danger I now face. When religious preachers came to me then, I despised them; I thought they were living the wrong side of life.

Even though I was born into a Christian home, I still believed those carrying Bible around are unserious and lost in life. I did not know I was the one lost and needed to be found in the programme of God.

According to the story my daddy told me before his eventual demise, he said my mother died immediately I was born in the local clinic. The poor woman lost her precious life just because there was no good health care available.

Daddy said he brought me back home weeping profusely because he knew he had lost his backbone in the real sense of it. He said my mother was a strong woman. She was the one that took every good initiative in the house before daddy would buy into it later. Daddy confessed his success so far before the death of my mummy was a clear result of mummy’s idea in reality. I was just seven yeats old when daddy too left me to join his good wife. He would not stop talking about her till death. When I grew up later, I began to ask myself:” Does it mean daddy preferred being with mummy to taking care of me, a little helpless girl?” That is why when I think about life: how I was able to survive till date, I would not blame myself much for anything.

Uncle Charles during the family meeting after the demise of my daddy told the family he would take me along with him to Lagos. The family agreed and thanked him for his readiness to take up my responsibilities. But one of the elders asked that day if his wife had agreed to have me with them in Lagos. Another elder in the family was infuriated by the former’s comment: “Are you saying Chally (the name they call Uncle Charles in the village)should take permission from his wife before he takes the daughter of his brother to his house? No wonder, they have told me several times that Nne Chukwuka is the one controlling your home, now I believe,” the man said angrily and then turned to uncle Charles:

“Chally, you don’t have to take permission from a woman before taking care of your family members. Do you hear me? All of us support you and our forefathers will back you.”

Uncle Charles was just nodding to all they said. And later he told them it was an agreement between him and his wife to take me to Lagos. Aunty Nneka seemed to be happy to see me the day I got to their house. I also was happy. I have come to live like a princess in the beautiful house but I later knew it was just a dream that cannot come real. Few days later I began to see a different person in my uncle’s wife; she treated me like she would treat a slave. Many atimes, my uncle would be at home to see the way his wife treated me but sometimes he would not be around.

The way my uncle would react to his wife’s unfair attitude to me showed that he didn’t like it and sometimes he would give me pocket money without letting his wife know of it. I would have enjoyed uncle Charles’ house but his wife did not allow that. Therefore, I later planned to leave the house for another place. I was already 14 before I left the house with the help of a lady who trained me in the trade of promiscuity that ruined my life. We were living on the same street and most often she would be the one to call and greet me. Sometimes she would call me ‘beauty’ and sometimes she would call ‘Fulani girl’. She told me on a certain day that she liked me, ” you are beautiful, you look like a Fulani girl”. She said she wanted me to be visiting her.

Whenever Aunty Nneka was not at home and the children were out with her or their father, I would go to her for visit. Most times she would give me food and money. Honestly I liked her lifestyle; I loved her calmness, her kindness and everything about her environment. I kept wondering why she was not married then but I never asked her and I scarcely found any man with her at home not knowing she had many at her call. When I was planning to leave my uncle’s house but did not know where to go, I told her and she promised to help me out.

Meanwhile, before then whenever I told her I liked her dressing style and her beautiful environment, she would tell me: These are nothing compared to what you can have if you face your studies”. I could never have thought she could be engaging in any ungodly trade like prostitution. On the day I would leave my uncle’s house, he and his wife had gone to shop leaving the children and I at home. I packed the few clothes I had and wrote a letter for the children to deliver to my uncle.

Aunty Becky described where to meet her and we left from there to where she proudly called her office. I was suprised to see only girls in the place, some were not even up to my age and some were my age while some were elderly like my role model, aunty Becky. She introduced me to a fat woman on a sofa in a room out of the many they had in the building. In a nutshell, Aunty Becky introduced me to prostitution. I had no choice, but because I didn’t want to go back to uncle Charles’ house again, I had to take it as the last resort.

