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MAKING CONTACT Transcript: #23-99 Limited Choices: Women and Global Sex Trafficking Lisa Rudman: This week on Making Contact- Kamala Kempadoo: They want more options to provide for themselves, to make a living. But they also are saying that want to be able to work in prostitution if they choose to do so. Ninotchka Roska: All things must be equal before anybody can say that I have a choice. Lisa Rudman: In recent years, the international sex trade has been growing. Women are being trafficked around the world...and the backdrop of this, say many activists and scholars, is the global economy. Women's and human rights groups are now attempting to broaden the debate, addressing the full complexities of women's lives. I'm Lisa Rudman, your host this week on Making Contact, an international radio program seeking to create connections between people, vital ideas, and important information. To some people, the link between the global economy and an increase in sex trafficking may not be so obvious. But consider this: Over three decades, transnational corporations and international financial institutions have restructured production and investment in countries around the world. Sweeping changes in national economies have been profitable for a few wealthy elites, but have been primarily detrimental to working people -- unemployment and cuts in social services are among the outcomes. So, as families scramble to make ends meet, some women look for work in underground economies, including the sex trade. Although there is much debate and a spectrum of analyses, there are a growing number of both prostitutes- rights groups and anti-trafficking groups that are exposing the transnational aspect of the sex trade. At the same time, these groups are advocating human rights for all prostitutes, no matter how they got into the trade. Kamala Kempadoo, co-editor of a book titled Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition, spoke with Making Contact’s Peggy Law about the globalization of the sex industry. Kamala Kempadoo: There's an increasing number of women--young women--girls and boys in the sex trade globally . Peggy Law: What is the context - the social context, the political context. Kamala Kempadoo: It has to do with the economy of various different countries, and the underdevelopment of certain sectors in those countries. In the first instance, the economic situations in third world countries are the most urgent. Women are pushed into the informal sector. They are limited in the kind of work opportunities they have. And, prostitution is one area that seems to be very lucrative. So that, in terms of what's happening globally, in terms of the economic restructuring that's really pushing women into certain sectors, there's a closure of some areas and jobs that they're finding--in domestic work, or work in free trade zones, or maquiladoras or so forth and the sex sector. Lisa Rudman: In Burma a military dictatorship with ties to international business has ruled since 1962. There, women and girls have limited ways to contribute to their families' survival. Ellen Bruno's video called "Sacrifice" explores the complexities of Burmese women migrating to Thailand to work in the sex trade. Some women left their homes knowing they might wind up in the Thai sex industry; others were tricked: Audio from "Sacrifice" Female #1 (via translator): There is trouble all over the country, women return from the market to find men and boys taken away, to fight the enemy’s war. Door to door, the soldiers take money and rice, they come again and again, we must sell the oxen and the cart, then the fields, piece by piece - until the day there is nothing more to sell. Female #2 (via translator): We cannot make a living in the mountains. We are always in danger of dying. There are no doctors, nothing. Female #3 (via translator): I trusted the man who brought me here -- I was just a child, I was thinking of my parents who had no money. I could only earn $8 a month in Burma. He didn't tell me anything, he said I would baby sit or wash dishes. In Burma I used to wash dishes....I washed dishes and sometimes cooked. They sold me 3 times as a virgin. I never saw any money. First for $10,000, then $800, then $400 the third time. After that they charged $12, $10, or $6 per man. That's all. I thought about escaping but I didn't dare try. I couldn't even speak the language. Lisa Rudman: In the Philippines, because of changes in the economy many women leave the country in search of work. According to some figures, women's migrant labor -- including the sex trade -- is a major export of the Philippines. Additionally, global trade policies have eroded women's economic power in their home countries, according to Ninotchka Rosca, a Filipina writer and founder of the Gabriela Network, a US/Philippines solidarity organization. Peggy Law asked Rosca about how the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which established the World Trade Organization, has affected Filipina women. Peggy Law: So, let’s look at the general agreement on tariffs and trade, you seem to be saying that this takes away many women’s economic opportunities, and leaves them with less choice - could you explain that? Ninotchka Rosca: There is a clause in GATT, which is a 22,000 page document, a particular clause on intellectual property rights. This seems like a very nebulous thing to connect to women, but when you consider the tribal areas in the Philippines, the knowledge of grain is something that is held by women. Now under the GATT