Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want rain without thunder and lightning. – Frederick Douglass
In my column for International Sex Workers’ Rights Day, I mentioned that it was started by an Indian sex worker rights organization named Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC), which has over 65,000 members. Yes, you read that correctly: sixty-five thousand, in other words more members than all American sex worker rights organizations combined (and multiplied several times). As I’ve said before about Cambodian activists,
…can you imagine this many American hookers making this kind of effort? If [they]…can unite against oppression, why can’t we?…sex work activism here is marginal at best; I daresay few Americans realize that the sex worker rights movement even exists. And it’s our own fault; we’re just too damned afraid to speak up for our own, too afraid of government-inflicted violence, too afraid of social and legal persecution, and too brainwashed by false notions of “sisterhood” to fight the twisted lies spread by neofeminists.
Though the Western cultural imperialists of the “rescue industry” imagine white Westerners to be more “enlightened” than brown-skinned people from poorer countries, and claim that prostitutes in those countries are invariably helpless victims, the opposite is closer to being true: American whores and our allies have a great deal to learn from Asian sex worker rights organizations, who are anything but helpless. DMSC recently celebrated its 20th anniversary, and you may find this article (via Dr. Laura Agustín’s March 8th column) enlightening:
…a mere passage of two decades can seem irrelevant in the life of Sonagachi—the red-light area in Kolkata and among the largest brothel districts in Asia. Yet, in these 20 years, 38-year-old Swapna Roy has seen a change in the way people refer to her—from being sneeringly mentioned in the coarse Bengali equivalent of slut, Roy today is a jouno kormi — a sex worker…she is…the joint coordinator of a project which sensitizes around 3,000 sex workers on safe and hygienic practices…“We have come to realize that sex work is like any other work and I’m like any other worker. In these two decades, we have learnt to appreciate this.”
…Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC) [is] a collective of 65,000 sex workers from West Bengal…[which] works for women’s rights and is at the forefront of the fight against HIV/AIDS and related issues…[it] has been responsible for bringing out into the streets—and into middle-class drawing rooms, through newspaper and television coverage—the issues facing sex workers, including the demand for legal sanction for the profession…15 February [marked] 20 years since a team of medical professionals, led by Smarajit Jana of Kolkata’s All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, visited Sonagachi on an HIV intervention research study. In due course, Dr Jana realized that for the sex workers, their children’s education, access to financial services and fending off police harassment and torture by local thugs was more important than urging a client to use a condom. So Dr Jana founded DMSC…From 12 members in 1995, DMSC draws its current strength of 65,000 members from 48 branches across the state, each headed by an elected secretary…Some sex workers…have health insurance, while some have got voter identity cards with the Election Commission of India recognizing their [DMSC] membership as valid identity proof. State Bank of India has also begun to recognize sex work as a profession while opening accounts…DMSC also runs 17 non-formal schools for children of sex workers, and two hostels…Members of Komol Gandhar, DMSC’s cultural wing dedicated to dance, drama, mime and music and run by the children, get invited regularly for paid shows…The Durbar football team, largely comprising children of sex workers, has for the first time in the 2011-12 season, participated in the nursery football league conducted by The Indian Football Association, West Bengal…
“We don’t dissuade adult and willing girls from entering the profession. It is easy to say sex work is bad, but most girls come from poverty stricken families and are uneducated,” says Purnima Chatterjee, who sits on a self-regulatory board, which works as a watchdog body in all DMSC branches against trafficking and introduction of minor and unwilling girls into the trade…“We know of so many girls who got raped when they went to work as household help or in factories. Many of them opted to come to Sonagachi and get paid for sex. Who are we to stop them?” retorts Pushpa Sarkar, who works at Avinash clinic (for sexually transmitted infections) run by Durbar and is also on the self-regulatory board…
Banks recognizing sex work as a profession? Schools and sports teams for the children of openly-declared prostitutes? That’s like science fiction in the United States, where fanatical prudes pretend escorts are incapable of charity and government agencies steal their children (a tradition “trafficking” fetishists are trying to export to India). The industry, ambition, courage and teamwork of Indian sex workers put the weak, diffuse and toothless efforts of their American sisters to shame.