Though I knew that would pose a serious threat to my education yet I still yielded. “If Aunty Becky does it to prosper, why not me?” I said to myself. I started the trade like those I met there but unlike many of them who told me they were shy when they started, I was not ashamed of anything. I had taken it as a job that would make me prosperous like Aunty Becky.

The first night was not easy for me. I was so unfortunate to meet a man that was stronger than I could imagine. I had several bruises that night but my mentor and others were there to encourage me. Honestly, the type of cooperation I saw there encouraged me so much. When anyone joined the trade everybody rallied round her to encourage her and everybody teaches the person with experience in the ugly trade. There are lots of experiences I had which will be too much to publish and probably too dirty to put on the pages of the paper. But for God I would have been killed for rituals.

n several occassions, some strange men would come to pick us up with the promise of having some big ‘fishes’ awaiting us somewhere but we would get there to see they were either drug pushers that wanted us to help in carrying drugs abroad or they are utterly out to harm us. There was a time they killed one of us successfully in the hotel before the rest of us escaped. I also found out that some of those colleagues that were of my age bracket had travelled abroad with drugs and came back to retire from prostitution. Some even left the shores of Nigeria without coming back.

What happened that made me retire from prostitution was a serious illness that still trails my life till date. Though I have made fortunes from the trade because ours was so executive that sometimes we earned in dollars or other hard currencies, I bought a parcel of land and was building before I fell ill and as a matter of fact I was almost completing the building before I encountered the serious incurable ailment. It happened that evening like some days as explained earlier; Two guys on that fateful evening like every other business day came to call us for a bussiness.

Despite those ugly experiences we had from the past, we would never turn down any invitation except for some reasons I will not mention herein. That is why one would find prostitutes in the houses of voodoo priests seeking spiritual protection. Prostitutes still believe God will protect them when we attend religious gatherings. Many of us attend churches and pay tithes. The belief is that God will forgive our sins when we attend churches and even give offering and tithe. So on the fateful day, three of us left with two guys.

They paid half of our agreed fees and the rest to be paid after the deal. It was around ten in the night when we prepared and joined them in the big Jeep they brought to pick us.

Our colleagues were hailing us as we moved to the car and jumped in. At least that has ever been the style; we hailed each other when we catch ‘big fish. We were driven to a big house which seemed too complicated to know from where one gets into the building yet we followed. We were called one after the other to a room from the big living room we were entertained for about one hour. I felt a kind of serious cold as I entered the room when I saw a display of Pounds Sterling in their piles on a big table with a main man seated behind a roller-chair. I met Sandra and Amina seated together on the three-seater sofa at a bit far corner of the room.

The man called me to the seat in his front with those hard currency gazing at me eyeball to eyeball. The man simply brought out his left arm. At the bicep was a sore that still looked fresh. ” A simple kiss of this earns you a thousand dollar and if you go further to clean it with your tongue, three thousand dollars will be yours. But a refusal may cost you your life.”

I looked at my friends where they were seated and both managed to smile at me. I knew they might have cooperated with the man. It was a serious danger and we needed to choose the lesser evil that we did not know the repercussion though. Immediately, many thoughts came to my mind. I wondered why a man would not demand sex from a prostitute but to lick a sore even though it looked fresh. In one word I licked the sore and we all went back home.

Sandra did not wake up the following morning, she was dead. Two weeks later Amina died of a serious ailment. I was the only survivor of the incident but I am battling with life today. I have lost all I acquired in my sixteen years to seeking spiritual helps all to no avail. Today I call death every minute but it refuses to come. And ironically, I know my colleagues are suffering today wherever they are in the unseen world and that makes me have a rethink about death. Many Christians have taken me to their churches but till now it is not better, I only hope if I die at last I will not still go yonder to suffer.
Becky who introduced me to prostitution is still doing fine till date. She had left the trade before me in the name of being born-again but I am still in my problem. That bright face of mine that attracted her then is now a shadow of itself.

