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‘Sex-hungry’ babes lure and trick client-victims: a change from the usual

26 February 2010 in sex work by laura agustin | 1 comment | print print

SyphilisProstitutes are not seen as victims everywhere in the world. The news may come as a surprise, given the predominance of that view in most news stories, especially in the west. Not that long ago, however, other stereotypes were commoner: predatory females who bring good men down. Both images here warn against woman-as-venereal-disease, traditionally a synonym for prostitute. 

The story below from contemporary Angola reveals a similar view, and it isn’t the only one I’ve seen recently. Notice language that seems to come from another era: sex-hungry young ladies, babes, on the prowl, robbers, clever prostitutes, sex hawkers. The article seems to be blaming the local authority for distributing condoms, as though doing that caused commercial sex. And note that these predators are migrants: well, they would be, wouldn’t they?

Sex Hawkers On The Prowl
as LOC Distributes 5m Condoms To Participants

14 January 2010, PM News

The ongoing Angola 2010 African Cup of Nations is unique in a way, as those who usually seek for pay-per-round sex in foreign countries will have no problems here. Despite the effort of the Local Organizing Committee, LOC, to chase off prostitutes, otherwise known as commercial sex workers, from the cities hosting the matches of the tournament, thousands of sex-hungry young ladies still find ways to do their ‘businesses.’

Majority of the ladies woo their ‘lovers’ in grand style, with class and in their own posh cars. Although, the campaign against HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases are everywhere as the Nations Cup gathers momentum, the sex workers are on the prowl here. Three of such babes had a brief encounter with our man, who is covering the competition in Angola.

The conversation goes: “Hey, you need help?” asked a dark and very pretty damsel, whose curves could easily tempt an unsuspecting visitor. Because this writer was in a hurry to catch up with an interview date, he walked to the car to see if these good Samaritans could help him. But the story changed when one of them, Sophiela, asked him if he would like a friend in Benguela. That offer sounded palatable, based on the high cost of living and transportation problems in Angola.

Then out of curiosity, our man asked the ladies what he would do to compensate them for their presumed kind gesture. It was at this point that they told him in French language that they would charge $200 per ‘service,’ and that the sum of $100 extra would be paid if the ‘deal’ goes into the night. Obviously, the ladies migrated to Angola from one of the French speaking countries because majority of Angolans speak Portuguese, while just a few could communicate in passable English. Anyway, that ‘offer’ goes beyond driving the writer around the town. The ladies are clever prostitutes, who are moving around to spread sexually transmitted diseases.

Findings here revealed that the sex workers also serve as agents of robbers, who trick unsuspecting victims with their exposed bodies. Reports, however, revealed that the LOC, in conjunction with the Health Commission in Angola, have distributed about 5 million free Lubricated Latex Condoms to all hotels and strategic locations in the country, especially in the cities where matches are played.

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UNAIDS People on the Move, including mobile sex workers and their clients

15 February 2010 in migration by laura agustin | 5 comments | print print

Last year I contributed comments and resources to a UNAIDS paper written to support discussion for their Thematic Segment on People on the Move—Forced Displacement and Migrant Populations. The paper gives basic information on types of movement and links between mobility and HIV vulnerability, including how to achieve universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support. ‘The paper points out that mobile people and international migrants are diverse, ranging from highly educated and high-earning professionals, to low-earning unskilled and exploited labourers. Although very different circumstances may drive migration and mobility, it is not mobility per se, but the conditions under which people move—and the ways they are treated throughout the migration cycle—pre-departure, in transit, at destinations and upon return—that most determine their vulnerabilities, which in turn affect their risks of acquiring HIV.’

This language and tone are to be celebrated, departing as they do from the usual crude separation assumed to exist between a freely-choosing middle class that always travels happily versus a downtrodden, forced poor that ‘migrates’, often unhappily. The paper is available as People on the move – forced displacement and migrant populations

I’m pleased that a boxed highlight in the report called Mobile sex workers reads pretty straightforwardly (no heavy emphasis on victimhood) and refers to clients without demonising them.