Nor is it limited to India; anti-sex worker groups claim that essentially every whore in Bangladesh is a pathetic slave, but on March 3rd the prostitutes of Dhaka took to the capital’s streets to protest harassment by police and other “authorities”. Korean hookers are literally battling police for their rights, and videos made by both Cambodian and Thai sex worker rights organizations call international attention to abuses perpetrated by the police at the urging of fanatics like Somaly Mam. A group of 7000 sex workers in Nairobi plans to take its demand for decriminalization to the high court of Kenya after the city government insisted their trade would remain criminal, and even the whores of Botswana have been able to secure the support of a prominent local human rights group in their bid for rights. Sex workers in Thailand even produced their own study:
“We have now reached a point…where there are more women in the Thai sex industry being abused by anti-trafficking practices than there are women exploited by traffickers,” [said Chantawipa Apisuk, the director of Thai sex worker rights organization Empower, at the recent release of a report, “Hit & Run: Sex Workers’ Research on Anti-trafficking in Thailand“]…More than 20,000 sex workers make use of Empower’s contact points…and…sex work is now widely regarded as a quasi-legitimate profession, with its own form of employers and self-employed workers. Inevitably…prostitution remains a crime in the eyes of many…but the kindlier view, that they are victims of human trafficking, isn’t a great deal of help either, Chantawipa said…The “Hit & Run” report is an effort to assess the state of the profession. More than 200 sex workers helped the foundation conduct a survey over the course of 12 months, in bars, restaurants and brothels across the county and even into Burma and Laos…Migration, it was noted, is part of the “culture” of sex work, and the brokers involved in transporting people are generally seen as helpful. Most don’t charge exorbitant rates…
But the anti-trafficking law regards sex workers as victims, so those who enforce it believe they are “rescuing” the prostitutes. That just makes things worse…”Before I was arrested I was working happily, had no debt, and was free to move around the city,” said Nok, a Burmese. “Now I’m in debt, I’m scared most of the time, and it’s not safe to move around. How can they call this ‘help’?” Once “rescued” and after a period of detainment, the foreign workers are deported (only to return at the first chance) and the Thais usually have to undergo vocational training…[Empower’s] aim now is to get the government and other concerned parties to stop using the word “victim”, to stop putting trafficking and sex work in the same category…[the] research project [was launched]…with a one-day exhibition at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, displaying the “Mida Tapestry”, sewn by migrant sex workers as a way to document and show the impact police raids have on their lives. It carries a second message in that the detained sex workers are regularly forced or offered sewing lessons as a cure-all for social ills.
Everywhere in the regions dismissed as the “third world” by Westerners, sex workers are organizing, protesting and demanding that officials cease hounding and persecuting them. In many of their countries sex work is every bit as criminal as it is in the US; these activists face the same possibility of brutal reprisals as American sex worker activists do. But unlike their timid American counterparts, Asian and African sex workers recognize that anything worth having is worth fighting for, and that they aren’t going to win their rights by merely commiserating with each other.
One Year Ago Today
“Out of Context” shows how prohibitionists use studies of imprisoned or addicted streetwalkers to produce bogus “prostitution” statistics, and provides links to several methodologically-sound studies that tell a very different story.
Damn, I have my email set to ALARM whenever a new Maggie McNeil article is published and it woke me up this morning at 0130!! WTF!!
LMAO – No, I’m only kidding about the alarm! 😛
These are all good news stories, Maggie and they make me feel very good. They’re a great contrast to the constant drum of “trafficking! Trafficking!” that is so much a part of the Western experience. These gals are a great example to the West – but, let’s face it – their example won’t take root here because … we have too much important stuff to do.
I think what you’re missing, Maggie – is the fact that, this is the WEST by-dammit. We’re the cradle of civilization as it’s known today and it’s a heavy burden to bear. You may not realize it … but there’s people fuckin’ out there (and probably someone doing it right now and probably someone doing it last night when your article published at 0100 – which, anyone should have been in bed by then because today’s a work day!). And more than that … there are people out there drinking sugary sodas at this very moment. People driving SUV’s and the like and polluting up the place and causing the planet to warm up and shit. We got District Attorneys and Cops out there (and God bless ’em) … working hard to lock up kids for smoking a joint because – MY GOD, there are kids smoking joints out there!
I saw a guy riding into work today on his motorcycle without a helmet!
We got serious problems here, Maggie – not like the kats in Bangladesh who are more concerned with where their next meal is coming from than they are about the truly IMPORTANT shit that we have to worry about!!!
(Sorry – “run on” sentences are the way I talk since I have big lungs! :P)
I saw an article this week online that says in the inner circles of the Chinese government – they view the US as a declining power. Really? Seriously? That’s supposed to be a news flash? The entire slate of Western civilization is in decline because of our “priorities”.
