I am very pleased the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery has chosen to include sex workers' rights advocates. Without the help of sex workers' groups, it will be difficult, perhaps even impossible, to address trafficking as defined by our Ms. Wijers as it relates to sex work. I intend to emphasize three points today. They include:
Introduction
The term 'sex work' was coined by sex workers to emphasize the labor aspect of the sex industry, and to create a term without moral judgment or emotional connotations. Addressing the sex industry as labor is a prerequisite for including sex work in discussions of women's and worker's rights. Otherwise, we risk losing sight of the violations of labor norms (see Bindman) in the sex industry in the name of moralizing. Sex work itself is not inherently problematic, but that sex work remains unrecognized and therefore outside the scope of labor standards is problematic. Violations of labor standards within the sex industry are not specific to the sex industry but more specific to informal labor. Rather than declaring sex work in itself an abuse, it is more productive to apply the same standards to the sex industry that are applied to other industries, including standards of human rights and occupational safety and health codes. This requires a recognized definition of sex work. The definition of sex work proposed by the Network of Sex Work Projects is:
Negotiation and performance of sexual services for remuneration
i.with or without intervention by a third party
ii.where those services are advertised or generally recognised as available from a specific location
iii.where the price of services reflects the pressures of supply and demand.
(In this definition, 'negotiation' implies the rejection of specific clients or acts on an individual basis. Indiscriminate acceptance by the worker of all proposed transactions is not presumed -- such acceptance would indicate the presence of coercion.)
(Bindman with Doezema)
Addressing working conditions in the sex industry
Where sex work is a marginalized or criminal activity, sex workers are denied the right to decent working conditions by the lack of regulatory mechanisms which address other industries. This enables exploitation of sex workers at the hands of employers and law enforcement while ignoring illegal practices that would be subject to correction in other businesses. This is possible because sex work remains outside the scope of regulatory bodies governing labor. As a consequence of this oversight, sex workers are often denied legal recourse in the face of abusive practices. Workers in the sex industry remain unlikely to seek legal recourse even if abuses exist as long as they have reason to fear law enforcement. Sex workers remain unlikely to report abuses if they are themselves in jeopardy of prosecution. In this way, sanctions against sex work inhibit efforts to address human rights violations.
The existence of abuses within the sex industry does not equate all sex work with abuse, but highlights the need for the application of labor regulations to the sex industry. Where sex work is recognized and labor violations are absent in sex work as in any work, there is no crime. As a person cannot consent to abusive conditions, including coercion, debt bondage or confinement, abuses in any such instance remain a crime regardless of th industry in which they are committed. Until the criminal justice system and the international community recognize the rights of sex workers as laborers, such abuses cannot be adequately addressed. The reaction to similar abuses in other areas of work led to worker organizing and the initial introduction of occupational safety regulations.
Working conditions in informal sectors, which are disproportionately performed by poor people, remain substandard. Addressing poor working conditions is an opportunity to better working conditions. There is no excuse for prejudice against the poor in the form of neglecting their working conditions in any industry.
The International Labour Organization report, The Sex Sector recommends recognition of the sex industry as labor in light of the economic and social realities of the sex industry . It is fitting that the ILO recommends recognition of the sex industry as labor as ILO statutes governing minimum standards of working conditions could be applied to the sex industry, and modified where necessary to accommodate conditions specific to sex work. Examples of such specifics include the right to decline a client.
Countering critics of the ILO report The Sex Sector
It is refreshing to hear a reasonable report addressing the real issues facing workers in the sex industry instead of the strident tones of self appointed moralists. Critics of the ILO report cite flawed studies which misrepresent the source of their data. These are studies done by organizations whose sole goal is to 'rescue' all women, including those who do not want to be 'rescued', from prostitution. Such data only includes women who wish to be 'rescued; and do not represent the larger population of sex workers.
Critics of the ILO report call on governments to create alternative employment for all women in the sex industry. Perhaps in an ideal world a government could supply enough jobs for everyone but it is important to address the existing reality of many people's lives. Prostitution is a viable occupation that provides income to sex workers and their families. I caution against the assumption that if something is repugnant to some people, no one else should be allowed to do it. Sex work is not inherently degrading or a violation of a woman's human rights simply because the work is distasteful to some. Many people opt for sex work because it is less degrading, better paying and provides more freedom than other available options (ie,work in export processing zone factories).
Those advocating against sex workers' rights cite sexual commerce as the sale of a person. Prostitution is not the purchase of a person, but of a person's services, as in other service occupations (ie, food service occupations). This is the condescending reduction of a person to his or her sex. Claims that sex work is the culmination of a personal history of poverty and abuse are equally insensitive. Personal history has no bearing on a person's rights in the workplace. In no other profession does personal history or sentiments about the profession interfere with a person's right to acceptable working conditions. In any situation, abuses should be rectified rather than used as justification for further marginalization. These arguments perpetuate the stereotype of the sex worker as in need of saving and unable to take care of his or herself rather than acknowledging their complex situations and self-determination. Such condescension has no place in any discussion of justice or rights.