provision, these women can neither patent nor copyright this information, because GATT says you can only copyright or patent intellectual property if it is used for commercial purposes. Well, women by and large do not use their knowledge for profit. Women by and large use their knowledge to enhance community life, the quality of life of the family and so on. So, let's say Exxon, because it will use this information on grain for commercial purposes can patent it and once it has patented this information, the women can no longer use that knowledge. So, if you go to Hong Kong now and you look at the Philippine domestic workers there, the largest single group comes from the tribal women. It looks like it's a very nebulous connection, but it’s actually a very direct one. What most people don't know is that the majority of the rice and corn farmers are women. They know how to plant and harvest rice and corn, so they’re going to be disenfranchised, they’ll be driven into the city, they’ll end up in the slums... they’ll end up in the sex trade. Lisa Rudman: Rosca adds that the global sex trade is built upon a history of colonialism and militarism. Ninotchka Rosca: Our society, despite the fact hat we were under Spain for nearly five hundred years- our bedrock culture -- the indigenous culture is really woman-centered. We had for instance, no priests, only priestesses and if a man wanted to be a religious leader or a healer he had to wear women's clothing, so, it was a very woman-centered society, colonialism turned that upside down, but the bedrock culture persisted, the women managed the family, managed the finances of the family. And more important, they were the natal points for the transmittal of genealogy, culture, history, tradition, etc. to the next generation. Now, when you take them out of that role and turn them into sex toys or objects of sexual pleasure you reduce them to one dimension, a one dimensional entity and this has impacted on the country very badly, very badly really. Peggy Law: And the military bases exacerbate that problem? Ninotchka Rosca: We had no conception of prostitution, it's not part of our world view. We have for instance, a hundred and fifty languages, there is no word for prostitute in the language, we had to borrow the Spanish term for this. In the 1950’s when the United states started building these huge overseas bases they had ten reed huts, within the base, inside the base, with something like half a dozen women supposed to be dancing partners for the lonely GI’s. And then that thing grew and grew and grew until by the end of, I would say, by the time they pulled out of there we had an army of prostitutes. This was something really brought to us, we had no conception of this thing - of selling sex. The nearest equivalent that I can think of in my language is, and I’m translating directly, "Low flying dove" and that means the woman is not very discriminating in her partners, you know? But to sell sex- no, that’s not part of our world view. Ninotchka Rosca speaking with Peggy Law. We'll have more of their discussion in a moment. Shereen Meraji: You’re listening to Making Contact, a production of the National Radio Project, this program can now be heard across the United States and Canada, and around the world on Radio for Peace International short-wave. If you want more information about the subject of this week’s program, or you would like more information about Making Contact, please give us a call - it’s toll free: 800-529-5736. Call that same phone number for tapes and transcript orders. That’s 800-529-5736. We also welcome comments and suggestions for future programs. Ninotchka Rosca: The sex trade is systematic, it is hole scale, it is organized. Lisa Rudman: Ninotchka Rosca, of the Gabriella Network, says that tourism and sex trafficking are tightly linked. Ninotchka Rosca: It is hooked to tourism, to airlines, to international hotel chains and so on and so forth, to resorts, everything. It is now the third largest most profitable in the world after the traffic in arms, the traffic in drugs, you have the traffic in women - and in terms of the number of people involved it is the largest, something like 20 million, at any given time, this is horrendous. Lisa Rudman: One of the key questions in the international debate on sex tourism and trafficking is: Do women participate in the sex trade voluntarily or are they coerced? Kamala Kempadoo: I think just seeing it in terms of voluntary free choice or being trapped, being enslaved, somewhat polarizes the situation and doesn’t really address the complexity of what people are actually living. There are many situations where women get trapped in debt bondage, which means they are in a situation where they actually have to pay off a debt to a recruiter and are stuck in that situation, for months, maybe years, and they have to pay off their travel costs, they have to pay an exorbitant amount for food, lodging and protection. But they sometimes very consciously go into those situations, because they know, also if they work through it, they are able to acquire some kind of money. That kind of situation really goes beyond talking about being enslaved or making a choice about what you want to do. Lisa Rudman: Kempadoo researched this complexity in the Caribbean and Latin America. Kamala Kempadoo: Young women, or women in general, are often consciously weighing the kind of options they have available to them in various parts of the world. That complexity really needs to be addressed, and is not seen in a lot of coverage of prostitution in third world countries. Seeking