Well, I published my April 1st column at just after midnight so people in Australia and New Zealand could see it on the correct day, then I realized if I set it to autopublish at 4:01 CST (which is 5:01 CDST) every reader in the world (except for a few Pacific islands) would get it on the proper date. So I’m working toward that; by Friday it will be there. The Kiwis will see it at 22:01 and the Hawaiians at 1 minute after midnight, but the date will be correct for everybody. 🙂
I swear your “attention to detail” on these things exceeds that of even the best Flag Writer I ever met in the Navy. 😛
Well, I’m pretty meticulous, which is actually a useful trait in both librarians and call girls. 🙂
You can just imagine what the average Thai-in-the-street thinks when on one hand the US government and NGOs pressure and threaten in order to force Thailand to crack down on trafficking, while on the other, hordes of American men fill the red light areas every night.
I wonder if the reason they are doing such courageous work in “the third world” is because things have gotten SO bad that they feel all the work and risk of organizing is small compared to the current situation?
Perhaps in the US the risks of being publicly exposed, or reprisals by law enforcement, are greater than the risks of keeping quiet.
Excellent article. I thought about your website as I almost got into an argument with an MRA who stated corruption was worse than prostitution, as prostitution “endangers” the morals of an individual, and corruption damages the morals of a nation. Now when I asked him to quantify this exceedingly stupid statement(and gave him comparisons to show prostitution is in no way comparable to political corruption) he said “my statement is not up for debate”. Just disgusting, but this article gave me a bit of an uplift. Was seriously burned out with MRA stuff(especially when faced with stupid stuff like that, as it’s really incredible to argue for men’s rights yet still spit on prostitutes), but if these women can keep on going when facing much worse adversity so can I. I also noticed how you mentioned that the sex workers organized a watch dog group to prevent people from trafficking or abusing underage girls, and this was done without some government registry. I find that much easier to stomach then just depending on some kind of referral system or other. What are some more things those not in the sex industry can do to help?
In Korea, the “battles” with police are on a par with everyone else; everyone battles police here. It’s a mark of pride to say you were beaten or arrested by cops, who are almost always fresh-faced 19 year-olds doing it as their military service and who are usually thoroughly unenthusiastic about it. Goading a government here into sending out the riot cops is absurdly easy.
And prostitutes have won a series of cultural victories of late. Mostly, men who used to be quite oppressive have been caught out going so far as to run brothels and keep regular (paid) mistresses, who are prostitutes by any other name (and are often actual prostitutes with one or two clients after exiting a more energetically diverse part of the industry).
Literally thousands, if not more, of young girls are engaging in “paid girlfriend” work: generously compensating older men pay for the attention of younger women, usually college students.
They’re careful not to be “outed”, but many privately work to support prostitutes’ rights – most especially this one: The right to work and the legitimacy of the trade.
It’s one thing to fight for better conditions and pay, etc. But most have decent conditions, the pay is better than almost all office jobs, something prohibitionists fail to note, and far from being for the uneducated, it’s often a path to education and advancement:
– You make male allies from whom you get information and contacts. While often “tainted”, these can prove to be insanely useful. I know a former prostitute who parlayed her contacts into a useful business venture not related to prostitution.
– You get huge amounts of free time other women don’t get. Instead of spending 8-12 hours a day in an office, grappling with vicious office politics, you work a fraction of that time for more than twice the money. Also, you don’t pay taxes.
– It serves as an optoin for women who are attractive to incrase the amount of money they earn and to gain huge amounts of power in a relationship.
Instead of having some boyfriend, you make “boyfriends” fork over valuable resources.
of course, there are those who do it out of weakness.
But there’s a general understanding growing in Korea that prostitutes are people too, and that the work is legitimate and that the single most important right —
– the right to work and the legitimacy of the work –
– is being respected more.
Prosecuting their clients as a matter of course helps no prostitute.
“Sure, it’s fine to sell milk, but we’re putting everyone who drinks it in jail.”
>- You get huge amounts of free time other women don’t get. Instead of spending 8-12 hours a day in an office, grappling with vicious office politics, you work a fraction of that time for more than twice the money. Also, you don’t pay taxes.
What? I must have been doing it totally wrong.
In the years I was an independent call girl, I paid taxes. In our society today, it’s all but impossible to live without a paper trail, without bank accounts, and a credit rating. If you have all that you’d better be paying taxes. If you don’t, and you’re arrested, you can often find the government making up some outrageous sum they thought you made, and deciding to take a chunk of that.
And free time? My time might not have been as routinely scheduled as an office worker, but I worked hard. I often saw 3-6 clients per day. Time now with clients was spent cleaning up after, or preparing for the next. The rest of the time was spent answering the phone, e-mail, running checks on clients, and I also had a website to maintain.I had to regularly shoot new content for that. My days were quite full.
I also did two hours a day of work-out to keep in shape. My days often started at 9-10 am and ended around midnight.
