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Sociological Perspectives on (Sexual) Humanitarian Governance of Migrant Sex Work
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Sociological Perspectives on (Sexual) Humanitarian Governance of Migrant Sex Work

A special issue of Social Sciences (ISSN 2076-0760). This special issue belongs to the section "International Migration".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2020) | Viewed by 77045

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Nick Mai

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Criminology and Sociology, Kingston University London, Thames KT1 2EE, UK
Interests: migrants working in the global sex industry; humanitarian representations of the relationship between migration and sex work

Special Issue Information

Contemporary times are characterised by the convergence of the inequalities engendered by neoliberal policies and the parallel increase in both migration flows and restrictive migration policies. They are also characterised by the global rise of neo-abolitionist policies attempting to eradicate sex work, framed as sexual exploitation and trafficking, which often translates into harmful policies exacerbating the exploitability and deportability of marginalized, racialized and sex-gendered migrant groups. This convergence is the background for the emergence of sexual humanitarian forms of governance, control and protection of migrant sex workers, whose understandings and experiences of agency, exploitation and trafficking tend to be marginalized and ignored by global academic and policymaking debates.

This Special Issue aims at putting migrant voices and perspectives at the centre of these debates. It also aims to challenge the priorities and categories framing sexual humanitarian governance and interventions by focusing on their impact on migrant sex workers’ rights and lives. This Special Issue invites collaborative submissions co-written by academics and community members in order to put migrant sex workers’ perspectives, experiences and priorities at the centre of the sociological, political and policymaking debates addressing them.

We welcome contributions about the impact of COVID 19 on the lives and rights of migrant and non migrant sex workers, and on the politics, policies and social interventions that are implicated.

Bio

Nicola Mai is a sociologist, ethnographer and filmmaker working as a professor of sociology and migration studies at Kingston University London. His academic writing and films focus on the experiences and representations of migrants working in the global sex industry. Through collaborative ethnographic documentaries and original research findings, Nicola Mai challenges prevailing humanitarian representations of the relationship between migration and sex work in terms of trafficking while analysing sex workers' complex experiences and understandings of exploitation and agency. Nick is the author of Mobile Orientations: An Intimate Autoethnography of Migration, Sex Work, and Humanitarian Borders (Chicago University Press, 2018).

Prof. Nick Mai
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Social Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Sex Work
  • Migration
  • Humanitarian interventions
  • Exploitation
  • Agency
  • Trafficking
  • Anti-Trafficking
  • Modern slavery