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/features/kiss%20&%20tell/2008/may/10/kiss-tell-10-05-2008-001.htm

HIV/AIDS Cases Increasing Among Commercial Sex Workers in Uganda

Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report

 

Monday, May 12, 2008

Global Challenges      HIV/AIDS cases are increasing among women and girls involved in commercial sex work in Kampala, Uganda, HIV/AIDS advocates said recently, Uganda’s Monitor reports.

Robert Kanwagi — coordinator of the Breaking the Ice Project, which is being implemented by the group Reproductive Health Uganda in Kampala — said a recent survey found that HIV prevalence among the sex workers in the city was as high as 47.2%, compared with the national prevalence of 6.7%. The survey also found that HIV prevalence is as high as 60% among sex workers ages 25 to 29 and that 59.6% of sex workers were found to have other sexually transmitted infections, such as syphilis and gonorrhea.

Kanwagi, who was speaking at a training workshop on HIV and gender issues, said poverty is the primary reason that women become commercial sex workers. He also said that sex workers lack the authority to negotiate safer sex and that those who offer unprotected sex are paid more money than those who use condoms. The Breaking the Ice Project was launched in July 2007 to expand access to HIV/AIDS services among sex workers in Kampala.

RHU National Program Manager Peter Ibembe said HIV/AIDS is spreading among women and girls because of social, economic and cultural factors that deny them access to HIV prevention and treatment services. “A poor woman or girl may not be able to deny a man sex because she needs money,” he said, adding, “Because of their lack of decision-making power in matters of sex, as well as other factors like poverty, they become more exposed to the risk of becoming infected than men” (Nafula, Monitor, 5/9).

View entire HIV/AIDS Report.