Gorby’s talking about KOREAN hookers (if I’m not mistaken).
I would agree with his assessment on that. Labor laws aren’t quite as strict in Korea, so the average Korean laborer can work quite hard with longer hours and lower pay. We still have a lot of GI’s stationed in Korea who get paid in US greenbacks. Even the paltry sums an Army E-3 can pony-up are “big bucks” to the girls out there. Prostitution, in the right places in South Korea, is definitely a smart path up the “ladder”.
When I was “steaming” through Asia back in the 80’s with the Navy … we hit the brothels but we did more than that – we LIVED in them temporarily. We got to know the girls, got to know their life stories and, even if they hadn’t lived a hard life – most all of them had come from poor families. We had a lot of empathy for them and it wasn’t unusual for us to help one out when she was in trouble. I remember several times we took up a “collection” of money for girls who needed to buy a bus ticket to visit family or needed to pay an advance on a new apartment. I remember one gal in the P.I. worked in this one brothel and she was really nice and the guys liked her a lot – but the job just wasn’t for her. Still, she had no place to go because her parents wouldn’t allow her to return to their home. Someone talked the base MWR services into hiring her (she spoke great English) and she served drinks in the club and made a very good wage compared to other Filipinos. She was very happy with that.
And by the way … I LOVE the Filipino people. Not a lot of people know this … but when the Japanese Army marched the Americans off the Bataan Pennisula … an 80 mile death march … the Japanese mistreated the Americans by beating them, even bayoneting them all along the way. Very little food or water and many died of exhaustion. Many Filipino civilians risked their lives in open view of the Japanese by attempting to help the Americans by giving them food and water and attending to their injuries.
And many Filipinos were murdered by the Japanese for doing so.
I suspect that most Americans understand about as much about the real story of the Philippines in WWII as most of us do France in WWII.
Reading that exhausted me! So did you claim a legal activity to account for your earnings, like ‘companion’ or domestic worker?
Why haven’t sex workers been de-criminalized? I’m astounded that the goverment can stand the thought of money floating around, unaccounted for. Well, look at the experience with gambling.. If Nevada makes lots of money, I bet that other states would take notice and consider ‘adult districts’.
Oooh–if I get my employees certified as nurse aides, could I operate a completely legal ‘home care’ agency for those older, still virile men running the country? One that really gets them off? –tickled–
Maggie,
This what happening my State (Western Australia)
http://www.magenta.org.au/resources/Prostitution_Bill_2011.pdf
One Independant MP pushing for certain amendments in order get her support for the bill. One those amendments that are being proposed will effectively make this bill a bit like the Swedish Policy.
the proposed amendment is to remove the criminal focus and imprisonment penalty for the seller in clause 10. But keep the imprisonment penalty for the cilent in clause 9.
Certain licensed premises to still be allowed to operate and cilents would be able legally access them. But the conditions are almost unworkable.
Yes, I reported on that in TW3 #10 and I’m going to address the new development in tomorrow’s TW3 #14. It’s sad that politicians feel they need to control people and things even when they have perfect examples of how their controls hurt people.
Yes, I did list a legal occupation.
To what extent do you think the difference in geographic scale plays into the different rates of participation in activism in the US? And a similar question about the need for change to happen at each state’s level?
India is almost as large as the US, and has a much larger population; Australia is almost as large as India but has a comparatively-tiny population. And both do MUCH better at activism than the US. I think American anti-sex attitudes and tyrannical criminalization policies have a lot more to do with it than size, population or population density.
Thanks. I didn’t mean to downplay US Puritanism, but wanted to get your opinion on additional possible influences.
Being a mostly ignorant USian, do India and Australia require efforts in each state or at the national levels to change SW-impacting laws?
I’m proud of the sex workers in India ;).
Although I agree with Sailor Barsoom.
I think it’s because they’re already rejected and have nothing to loose, that they come up with this initiatives, which I applaud, by the way.
They’re rejected, but not alone. On the contrary, their communities make them strong. They’re very willing to live their way, and they are organized
If I would come out in my oh-so-progressive country (well, not when it comes to prostitution), I’d be rejected by most people I know, AND I would be alone with my ideas. Plus, proclaiming my ideas would turn out dangerously for me, for I have no real organization or community to go to if I’m wronged or hurt.
Nevertheless, In all the injustice of downright rejection, these people find hope and the courage to unite, and fight against injustice as a group, and to respect other sex workers as people.
[…] *http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/an-example-to-the-west/ […]
[…] into the prohibitionist arsenal of slurs as he might have liked. Read that number again: sixty-five thousand. And Durbar is only one of many such organizations in India: SANGRAM, VAMP and others are so […]