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 263 KiB  
Article
Unfinished Decriminalization: The Impact of Section 19 of the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 on Migrant Sex Workers’ Rights and Lives in Aotearoa New Zealand
by Calum Bennachie, Annah Pickering, Jenny Lee, P. G. Macioti, Nicola Mai, Anne E. Fehrenbacher, Calogero Giametta, Heidi Hoefinger and Jennifer Musto
Soc. Sci. 2021, 10(5), 179; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10050179 - 19 May 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 7377
Abstract
In 2003, Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) passed the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 (PRA), which decriminalized sex work for NZ citizens and holders of permanent residency (PR) while excluding migrant sex workers (MSWs) from its protection. This is due to Section 19 (s19) of [...] Read more.
In 2003, Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) passed the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 (PRA), which decriminalized sex work for NZ citizens and holders of permanent residency (PR) while excluding migrant sex workers (MSWs) from its protection. This is due to Section 19 (s19) of the PRA, added at the last minute against advice by the Aotearoa New Zealand Sex Workers’ Collective (NZPC) as an anti-trafficking clause. Because of s19, migrants on temporary visas found to be working as sex workers are liable to deportation by Immigration New Zealand (INZ). Drawing on original ethnographic and interview data gathered over 24 months of fieldwork, our study finds that migrant sex workers in New Zealand are vulnerable to violence and exploitation, and are too afraid to report these to the police for fear of deportation, corroborating earlier studies and studies completed while we were collecting data. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sociological Perspectives on (Sexual) Humanitarian Governance of Migrant Sex Work)
17 pages, 307 KiB  
Article
The Double-Edged Sword of Health and Safety: COVID-19 and the Policing and Exclusion of Migrant Asian Massage Workers in North America
by Elene Lam, Elena Shih, Katherine Chin and Kate Zen
Soc. Sci. 2021, 10(5), 157; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10050157 - 29 Apr 2021
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 8047
Abstract
Migrant Asian massage workers in North America first experienced the impacts of COVID-19 in the final weeks of January 2020, when business dropped drastically due to widespread xenophobic fears that the virus was concentrated in Chinese diasporic communities. The sustained economic devastation, which [...] Read more.
Migrant Asian massage workers in North America first experienced the impacts of COVID-19 in the final weeks of January 2020, when business dropped drastically due to widespread xenophobic fears that the virus was concentrated in Chinese diasporic communities. The sustained economic devastation, which began at least 8 weeks prior to the first social distancing and shelter in place orders issued in the U.S. and Canada, has been further complicated by a history of aggressive policing of migrant massage workers in the wake of the war against human trafficking. Migrant Asian massage businesses are increasingly policed as locales of potential illicit sex work and human trafficking, as police and anti-trafficking initiatives target migrant Asian massage workers despite the fact that most do not provide sexual services. The scapegoating of migrant Asian massage workers and criminalization of sex work have led to devastating systemic and interpersonal violence, including numerous deportations, arrests, and deaths, most notably the recent murder of eight people at three Atlanta-based spas. The policing of sex workers has historically been mobilized along fears of sexually transmitted disease and infection, and more recently, within the past two decades, around a moral panic against sex trafficking. New racial anxieties around the coronavirus as an Asian disease have been mobilized by the state to further cement the justification of policing Asian migrant workers along the axes of health, migration, and sexual labor. These justifications also solidify discriminatory social welfare regimes that exclude Asian migrant massage workers from accessing services on the basis of the informality and illegality of their work mixed with their precarious citizenship status. This paper draws from ethnographic participant observation and survey data collected by two sex worker organizations that work primarily with massage workers in Toronto and New York City to examine the double-edged sword of policing during the pandemic in the name of anti-trafficking coupled with exclusionary policies regarding emergency relief and social welfare, and its effects on migrant Asian massage workers in North America. Although not all migrant Asian massage workers, including those surveyed in this paper, provide sexual services, they are conflated, targeted, and treated as such by the state and therefore face similar barriers of criminalization, discrimination, and exclusion. This paper recognizes that most migrant Asian massage workers do not identify as sex workers and does not intend to label them as such or reproduce the scapegoating rhetoric used by law enforcement. Rather, it seeks to analyze how exclusionary attitudes and policies towards sex workers are transferred onto migrant Asian massage workers as well whether or not they provide sexual services. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sociological Perspectives on (Sexual) Humanitarian Governance of Migrant Sex Work)
18 pages, 317 KiB  
Article
Anti-Trafficking in the Time of FOSTA/SESTA: Networked Moral Gentrification and Sexual Humanitarian Creep
by Jennifer Musto, Anne E. Fehrenbacher, Heidi Hoefinger, Nicola Mai, P. G. Macioti, Calum Bennachie, Calogero Giametta and Kate D’Adamo
Soc. Sci. 2021, 10(2), 58; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10020058 - 08 Feb 2021
Cited by 18 | Viewed by 12381
Abstract
Globally, sex workers have highlighted the harms that accompany anti-prostitution efforts advanced via anti-trafficking policy, and there is a growing body of social science research that has emerged documenting how anti-trafficking efforts contribute to carceral and sexual humanitarian interventions. Yet mounting evidence on [...] Read more.
Globally, sex workers have highlighted the harms that accompany anti-prostitution efforts advanced via anti-trafficking policy, and there is a growing body of social science research that has emerged documenting how anti-trafficking efforts contribute to carceral and sexual humanitarian interventions. Yet mounting evidence on the harms of anti-trafficking policies has done little to quell the passage of more laws, including policies aimed at stopping sexual exploitation facilitated by technology. The 2018 passage of the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the corresponding Senate bill, the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA), is a case study in how efforts to curb sexual exploitation online actually heighten vulnerabilities for the people they purport to protect. Drawing on 34 months of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with sex workers and trafficked persons (n = 58) and key informants (n = 20) in New York and Los Angeles, we analyze FOSTA/SESTA and its harmful effects as a launchpad to more broadly explore how technology, criminalization, shifting governance arrangements, and conservative moralities cohere to exacerbate sex workers’ vulnerability. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sociological Perspectives on (Sexual) Humanitarian Governance of Migrant Sex Work)
16 pages, 279 KiB  
Article
Theorizing the Continuities Between Marriage and Sex Work in the Experience of Female Sex Workers in Pune, Maharashtra
by Shakthi Nataraj and Sutapa Majumdar
Soc. Sci. 2021, 10(2), 52; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10020052 - 01 Feb 2021
Viewed by 5276
Abstract