http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=52064

The Golden Girls Of Sonagachi

From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 19, Dated May 17, 2008   No morality. No tragedy. Writer DILIP D’SOUZA and photographer TOM PIETRASIK get themselves a reality check in Kolkata’s largest red light area LYING ON TOP of the trashcan outside Rekha’s tiny room is an empty condom packet. Inside, behind her wide bed, lie a couple of condoms. As we sit on the bed chatting, a slip of a girl in stilettos, flouncy white skirt and a black top darts in, picks up the condoms and darts out. Fifteen minutes later, she darts back in again, complaining angrily to Rekha. I know no Bengali, but somehow I get what she’s saying: though she told him twice, the client she was just with refused to wear a condom, so she threw him out. She stops to take a breath, then turns to smile at Tom and me. While she is happy to talk, even about condoms, she doesn’t want to be photographed. But Rekha has no such inhibitions. “Take as many photos as you like,” she says. Tom does just that, in this room and on the terrace of her dark building as the sun sets, bathing Sonagachi in soft golden hues. As we walk up the dingy, crumbling stairs to the terrace, a slender moustached man appears outside Rekha’s flat, cellphone in hand and perplexion on his face. In between shots, Rekha tells me quietly that he is her regular evening client. I fall over myself apologising. The last thing we wanted was for her to put work on hold to spend time with us. “Why don’t you go ahead,” I say, “and do…”. My voice trails off as I realise what I’m saying, as I wonder how I’m going to finish my sentence. Rekha smiles widely, tickled by my discomfort. “It’s okay,” she says, pointing to one of two cellphones she’s carrying. “I just phoned him and said I couldn’t see him now.” “And that was okay with him?” I ask. “Of course!” says Rekha. “I’ll meet him later.” Not for the first time, I’m struck by how open and matter-of-fact this 31-year-old is about what she does for a living. This is a naive thing to say, but even if you don’t quite believe it, this is the first time I’ve spent quality time among sex workers. I never imagined that some of them, at least, would be like this about their profession. With my precious middle class morality and conditioning, it’s a constant effort to refer neutrally to their work. But them, they speak about it as routine — what gets food on the table and the kids through school. That attitude takes some getting used to. Yet that’s just the point. She’s a sex worker, but Rekha is also joint secretary in the HIV intervention programme at the Durbar Mahila Samanvay Committee (DMSC), which works with sex workers in Sonagachi, Kolkata’s redlight area. And while they run a number of different programmes — clinics, condom distribution, street plays and more — after a few days there, one thing seems to me to sum up their efforts: attitude. Let’s see sex work as just work, and let’s not get either coy or judgemental about it. Let’s look at sex workers as people trying, like all of us do, to earn a living. Let’s allow them to think of themselves that way. Attitude, that’s all. Later that evening, our DMSC host, Shubhra, takes us to a one-room clinic they run. The lane outside is lined with dozens of women in tight, lurid clothes, waiting for custom. Inside are several more women, most themselves sex workers, keen to give us an idea of their work with DMSC. First, one explains the use of a female condom. With a flip chart that leaves just about nothing to the imagination, she makes it sound easy. Following my journalistic instincts, I ask to buy one. Buy three, says Shubhra, and you get a sachet of shampoo, free. Then she reaches into a cupboard for something she says is distributed by the West Bengal Government: a wooden dildo that would make a sailor blush. The same woman uses it to demonstrate the use of a (male) condom. They encourage women to put it on their clients, she says. Partly because they can then ensure it’s on right, but also because this “excites” the client. (She uses the English word). ONE HOT afternoon, we threaded through winding lanes to Devi’s home. A 50-year-old widow, she has a lined but elegant face and an air of serene confidence. She is no longer in the “business” but it’s been good to her in many ways. She has a portable TV on the window sill, a compact stereo on a shelf next to a flower-lined portrait of her mother, a landline and a cellphone side by side. There’s a small grandfather clock on the wall, even if it stays stuck at 8.30, and a lamp with multiple shell-shaped shades. The room is almost as small as Rekha’s. Here too, we sit on the bed to talk. Like most beds we’ve seen in Sonagachi, it’s perched on old car batteries. I’m puzzling that out when something hairy nudges my dangling foot. It’s the head of another slip of a girl, emerging from under the bed where she was sleeping. Ah, so the batteries produce a little extra space. She brings us some chai, then crawls back underneath to sleep some more. Unusual, but an innovative use of limited space. Then I realise there’s another bed in the room. We had edged past while coming in, though actually I hadn’t noticed it then. That’s because it doesn’t look much like a bed. It is surrounded by billowing sheets that reach to the ceiling. Now we hear some sounds. Quiet voices, one a gruff male, some rustling and creaking, a few chuckles. So here we are: just beyond an arm’s length from where I sit, separated only by a thin sheet that billows in the breeze, there’s a couple in that bed. Just as matter-of-fact as everyone else we’ve met in Sonagachi, Devi says she rents out that second bed by the hour. Women bring their clients there, as one has done right now. Devi is amused at our stifled consternation. Me, I’m trying to refocus on our conversation. Hard, because I’m acutely conscious that I’ve never been so close to a couple doing what they must. Yet to the four women on or under this bed, this isn’t even an issue. All in the attitude.

From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 19, Dated May 17, 2008

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main39.asp?filename=hub170508the_golden.asp

Sex Work vs. Trafficking: Understanding the Difference

By Melissa Ditmore, RH Reality Check
Posted on May 10, 2008, Printed on May 13, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/84987/

Originally posted at RH Reality Check.

Even those who mean well sometimes confuse the human rights abuse of trafficking in persons with the human occupation of prostitution, or sex work. It’s understandable because of the history of the two fields, but it creates rather than solves problems. Let me try to sort it out here.

The tendency to treat trafficking and prostitution as if they were the same thing has a long and problematic history. Legislation and social discussion have often blurred or denied any difference, but that has always made things worse rather than better for those involved.

The trafficking of women and children into sexual slavery is undeniably a gross abuse of human rights. Like all trafficking, it involves coercion or trickery or both. Sex trafficking is an odious forms of trafficking, but it is far from the only one. Men, women and children are also — and more commonly — trafficked routinely for purposes of household and farm labor as well as sweatshop manufacturing. Their lives may be less media-genic than those of sex trafficking victims, but they are no less brutal, dangerous and degraded.