Sex workers are often characterised as disease ridden by those who neglect the fact that good health is afforded by good working conditions. Sex workers who are not accorded rights at work are vulnerable to infection, illness and physical and psychological abuse. (Bindman, 4.) Sex workers who have better working conditions and the knowledge and materials to safeguard their health have lower rates of sexually transmitted infections than housewives! (Organized sex workers in Calcutta's Mahila Songatchi Group have a rate of infection that at under five percent is less than one-tenth that of unorganized sex workers in Bombay (over fifty percent) (UNAIDS)
Unfortunately, most health policy addressing sex work addresses only gynecological problems and ignores other aspects of health. This approach would be unacceptable in any other realm but is deemed sufficient for sex workers due to the marginalization of sex work, thus jeopardizing the well-being of sex workers, their families, their clients, clients' families and the other sexual partners of clients. A more holistic approach to the health of sex workers would be enabled by the recognition of sex work as labor and the removal of the sex industry from the category of vice.
Sex workers want the same rights and protections as are enjoyed by other workers. Sex workers enjoy more of the basic civil rights afforded workers in other areas where sex work is recognized. The marginalization of sex work in most countries worldwide denies sex workers' their basic right of access to legal recourse in the face of violence. When violence is committed against sex workers, the problem is violence, not the victim's occupation. It is imperative to recognize that in no other occupation do we so incessantly blame the victim of violence. We do not blame a victim of robbery for being beaten and robbed yet we blame women in the sex industry for the violence committed by others against them. In countries where sex workers have access to legal recourse, sex workers are able to avail themselves of the same help accorded other victims of violence, including rape and battery. Women who are protected rather than prosecuted by law enforcement are more likely to report cases of abuse than people who are themselves subject to criminal sanctions.
I am disheartened by the need of those who seek the unlikely eradication of sex work to denigrate men. This is as much done by ignoring the existence of male sex workers as by denigrating the clients of sex workers and other men as depraved and lustful. However, clients are frequently the most sympathetic ears for abused women and sex workers. Clients who are educated to the problems of abuse are often the people who bring the situation of women who are being held against their will to the attention of the police or non-governmental organizations.
A 1997 series of articles from Reuters News Service erroneously reported sex slaves in brothels in Canberra, Australia. The situation in Canberra is one in which sex work is above board and not hidden, and therefore subject to occupational safety and health standards. As the situation regarding sex work is quite overt, it was possible for a representative from Workers in Sex Employment (WISE) to visit and inspect each brothel on a weekly basis. The WISE representative discerned that working conditions were up to industry standards and that no one was there under duress. She has access to the brothels and the people who work in them in this capacity. This would not have been possible without sex workers organizations, nor without the system of decriminalized brothels in Canberra. The most recent article on this reported that no evidence of sexual slavery was found.
Sex Work Advocacy and Partnership Programs
Sex workers groups have been very active with recommendations to improve proposed legislation addressing trafficking in persons. I wish to stress the value of a model of partnership with sex workers' organizations rather than the punitive model of current legislation governing prostitution.
Efforts include the Asia-Pacific Network of Sex Work Projects. At its February meeting, the representative from the Thai organization EMPOWER confirmed that Thai women interested in working in Australia's sex industry often inquire about working conditions in Australia, and that EMPOWER provides them with legal information and each state's sex workers' organization's contact numbers. Fostering international links such as these between sex workers' organizations in countries of origin and countries of entry could lead to more such information sharing, including information about poor business practices and abusive working conditions. This would alert migrants to possible abuses including debt bondage or slavery-like situations and better enable them to avoid such situations.
The Australian--Thai example described above demonstrates what partnerships between sex workers' organizations are capable of offering to women who migrate for work. With this in mind, I wish to stress the need for peer programs and advocacy for sex workers. Sex workers, like many groups, are frequently best approached with peer programs and advocacy. Mala and Nury will describe successful programs.
Conclusions
In conclusion, I wish to emphasize that where sex work is a criminal activity, sex workers are denied the right to decent working conditions and that this has repercussions beyond the applications of criminal codes as human rights violations. Where sex workers have attained better working conditions, they are better able to address issues of abuse. One crucial step in the right direction is formal recognition by governments of the reality that sex work is a form of labor. Addressing sex work as labor enables application of minimum standards for employment and attendant requirements for occupational safety and health as well as peer programs and outreach. Without recognition of sex work as labor, women and sex workers continue to be subject to exploitation and poor working conditions. The criminal justice system and the international community must recognize the rights and needs of sex workers, before abuses within the sex industry can be adequately addressed.
References
Bindman, Jo, with Doezema, Jo, 'Redefining Prostitution as Sex Work on the International Agenda,' (as of June 10, 1999)
www.walnet.org/csis/papers/redefining.html, copyright1997.
Lin Leam Lim, editor, The Sex Sector, International Labour Organization, Geneva: 1998.
UNAIDS--website