Marriage is near-universal in India, where most cisgender women sex workers have been married at some point in their lives, while also navigating responsibilities to family and children. In this paper, we explore how cisgender women sex workers in Pune, in the Indian [...] Read more.
Marriage is near-universal in India, where most cisgender women sex workers have been married at some point in their lives, while also navigating responsibilities to family and children. In this paper, we explore how cisgender women sex workers in Pune, in the Indian state of Maharashtra, experience continuities between sex work and marriage, while navigating an ideological landscape where sex work and marriage are positioned as opposites. Returning to feminist theoretical models that highlight the economic underpinnings of marriage, we outline three arenas in the Indian context where marriage and sex work overlap rather than remaining opposed and separate entities: (a) migration, (b) attributions of respect and stigma, coded through symbols of marriage and sexual availability, and (c) building and dissolving kinship networks that contest the primacy of biological or affinal kin. In each of these realms the distinction between marriage and sex work is a fraught and contested issue, and the roles of wife, mother, and sex worker can shade into one another based on context. We then examine how three women navigate these contradictions, arguing that focusing on kinship and marriage can circumvent the limitations of the choice versus coercion paradigm that structures current debates on sex work. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sociological Perspectives on (Sexual) Humanitarian Governance of Migrant Sex Work)
20 pages, 1081 KiB  
Article
Sex Work, Essential Work: A Historical and (Necro)Political Analysis of Sex Work in Times of COVID-19 in Brazil
by Betania Santos, Indianarae Siqueira, Cristiane Oliveira, Laura Murray, Thaddeus Blanchette, Carolina Bonomi, Ana Paula da Silva and Soraya Simões
Soc. Sci. 2021, 10(1), 2; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10010002 - 24 Dec 2020
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 22827
Abstract
Brazil has made international headlines for the government’s inept and irresponsible response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this context, sex worker activists have once again taken on an essential role in responding to the pandemic amidst State absences and abuses. Drawing on the [...] Read more.
Brazil has made international headlines for the government’s inept and irresponsible response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this context, sex worker activists have once again taken on an essential role in responding to the pandemic amidst State absences and abuses. Drawing on the theoretical framework of necropolitics, we trace the gendered, sexualized, and racialized dimensions of how prostitution and work have been (un)governed in Brazil and how this has framed sex worker activists’ responses to COVID-19. As a group of scholars and sex worker activists based in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, we specifically explore the idea of sex workers as “essential workers”, but also of sex work as, essentially, work, demonstrating complicities, differences, and congruencies in how sex workers see what they do and who their allies in the context of the 21st century’s greatest health crisis to date. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sociological Perspectives on (Sexual) Humanitarian Governance of Migrant Sex Work)
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19 pages, 336 KiB  
Article
Framing the Mother Tac: The Racialised, Sexualised and Gendered Politics of Modern Slavery in Australia
by P. G. Macioti, Eurydice Aroney, Calum Bennachie, Anne E. Fehrenbacher, Calogero Giametta, Heidi Hoefinger, Nicola Mai and Jennifer Musto
Soc. Sci. 2020, 9(11), 192; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci9110192 - 28 Oct 2020
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 6806
Abstract
Centred on the slavery trial “Crown vs. Rungnapha Kanbut” heard in Sydney, New South Wales, between 10 April and 15 May 2019, this article seeks to frame the figure of the “Mother Tac” or the “mother of contract”, also called “mama tac” or [...] Read more.
Centred on the slavery trial “Crown vs. Rungnapha Kanbut” heard in Sydney, New South Wales, between 10 April and 15 May 2019, this article seeks to frame the figure of the “Mother Tac” or the “mother of contract”, also called “mama tac” or “mae tac”—a term used amongst Thai migrants to describe a woman who hosts, collects debts from, and organises work for Thai migrant sex workers in their destination country. It proposes that this largely unexplored figure has come to assume a disproportionate role in the “modern slavery” approach to human trafficking, with its emphasis on absolute victims and individual offenders. The harms suffered by Kanbut’s victims are put into context by referring to existing literature on women accused of trafficking; interviews with Thai migrant sex workers, including Kanbut’s primary victim, and with members from the Australian Federal Police Human Trafficking Unit; and ethnographic field notes. The article unveils how constructions of both victim and offender, as well as definitions of slavery, are racialised, gendered, and sexualised and rely on the victims’ subjective accounts of bounded exploitation. By documenting these and other limitations involved in a criminal justice approach, the authors reveal its shortfalls. For instance, while harsh sentences are meant as a deterrence to others, the complex and structural roots of migrant labour exploitation remain unaffected. This research finds that improved legal migration pathways, the decriminalisation of the sex industry, and improved access to information and support for migrant sex workers are key to reducing heavier forms of labour exploitation, including human trafficking, in the Australian sex industry. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sociological Perspectives on (Sexual) Humanitarian Governance of Migrant Sex Work)
15 pages, 254 KiB  
Article
“We Have Advised Sex Workers to Simply Choose Other Options”—The Response of Adult Service Websites to COVID-19
by Lilith Brouwers and Tess Herrmann
Soc. Sci. 2020, 9(10), 181; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci9100181 - 13 Oct 2020
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 12551
Abstract
In-person sex work is one of the industries most directly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to connect with clients, most independent sex workers use adult service websites (ASWs), whose services range from simple advertising websites to platforms with both direct and [...] Read more.
In-person sex work is one of the industries most directly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to connect with clients, most independent sex workers use adult service websites (ASWs), whose services range from simple advertising websites to platforms with both direct and indirect governance of workers. Although ASWs do not employ sex workers, their response to the pandemic has a large impact on sex workers’ financial and physical wellbeing. This effect is even stronger among migrant workers, who are less likely to qualify for, or be aware they qualify for, government support. This study reviews the response to COVID-19 of 45 of the leading ASWs in Britain, and triangulates the data with seven sex worker-led organisations. It shows a large variation in the responses of ASWs: the majority had no public response to the pandemic at all, a minority took intentional steps to support workers or donated to hardship funds for sex workers, and at least one ASW reduced their safety features during the pandemic. These findings illustrate that while most ASWs do not acknowledge the influence they have over the working practices of their service users and the shift of economic risk to them, some recognised the potential that their platforms have to support sex workers during crises. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sociological Perspectives on (Sexual) Humanitarian Governance of Migrant Sex Work)
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