Sex Trafficking and Prostitution in South Africa

2014 ◽  
Vol 653 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chandré Gould
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Work Environment ◽  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
World Cup ◽  
The World ◽  
Depth Interviews

This article examines the complex arrangements within which women working in prostitution in South Africa find themselves, and documents their resilience in a hazardous work environment. Findings are drawn from a survey and in-depth interviews with sex workers in Cape Town that investigated the nature and extent of human trafficking in the sex industry, and from a separate survey of sex workers during the World Cup in South Africa in 2010. The findings provide the basis for a critique of Western rescue missions and the larger antitrafficking movement.

scholarly journals Football and sex: The 2006 FIFA World Cup and sex trafficking

Temida ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanja Milivojevic ◽  
Sharon Pickering
Keyword(s):  
Organized Crime ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Human Right ◽  
World Cup ◽  
Protective Measures ◽  
Fifa World Cup ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The World ◽  
Diverse Groups

The staging of the 2006 Federation of International Football Association (FIFA) World Cup brought together a wide ranging coalition of interests in fuelling a moral panic around sex trafficking in Europe. This coalition of diverse groups aimed to protect innocent third world women and prevent organized crime networks from luring them into the sex industry. In this article we will argue that as a result of increased attention prior to the World Cup 'protective measures' imposed by nation-states and the international community to prevent "disastrous human right abuses" (Crouse, 2006) have seriously undermined women's human rights, especially in relation to migration and mobility. We survey media sources in the lead up to the World Cup to identify the nature of the coalition seeking to protect women considered to be vulnerable to trafficking and the discourses relied upon that have served to undermine women's agency and diverse experiences of increased border and mobility controls. We conclude that measures introduced around the 2006 World Cup in relation to sex trafficking did not end with its final whistle.

Dark skin, hourglass figure: The sexualisation of Black women in the Dutch sex industry

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 315-330
Author(s):  
Tarah Paul
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Relevant Research ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Racial Hierarchy ◽  
Male Clients ◽  
Racial Performance ◽  
Depth Interviews

Abstract This article explores racial performance and the hypersexualisation of Black women in the Dutch sex industry. In the global sex trade, racialised women are constantly regarded as victims of sex trafficking without any agency, particularly migrant sex workers in European countries. While there is plenty of literature on how racial hierarchy affects Black women in the U.S. sex industry, such relevant research is lacking in Europe. In this explorative research, I deconstruct the images of Black women and set its narrative in the Netherlands. With semi-directive and in-depth interviews, I intend to highlight how Black sex workers perform images of Blackness and racial stereotypes when seducing male clients. My theoretical framework includes Patricia Hill Collins’s ‘controlling images’, Gloria Wekker’s ‘cultural archive’, Philomena Essed’s ‘everyday racism’, and Sunita Patel’s ‘racial performance’.

scholarly journals Sex Work, Migration, and Human Trafficking in South Africa: From polarised arguments to potential partnerships

2019 ◽  
pp. 74-90
Author(s):  
Ntokozo Yingwana ◽  
Dr Rebecca Walker ◽  
Alex Etchart
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Mobility Model ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Sex Worker ◽  
And Migration

In South Africa, the conflation of sex work with human trafficking means that migrant/mobile sex workers are often framed as victims of trafficking while arguments for the decriminalisation of sex work are discounted due to claims about the risks of increased trafficking. This is despite the lack of clear evidence that trafficking, including in the sex industry, is a widespread problem. Sex worker organisations have called for an evidence-based approach whereby migration, sex work, and trafficking are distinguished and the debate moves beyond the polarised divisions over sex work. This paper takes up this argument by drawing on research with sex workers and a sex worker organisation in South Africa, as well as reflections shared at two Sex Workers’ Anti-trafficking Research Symposiums. In so doing, the authors propose the further development of a Sex Work, Exploitation, and Migration/Mobility Model that takes into consideration the complexities of the quotidian experiences of migration and selling sex. This, we suggest, could enable a more effective and productive partnership between sex worker organisations and other stakeholder groups, including anti-trafficking and labour rights organisations, trade unions, and others to protect the rights and well-being of all those involved in sex work.

Experiences of Hearing Parents Following the Diagnosis of Their Child's Hearing Loss

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronel Sanet Davids ◽  
Mariana De Jager
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Qualitative Methodology ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Best Interest ◽  
Ethical Considerations ◽  
Hearing Parents ◽  
Phenomenological Design ◽  
Depth Interviews

An estimated 90 per cent of children with a hearing loss are born to hearing parents. Most parents are unprepared for the diagnosis, leaving them shocked, confused, sad and bewildered. This article reports on a study aimed at exploring and describing the experiences of hearing parents regarding their child’s hearing loss. The study was conducted in Cape Town, South Africa. The study applied a qualitative methodology with a phenomenological design. Purposive sampling was implemented and data were collected by means of unstructured in-depth interviews. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Ethical considerations were adhered to. The main findings of the study indicated that hearing parents experience a myriad of emotions when their child is diagnosed with a hearing loss. This study advocates for various stakeholders in the helping profession to collaborate in the best interest of hearing parents and a child with hearing loss. Furthermore, these findings serve as guidelines for professionals working with these families.

scholarly journals The Double-Edged Sword of Health and Safety: COVID-19 and the Policing and Exclusion of Migrant Asian Massage Workers in North America

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 157
Author(s):  
Elene Lam ◽  
Elena Shih ◽  
Katherine Chin ◽  
Kate Zen
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Interpersonal Violence ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
The State ◽  
Emergency Relief ◽  
Sexual Services

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.

scholarly journals Revisiting notions of sex trafficking and victims

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 274-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana Piscitelli
Keyword(s):  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
Female Sex Workers ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
International Level ◽  
Work Experiences ◽  
Brazilian Society ◽  
The Face ◽  
International Human

This article examines the migratory processes and work experiences of Brazilian female sex workers active in Spain. It is based on ethnographic research conducted over eleven months, at different moments between November 2004 and January 2012, in Barcelona, Madrid, Bilbao and Granada. The principal argument is that the notions of prostitution and international human trafficking held by Brazilian sex workers clash with those found in the current public debate of these issues. Brazilian migrant sex workers' acts and beliefs defy political and cultural protocols on the national and international level, and fly in the face of the 'destiny' that Brazilian society laid out for these individuals.

Migration, Agency, and the Sex Industry: Practitioners’ Perspectives on Foreign Sex Workers in Turkey

2017 ◽  
Vol 62 (10) ◽  
pp. 2954-2981
Author(s):  
Omur Kaya ◽  
Edna Erez
Keyword(s):  
Sex Workers ◽  
Close Contact ◽  
Sociocultural Factors ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
Legal Reforms ◽  
Sex Market ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Depth Interviews

The article presents the political, economic, and sociocultural factors that make Turkey an attractive destination for foreign sex workers, and reviews trends in official statistics of arrested traffickers, rescued victims, and deportation of migrant illegal sex workers. In-depth interviews of 20 law enforcement and nongovernmental organizations staff members, who in the course of their work come into close contact with foreign sex workers, shed light on the statistics. The interview data provide insights into the structure of the Turkish sex market, the factors that bring foreign women to work in this market, and the impact of legal reforms on the circumstances of foreign sex workers. The article concludes with the implications of the findings for public policy.

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