Sex workers are highly mobile both within and across national borders. Documented and undocumented migration for sex work often occurs between neighbouring countries, but there is also considerable inter-regional movement. The migration and mobility of sex workers can significantly increase their vulnerability to HIV and sexually transmitted infections. Many migrant and mobile sex workers, especially those who are undocumented, are excluded from basic education, legal and public health-care systems, and are vulnerable to violence and other forms of abuse from customers, criminal gangs and corrupt law enforcement officials, with little or no social or legal support and protection. In addition, migrant sex workers face additional cultural and linguistic barriers that adversely impact upon their ability to access local services and support networks. To reduce HIV risk and vulnerability for mobile and migrant sex workers there are key actions that need to be funded and implemented for all sex workers irrespective of their gender (women, men, transgender) or legal status. These include access to HIV prevention and treatment services, comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services, legal information and advice and necessary social services. To support these services, training of healthservice providers and law enforcement agencies addressing stigma, discrimination and violence needs to be developed along with occupational health and safety standards to make sex work safer.

Clients of sex workers are also highly mobile and their behaviour determines epidemic speed and severity (Commission on AIDS in Asia, 2008). Currently, few programmes target clients directly to promote safer sexual behaviour. Such programmes should: be provided in the workplace (where appropriate); be based on the different settings where sex work occurs; provide clients with information to protect sex workers, their regular sexual partners and themselves from HIV and other sexually transmitted infections; emphasize client responsibility to treat sex workers with dignity and respect; and incorporate approaches to eliminate genderbased violence in the context of sex work.

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MSM, some sex workers, want services without being counted and outed, Kenya

21 December 2009 in sex work by laura agustin | 10 comments | print print

‘How do you convince me to come out and say I am a homosexual yet the same government that is asking me to do this criminalizes what I am engaged in? I would rather they offered the services without going into the business of knowing who we are and trying to count us.’

Stigma for homosexuals is strong in Kenya, as this earlier story showed. The issue in these excerpts is the government’s belief that before it can provide HIV-prevention services to these men they have to be identified, surveyed and counted. But, as often happens, those to be researched don’t want to have to identify themselves to authorities when homosexuality is against the law in Kenya. Seems obvious, no?

Kenya: New survey to inform HIV programming for MSM

Photo IRIN

Irin Plus News
10 November 2009

Nairobi: A planned national survey of men who have sex with men (MSM) will be the first step in the government’s plan to incorporate this high-risk group into the country’s HIV programme, a senior government official has said. “We have continued to ignore this group of people yet they are responsible for a big chunk of new HIV infections; we have resolved as a government that we cannot sit back and wait for things to get out of hand,” said Nicholas Muraguri, head of the National AIDS and Sexually transmitted infections Control Programme (NASCOP). . . .

HIV programming for MSM is extremely limited despite the country’s national strategic plan for HIV/AIDS classing them as a “most at-risk population”. “We cannot do this [provide HIV programmes for MSM] without knowing roughly how many they are and what special needs they require; I hope the survey that we will embark on will help us answer some of these questions,” Muraguri said.

He noted that the survey - due to start in December and last six months – will attempt to discover information such as the specific sexual health risks and needs of MSM, MSM “hot spots” around the country, and the number of MSM-friendly health facilities available. It will use respondent-driven sampling, recruiting openly gay men to reach out to other MSM who may not be out of the closet, and using existing MSM-friendly facilities to help conduct the research. . . .

Joshua* is a male commercial sex worker in Nairobi who recently received training from NASCOP on reaching out to his peers with HIV/AIDS messages. “Today I talked to 75 male commercial sex workers – 40 of them are HIV-positive but they do not know what to do,” he told IRIN/PlusNews. “Many are homeless after being kicked out of their homes due to stigma.” Joshua hopes the survey will enable the government and NGOs to provide more services to MSM.

“Currently at a clinic in Nairobi, we are given one bottle of [water-based] lubricant to last three months but you know as a commercial sex worker, you finish it in a week,” he added. “So it means for the remaining time, you engage in sex without the lubricant, putting yourself at great risk.”

He noted that there was also a lack of sufficient knowledge about the risks associated with HIV and anal sex in the general population. “Many women [clients] approach us for anal sex wrongly believing that it lowers their chances of getting infected,” he said. “Everybody should be educated on the dangers of this kind of sex because it seems people have the wrong perception.”

However, not all MSM are as enthusiastic about the prospect of being counted and questioned by a government that has thus far shown little support for the rights of MSM. “People in this country are still very homophobic and we are stigmatized a lot; who will want to come out to agree that he is a homosexual? Let them address issues of stigma first,” said Donald*, who has not come out of the closet. “How do you convince me to come out and say I am a homosexual yet the same government that is asking me to do this criminalizes what I am engaged in?”