ways to make money to provide money for themselves. An illustration of this would be a situation where, in the Caribbean, for example, women from the Dominican Republic travel to, a Dutch island, Curacao, and go there deliberately to work in a brothel for three months, without telling their family back home. But they would apply to go to work in a brothel, do that for three months and then go back home, having made a substantial amount of money. And you see this happening from Thailand to Japan. That even though the conditions of work they end up in--in the brothels or red light districts--are abhorrent and extremely bad, that the women do know that they can make some money there, and take a risky journey to go somewhere else and work in the sex trade. Lisa Rudman: Ninotchka Rosca and the Gabriela Network support all prostitutes rights without distinguishing between "voluntary" and "coerced" prostitution. Rosca challenges what she calls "the western notion of individual free choice" and says this notion of choice has no meaning given women's historical inequality. Ninotchka Rosca: It’s a very complicated situation so I get very angry when people say it's simply the choice of the women or it's simply that women are at the center of an interplay of forces, some of these forces small, like their family you know saying, "we need to eat, we need to survive," and some of these forces are huge like the Philippine government establishing a Philippine overseas employment agency, which goes around the world pimping the women. It’s already bad in this society that when a woman puts her labor on the market she's also putting her sexuality on the market, and then you're going to say this is legitimate work? How, how how??? Lisa Rudman: Since trafficked women are often undocumented immigrants, law enforcement authorities frequently treat these women harshly. Labeled as criminals, these women suffer additional abuses: prison-time, deportation, police violence, or forced return to traffickers. Internationally, there is a struggle for decriminalization. Kamala Kempadoo sees this as a way to destigmatize prostitutes and trafficked women. Kamala Kempadoo: The sex workers are demanding a decriminalization of prostitution, which is a very important aspect. They're often pushed underground, and because of that, face a lot of violence and on top of that, they're advocating a destigmatization. They’re fighting for recognition as human beings, they’re fighting for human rights. Lisa Rudman: There is a broad range of international activism around sex trafficking. The Gabriela network, for example, has initiated the purple rose campaign to oppose sex trafficking. And, the Gabriela group in the Philippines does direct organizing with women in the sex trade and provides job training, says Ninotchka Rosca. Ninontchka Roska: They do organizing around issues of work conditions and situations because being against the sex trade, the existence of the sex trade, does not preclude your caring for the welfare of the people who are working there and actually, what you want to do is empower these women so they can have the choice to leave the trade if they wanted to. There are several drop in agencies that you can go to if you are a working girl, and say, "I’m sick and tired of this thing, I want to get trained for something else." Kamala Kempadoo: In some countries they're also managing to put pressure on their governments to do HIV and AIDS prevention work. Lisa Rudman: Kamala Kempadoo... Kamala Kempadoo: Organizations that I've been working with--particularly in the Caribbean or Latin America region--who are dealing with women's rights--are beginning to work and interact with sex workers' organizations. The ILO in particular--the International Labor Office and Organization, based in Geneva have been very important in understanding sex work as a labor issue and pushing to include it as something under normal labor rights. That will also tend to alert other organizations to understanding sex work in that way, to see it as a labor issue. So very important steps are being made. I think, just by looking and listening to those women, and what they're saying through their organizations, is very important, and we see that there are little steps being made. These steps are small, but they're always beginning. And even though we're hardly seeing the decriminalization of prostitution, we are beginning to see an international recognition of the sex trade, of the problems that it involves for women, young women, girls and boys, and that something needs to be done. Just the fact that it's even being discussed in the U.S. is an important step. Lisa Rudman: In fact, the U.S. Senate is currently considering a bill that address sex trafficking. Correspondent Lisa Horan has more. Lisa Horan: Nearly two million women and girls are involved in global sex trafficking, according one estimate, although some figures are much higher. More than half that number are trafficked to the United States. To combat this growing problem, a bill was introduced into the United States Senate in March 1999. Senate Bill S600, sponsored by Senator Paul Wellstone, has sparked much controversy, however. Many feminists argue that its provisions fall far short of standards already set forth in international human rights law. The U.S. legislation, international in scope, is designed to provide temporary asylum for immigrant victims of the global sex trade. The bill would also provide victims three months to decide whether to take legal action against the traffickers, and gives victims the right to