Gender, Exploitative Migration, and the Sex Industry: A European Perspective

Abstract

This article weaves together three dimensions of sex trafficking, notably commercial sex as violence against women, as a livelihood option, and as part of the social formation of an inter-state system of transaction of sex as a commodity. Based on data from Europe, the article shows how analysis of violence against women in commercial sex must be taken beyond the workplace and located in social processes that precede it—economic policy of transition and intra-state violence that undermine women's human insecurity in their daily lives. Diverse forms of violence at the workplace are outcomes of the treatment of women as a commodity on the labor market through unethical self-regulating recruitment systems, as well as an ineffective regulation of migration and commercial sex. Responses to this problem at EU level could benefit from a human security framework sensitive to existing sex/gender systems and their dynamics.

Sex Tourists in Their Own Country: Digital Media Advertising of Asian Women by the Australian Sex Industry

“…Seabrook (1996, p. 3) notes in his research on Western male sex tourists in Thailand that "[o]ne thing that clearly draws Western men to Thai women is the perceived capacity of the women for…tenderness; a quality conspicuously absent from the sex industry in the West." This demand for what Western men perceive to be the innate considerateness and compliance of Thai women to please and nurture as part of the sexual transaction is documented in many studies of men's motivations for participating in sex tourism (Hamilton, 1997;Kruhse-MountBurton, 1995;Seabrook, 1996;Truong, 2003). Sex tourism is, in Garrick's words, an "industry [that] thrives upon the eroticisation of the cultural Other" in which the "racist stereotypes toward Third World women who represent the 'exotic' Other are used as marketing tools" to promote the industry (Garrick, 2008, p. 499).…”

“…Jeffreys, 1999S. Jeffreys, , 2009Seabrook, 1996;Truong, 1983). In this literature, the phenomenon is analyzed in a range of ways.…”

Sexualities in/of the Global South

“…This thread also runs through part of the highly contested academic and policy debates about sex work, sex tourism, the sex industry and trafficking (Agustin 2007; Andrijasevic 2003; Legg 2010; Richardson et al. 2009; Truong 2003), where academic work highlights the social and economic organisation and control of sexuality as well as the sexualities enacted by sex workers and their clients, often explicitly addressing the sexualised dimensions of sex workers’ affective labour and the embodied experiences of uneven global economic relations. As Jolly has argued, there has been an implicit tendency within much policy research in this area to focus on the risks and dangers of sexualities, whilst the associations between love, pleasure and sex are frequently obscured (Jolly 2007, see Knerr 2008).…”

Human Trafficking: Globalization, Exploitation, and Transnational Sociology

“…Economic globalization and its accompanying policies play a direct role, as the expansion of global capitalism creates shifts in labor opportunities and economic security for men and women around the world. Neoliberal policies and structural adjustment programs in the Global South and economic restructuring in Eastern Europe and have left large groups of people economically vulnerable (Castles 2003; Limanowska 2005; Truong 2003; Truong and Angeles 2005a). Increasing inequalities and poverty within countries create marginalized populations without safety nets to ensure basic necessities such as food or shelter, nor social provisions such as education and health care.…”