“I would rather they offered the services without going into the business of knowing who we are and trying to count us,” he added. Read the rest of this entry »

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Myanmar migrants in factories and brothels, Thailand

19 October 2009 in migration, sex work, trafficking by laura agustin | 3 comments | print print

Over the 15 years I’ve studied migration, I’ve seen remarkable consistency in the reasons migrants give for travelling to other countries to work, whether they end up in factories or brothels. The report Assessment of Mobility and HIV Vulnerability among Myanmar Migrant Sex Workers and Factory Workers in Mae Sot District, Tak Province, Thailand, published by IOM-Bangkok in 2007, describes qualitative and quantitative research to assess HIV vulnerability among migrant sex workers and migrant factory workers. I’ve reproduced a few small excerpts that show the economic overlaps and interdependencies amongst migrant workers in both factories and brothels and the people that facilitate their travels and jobs. 

‘About crossing the border to Thailand

A range of companions and contacts facilitate the migrant’s journey to Thailand. Many cross the border with relative ease together with a family member or friends who had been to the Thai side previously. . . .

Some . . .  are brought to the Thai side of the border through the employment of “carriers” or brokers (commonly referred to as gae-ri in Bamar or nai nah in Thai), who offer migrants job placement opportunities that would otherwise be almost impossible to achieve without a contact. . . .

Brokers are present on both sides of the border and seek to make money through providing transport and employment assistance to migrants in need.

In the context of sex work, some brokers inform the women about the specific type of work prior to providing assistance while others merely explain that the women could make a substantial amount of money sitting and talking with customers at a bar.

There is evidence to suggest that brokers provide the initial capital for the women to migrate to Thailand and then sell them to a karaoke bar or brothel. The women are then bound to work off the amount of money that was paid by the brothel to the broker.

Not all brokers work in conjunction with the brothels and karaoke bars in Mae Sot. Some facilitate contact with factories and farms and are paid directly by the migrant. . .

Factory versus sex work

Though factory work is certainly the most sought after type of employment, it is not consistently available. Many migrants are forced to wait several months for positions or find other endeavours as day labourers, farmhands, construction workers or housemaids, or simply return home. “Those who come back say if you work for one year here you can’t even save enough to build a bamboo hut, whereas if you work in Thailand for one year, it is possible to build a proper house.”6

Commercial sex services in Mae Sot District tend to be located around construction sites and factories. These establishments employ mostly female migrant workers and tend to cater to Thai nationals. . . . “if available, male migrant workers will seek out karaoke women or sex workers who are of the same language group in order to communicate more easily . . .”.21

The narratives of the sex workers often described the following environment: . . .  They usually work for an initial four to eight months. In most instances this allows them to save a substantial amount of revenue, which they in turn use to invest in a business or other endeavour in Myanmar. After paying off any debt owed to the brothel or karaoke boss, several of the respondents returned to Myanmar. . . and began a small business, such as a teashop, or provide for the family to continue working as farmers. 17

All the sex workers that took part in the discussions said they wanted to stop working in the profession and were actively building their savings for the future. One 24-year-old sex worker said: “I have to work here like I am a businesswoman. It’s good to work for one, two months or at the most four to five months. I work till I get some things for my kids, like a house, then I have the capital to invest.” After returning home and new difficulties have arisen, many young women return to their old life in Mae Sot, a life that provided them with enough money for their dependents and their future. This story of migration was described very often during the discussions and interviews. Some respondents said they returned to Mae Sot as many as three or four times.’

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Decriminalising sex work only half the battle: South Africa

14 June 2009 in sex work by laura agustin | 1 comment | print print

I’m trying to paint a picture of the sex industry that shows its complexity and how commercial sex is embedded in ordinary daily life. The following report acknowledges decriminalisation would just be the first step in a social and legal process. See website of SWEAT - Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Taskforce, and book Selling Sex in Cape Town.

South Africa: Decriminalizing sex work only half the battle

Johannesburg, 29 May 2009 (IRIN)

Proposals to decriminalize sex work in South Africa have been moved back to the front burner after the newly installed premier of the country’s richest province, Gauteng, remarked that the issue should be addressed “objectively and with an open mind”. A review of the current legislation is underway.

The Sexual Offences Act of 1957 prohibits all sex work, and any activity associated with it – keeping or participating in the management of a brothel, procuring someone to become a sex worker, soliciting or selling sex, and living off the earnings of a sex worker – is a criminal offence. The Act was amended 50 years later to make buying sexual services a criminal offence.

Enforcement of the sweeping law is extremely difficult; the police generally use municipal by-laws that target street-based sex workers under the guise of being a “public nuisance”, leading to claims of police harassment, while the authorities ignore thousands of classified adverts for sexual services in daily newspapers and elsewhere.