A narrow focus on the single aspect of sex trafficking is often fueled by sensationalist and sometimes salacious accounts of sexual abuse. It leads us to ignore these other forms of trafficking, and so denies help and protection to all the men, women and children forced into and trapped in abusive working situations in other industries.

By the same token, treating sex work as if it is the same as sex trafficking both ignores the realities of sex work and endangers those engaged in it. Sex workers include men and women and transgender persons who offer sexual services in exchange for money. The services may include prostitution (sexual intercourse) and other services such as phone sex. Sex workers engage in this for many reasons, but the key distinction here is that they do it voluntarily. They are not coerced or tricked into staying in the business but have chosen this from among the options available to them.

A key goal of sex worker activists is to improve sex-working conditions, but self-organization is impossible when sex work is regarded as merely another form of slavery. Then authorities and laws trying to stop true slavery — trafficking — get misapplied to sex workers, clients and others involved in the sex industry. Law enforcement raids in the U.S. and abroad, for example, have led to little success identifying trafficked persons but instead have driven sex work underground. This exposes sex workers to an increased risk of violence and denies them any protection of laws against assault or access to medical, legal and educational services. It denies them their human rights.

A national anti-trafficking law enacted in 2000 recognizes “severe forms of trafficking” as a modern form of slavery that involves a broad spectrum of workers and industries. In this interpretation, trafficking is clearly distinguished from voluntary sex work and thus avoids the absurdity of equating the fear and suffering of a trafficked person with the typical working conditions of voluntary sex workers. These conditions are often far from ideal, but nevertheless they are far removed from debt bondage or enslavement.

It is regrettable that despite the obvious reality of this perspective, the popular imagination of sex work tends to return to images of young girls forced into sexual slavery. Perhaps people would rather read such stories than hear about more prosaic struggles for workers’ rights — to organize, to be free from harassment, to get decent health care. But their preferences should not be allowed to dictate policy about either human trafficking or sex work.

Traditional standards of morality have been a major influence on legislation aimed at trafficking, and on the ways that trafficking legislation changes the legal treatment of prostitution. But the ‘moral’ position opposing sex work is actually a specific political and ideological position, and its net effect is typically to limit women’s autonomy.

Sex law is often a front for ideology that constrains rather than liberates women. What most appalls me about the recent conflation of trafficking and sex work in law and policy is that some feminists support the confusion. These women would normally never dream of telling other women how to behave, because they have fought against imposed constraints in their own lives. Yet they seem to think it is acceptable to tell sex workers what is best for them, and they are prepared to use dubious political alliances to advance their moral agenda.

Women’s studies professor Donna Hughes even told the National Review that George W. Bush is the president who has done the most for women on the strength of his policies aimed against sex work. The fact that these policies do nothing to halt human trafficking and in fact may be counter-productive seems to be irrelevant. So does the worse fact that President Bush has presided over a deliberate reduction in access to reproductive health care for women in the United States and around the world.

Women are not the only victims when trafficking is conflated with sex work. The confusion squanders opportunities to address real victimization and to assist people in real situations of abuse. Resources, time and energy that might actually help trafficking victims are wasted in sensational “rescues” that are also ineffective and often counterproductive.

There is a clear need to formulate public policy that is less emotionally driven and better able to recognize the real causes, nature and effects of trafficking in persons. People concerned about the health and rights of migrants should choose to talk in terms of migration and mobility and workers’ rights — including sex workers’ rights — rather than confusing matters by using the term “trafficking” with all its attendant baggage. That should help clear the debating field for useful and separate discussions of both.

Melissa Ditmore, Ph.D., was the inaugural Chair of the Advisory Board of the Sex Workers Project and is a research consultant on issues of sex work, mobility and migration, HIV and sexual health. She edited the Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work (Greenwood Press, 2006) and edits Research for Sex Work, the journal of the Network of Sex Work Projects.

© 2008 RH Reality Check All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/84987/