request asylum if they risk reprisal upon return to their own countries. Many domestic and international feminist groups support the introduction of this new legislation. But several key feminist organizations have also urged amendment to the bill. They argue that the definition of trafficking currently in the bill would fail to protect a substantial number of trafficking victims. Specifically, it would not protect women whose so-called "consent" to sale in prostitution or marriage is secured under the pressures of economic desperation or pressure from their families. For this reason, they say, the bill would shield many traffickers from prosecution. They have urged that the bill be amended to ensure that all trafficked women benefit from its provisions. The fact that Congress is considering such legislation shows that there is growing attention domestically to international sex trafficking. For Making Contact, I'm Lisa Horan. Lisa Rudman: Prior to the U.S. legislative response, international human rights organizations have been trying to halt sex trade networks by establishing international laws and pressing for strict enforcement mechanisms. As an example, a group called Global Survival Network, along with the International League for Human Rights, has focused on the trafficking of women from Russia and other former Soviet states, a population that had not previously been exposed to the sex trade. Their video, titled "Bought and Sold," tells of their investigation. Audio from "Bought and Sold": Narration: In 1995, while we were investigating the illegal trade of endangered species, we came across a mafia group in the Russian far east, that was selling tiger pelts, they were also trafficking Russian women to Japan. We learned that 1,000 of women are trafficked every year to Russia and the newly independent states, to locations throughout the world. Why haven’t you heard more about the problem? Because organized criminal groups control the business, which means the women are scared, governments are involved, and the community groups working to tackle the issue, lack the resources to make their voices heard. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, was a time for celebration, and promised new freedoms and opportunities throughout the former Eastern Block, however, the transition from communism to capitalism throughout Russia and Eastern Europe has lead to a sharp decline of economic status of women in the region. Female #1: 80,000 of our unemployed are women, industrial enterprise are closed. The problem of trafficking is the problem of the small towns of our country. Tatiana (via translator): An acquaintance of mine told me about the possibility to work as a dancer. He told me that I’d make lot’s of money. Narration: Tatiana is a dancer and musician, when she was twenty she accepted an offer for a job in a Cabaret in Spain. Tatiana: They treated us like animals, we didn’t have any rights, it was like we had a one way passport. Narration: Lina was trafficked to China when she was 19, she thought she would be working as a waitress and studying Chinese cooking. Lina (via translator): They began to lock us up, there were guards everywhere. There was a balcony, you could jump...if you wanted to die. They took our passports, they took them saying that they needed to register us because we’d be living there a long time. They demanded $15,000 for each passport, if you wanted to get it back. We went to the embassy and the consulate, they made empty promises. In the end, no one did anything to help, they just said they would return the money for the tickets. But who are we? If you don’t have a Visa, you don't have a right to be in the country. Lisa Rudman: The video also discusses the role of organized crime groups in Russia. The Global Survival Network views trafficking as a form of slavery and coordinates transnationally to end the sex trafficking trade. They also fight for the trafficked women themselves. Narration from "Bought and Sold": Because prostitution is not legal work, women in sex industry are often denied legal protections guaranteed to others. Female #2: It’s a question of developing democracy and the human rights of every individual, and individuals are also women, and individuals are also prostitutes. Lisa Rudman: That's it for this edition of Making Contact...a look at international sex trafficking. This week's show has been a production of the National Radio Project's Women's Desk. Thanks for listening. And, special thanks this week co-producers Rosi Reyes and Lisa Horan. Also thanks to Irina Ditlovskaya for translation and voice-over assistance. Marlar Oo also voiced portions of this show. Ellen Bruno's video "Sacrifice" is available through the distributor Film Library. And, the video "Bought and Sold" can be obtained through the Global Survival Network. Laura Livoti is our managing director. Peggy Law is executive director. Our production assistant is Shereen Meraji. Norman Solomon is senior advisor. Our national producer is David Barsamian. Phillip Babich is our managing producer. And I'm your host and Women's Desk coordinator, Lisa Rudman. If you want more information about the subject of this week’s program, call the National Radio Project at 800-529-5736. Call that same phone number for tapes and transcripts. That’s 800-529-5736. Making Contact is an independent production. We’re committed to providing a forum for voices and opinions not often heard in the mass media. If you have suggestions for future programs, we’d like to hear from you. Our theme music is by the Charlie Hunter Trio. ‘Bye for now. |