The South African Law Reform Commission (SALRC) sets out four scenarios in a report released in May 2009: maintaining the status quo, partial criminalization, non-criminalization, or the “regulation of adult prostitution and prostitution-related acts.” Public submissions and comments on the proposed changes can be made until 30 June 2009.

The country is divided on the issue. “Worldwide, you will find it [sex work]… We must begin to appreciate that commercial sex work is an industry, here in Gauteng,” said the province’s female premier, Nomvula Mokonyane.

“The best is to recognize commercial sex work, make sure it has different support systems … have a designated area, register people, let them be subjected to periodic health tests, and also let them be subjected to what me and you are subjected to — tax.”

‘Lowering morals’

Although Mokonyane did not explicitly call for sex work to be legalized, her view was at odds with South Africa’s chief prosecutor, Mokotedi Mpshe, who told local media that decriminalizing sex work would be bad for the country’s morals.

Proponents of decriminalization said changing the law would not destigmatize the sex industry, but would improve the health and safety of sex workers.

Lauren Jankelowitz, of the Reproductive Health and HIV Research Unit (RHRU) at the University of the Witwatersrand, which runs sex worker-friendly clinics and outreach programmes, said most sex workers were reluctant to access health services or report incidents of rape and assault to the police, fearing both stigma and arrest.

At a forum in Johannesburg on 28 May, Sex Workers and the World of Work, sponsored by the South African Business Coalition on HIV and AIDS (SABCOHA), Jankelowitz said a change in the law would be a step in the right direction, but given the prevailing conservative views of government, this was unlikely.

Regardless of the law, South Africans had to change their prejudiced views of sex workers, and the police, health workers and the public should be sensitized, she said.

Eric Harper, director of the Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Task Force (SWEAT), told IRIN it would take more than sensitization training to change the treatment of sex workers.

“The emphasis has to be less on opinion change and more on actual practices to make sure people are treated in a humane and dignified way, and are given access to the services they deserve,” he said. “If I’m a health worker, I have to know that I have to act in a professional way, regardless of what I think about what people are doing.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Glidecreme og gode intentioner: Lubricant and good intentions

8 December 2008 in migration, sex work, trafficking by laura agustin | No comments | print print

Last week I found myself at lunch in the cellar of a very old building at the University of Copenhagen, on the occasion of a prostitution/sex work conference. After carefully navigating a conversation with the man on my left, a city councilman who seemed to have wandered into the wrong event (or perhaps I simply misunderstood him), I turned to the man on my right to introduce myself.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I travelled through Europe this summer talking with migrant sex workers and reading your book.’

‘Oh!’ I said. ‘Did you enjoy it?’ (How very disorienting! What is one to say?)

‘Very much. In fact, I am a journalist and an article about it has just come out in a newspaper here, it is on sale now.’

Here it is. The picture shows one social worker, one journalist and one sex worker. No high boots leaning into a car window here. 

Glidecreme og gode intentioner (Lubricant and Good Intentions)

Weekendavisen   28.11.2008   4 Sektion IDEER   pp 8-9

Foto af Anders Haahr Rasmussen: Hjælpearbejde blandt narkoprostituerede ved en af indfaldsvejene til Bratislava

Teori & praksis. Der kan være mange gode grunde til at hjælpe narkomaner og udsatte sexarbejdere. Men man kommer nemt til at gøre mere skade end gavn, advarer antropologen Laura María Agustín. Vi har besøgt Østeuropas hjælpearbejdere med Agustíns seneste bog i lommen.

Af Anders Haahr Rasmussen og Kristina Nya Glaffey 

VI står på en parkeringsplads, bilens bagagerum er fuldt af kanyler og kondomer. Klokken er kvart over ti om aftenen, stedet er Americke Namestie, en plads lidt uden for Bratislavas bycentrum. Vi har parkeret omme bag en lukket benzintank, her er så godt som mennesketomt, da aftenens første besøgende nærmer sig. Den 28-årige socialarbejder Eva Melková fra hjælpeorganisationen Odysseus er med sine to assistenter, 25-årige Jana Banáková og 21-årige Natalya Városiová, der begge studerer socialarbejde på universitetet, er klar til at hjælpe. Read the rest of this entry »

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What’s Wrong with Helping? Another example from the world of sex work

8 October 2008 in migration, sex work, trafficking by laura agustin | 15 comments | print print

The word help is very misleading, like rescue and save and rehabilitate.  Who decides which people need help and when and how?  That’s the basic problem. If you simply look at another person’s situation and think ‘How awful, I wouldn’t want to live like that, it must be intolerable!’ then you might jump to the conclusion that she or he would be happy to have any help you feel like giving. You might assume, as pointed out in the previous post on Knowing Best that everyone sees the world as you do. But it’s not true, as I discuss in Leaving Home for Sex and The Sex in Sex Trafficking.

Today’s example of failed helping comes from Thailand. Empower, whose anti-rescue poster I published a while back, has written to say that they refused to participate in the development of a ‘training package’ aimed at UN employees dealing with sex workers. They were asked to reconsider their decision. Refusing a second time, they sent the following letter to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Nossal Institute of Global Health at Melbourne University, which got the UNFPA contract to develop the material.

Dear Brigitte,

Empower had a second long joint discussion about the proposed training. Empower has decided to be faithful to our original position and not take part in the training in Bangkok. We would like to explain this position to your team as well as UNFPA.

We understand the point of the training is to decrease stigma and break down sterotypes. However, we see the very process of the development and implementation of this training reflects the prejudices held by UNFPA programmers. It is simply not acceptable to hire a team of non-sex workers to create a training module about working with sex workers. The fact that your team at Nossal contacted sex woker groups to participate in the development is perhaps to your credit, but it does not address the original insult. There are many very capable, very credible, sex worker organizations that UNFPA could have and should have hired directly to create and implement the training module. How would it be if a sex worker organization was hired to develop and implement a training module on Nossal Institute…it would be senseless, yes? Why should it make any more sense in the reverse? We know we were certainly not the only sex worker organization to refuse to take part. We also felt our expertise was being undervalued by the small token payment you were able to offer under your funding guidelines. The project is 27 months long, obviously funded at UN rates, yet from memory you could only afford to pay Empower around $AUS800 to act as advisers. We are sure the UNFPA would not accept such small payments for their staff.

However, the money is a small part of the issue. The greater concern is that UNFPA thinks this is an appropriate process! It says to Empower that the UNFPA does not believe that sex workers are intelligent, capable, valuable partners in the fight against HIV. It says to Empower that UNFPA still sees sex workers as people who are only capable of providing colour…telling some stories and acting as sex tour guides on training field trips. It says to Empower that UNFPA still does not understand concepts like “community participation” or “best practice”. For example you said [name] was helping with your project. She came to us as a young intern to learn FROM us…we are the ones who tried to teach her how to be a part of a commuity organization and now she is better placed than us to design this training!?

When will UNFPA and others see us as educators, trainers not just targets, tools or fools?

All this leaves us wondering what kind of impact can a training that is not owned by sex workers have on the attitudes of individual UN agency staff especially while the stigma and prejudice about sex workers is so obvioulsy entrenched in much of the UN system. We note that the UNFPA and other UN agencies,as late as March 2008, are still using offensive terms like “commercial sex worker” and “high risk group” in some publications despite promises made. That such a small detail as this has proven too hard for the UN to address does not bode well for the outcome of the trainings, does it?

We acknowledge that Can Do Bar is public property so we cannot decide for you whether you include whatever the video is that you made or not. You asked us to approve the script but we cannot. We have no idea where the quotes you have came from but they are not accurate. For example we never use words like “girls” Pornpit is a sex worker too and does not use terms like “they and them” – it’s “us and we”! There are about 50,000 Thai sex workers who have been involved with Empower over 20 years. We have had a handful of westerners over the same period in minor support roles. If you quote Liz instead of us, the Thai sex workers of Can Do and Empower, it encourages people to continue to believe we are stupid and can only do something if a foreigner helps us. It also just doesn’t sound like us or Can Do Bar!

Our position is not meant to reflect in any way on those groups who chose to help you… or any other group’s involvement.

Regards
Empower

Translated by Liz Hilton : On a personal note I was horrified to see my name in the acknowledgements in the Handbook. I have not knowingly or willingly contributed to your process in any way at all. Please take my name off all and any materials associated with this project. Thanks.

I might add that the whole idea of material intended to ‘train’ helpers in how to treat sex workers – or anyone else – is patronising, as though they were not human beings or needed some special psychology or sensitivity. Feh! This contract also illustrates the problem with proposing to do research about people you think are fundamentally different from yourself, often just because they live in a poorer country. This is the idea behind ‘Development’, which I won’t get started on today.  I discussed the contradictions of research in The (Crying) Need for Different Kinds of Research and Alternate Ethics. Of course, when the research subjects are sex workers, attitudes can be even more egregious.

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