Is Prostitution and Trafficking of Women justifiable? A view from Zambia. (original) (raw)
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The paper is an attempt to explore and defend African ethico-feminism as a viable complementary ideology for curbing the challenges of prostitution and female trafficking in 21 st century Africa. It argues that African ethico-feminism is a new conception of feminism necessarily relevant to the African predicament on prostitution and female trafficking. This ideological perspective strongly condemns prostitution and female trafficking as ethically unjustified. The paper posits that the strength, resilience and resounding liberation of African women can be positively harnessed and enhanced in order to reduce the spate of prostitution and female trafficking in the continent. It identifies the roles of men and youth in Africa towards curbing prostitution and female trafficking. Finally, the paper harps on the urgent need for African states to augment the principles of ethico-feminism with other viable measures in an attempt to evolve a holistic panacea to the wave of prostitution and female trafficking in Africa.
Slavery or Work? Reconceptualizing Third World Prostitution
positions: asia critique, 1999
Third World prostitution is often described as sexual slavery, as violence to women, or as the ultimate expression of female oppression. Nevertheless, many women who work in the sex trade in Third World and other non-Western countries, including Asia, propose that we understand prostitution in a different light: as work within a clearly defined industry, as a survival strategy, or as a way of making do when other options are limited or closed. H o w d o feminists concerned with structural gendered inequalities and patriarchies deal with such claims? Are Third World prostitutes, who argue that they are "sex workers," operating under a false consciousnessare they supporting patriarchy by promoting prostitution? Have they simply adopted a liberal Western discourse from the prostitutes' rights movement in Europe and North America, which stresses entrepreneurship within a capitalist economy? O r are there other ways to conceptualize Third World prostitution? positions 7:'
Women, Trafficking, and Forced Prostitution in Africa
The Palgrave Handbook of African Women's Studies
The chapter interrogates the illicit transportation of women within Africa and their attendant forced prostitution. The argument is that a multiplicity of factors such as the collapse of primary commodities, globalization, and the emergence of numerous non-state actors such as Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, the Tuaregs, Al-Shabaab, and the Boko Haram has impelled numerous conflicts and a refugee crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa causing a migratory wave of young persons who often move from West Africa to East, North, and Southern Africa in search of better living and with the intention of crossing into Europe if offered the opportunity. It argues that the existing asymmetry in the international political order, feminization of poverty, and bad governance create a duality even within Africa that impels poverty stricken and marginalized women to seek employment and better well-being. But unfortunately these women often fall prey to criminal syndicates who force them into commercial sex work for profit maximization. Many of these women did not set out ab initio to prostitute but rather went in
Transnational Prostitution—a Global Feminist Response?
Prostitution is now identified as a transnational issue requiring global solutions in relation to its regulation and legislation. But the question of what constitutes a feminist legally based response to prostitution remains a matter of dispute. Ongoing conflicts within metropolitan feminist circles over the meanings of sex/uality for women, combined with the United Nation's (UN) acknowledgement of women's rights as human rights, have produced two divergent conceptions of prostitution as a legitimate target of governmental intervention. Extrapolating on the UN's recognition of gender discrimination and violence as issues that stem from and reinforce the secondary status of women, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) associated with the feminist abolitionist lobby contend that prostitution constitutes a form of violence against women and hence a violation of human rights. As a result, they are currently lobbying within the UN, and other political forums, for nations to work towards the eradication of prostitution by decriminalising and providing support for women in prostitution, whilst simultaneously criminalising those who create the demand for, and profit from, the sexual exploitation of others. Conversely, NGOs who endorse the platform of the prostitutes' rights movement maintain that abolitionist and prohibitory prostitution laws constitute a violation of the human rights of women to control their own bodies, lives and work. In consequence, they are currently lobbying within the UN, and other political forums, for nations to recognise all forms of 'voluntary' prostitution, by decriminalising consensual commercial sexual practices, and placing 'the sex sector' under the jurisdiction of commerce and labour, as opposed to criminal, laws.
Book Title: Should Prostitution Be Legalised? The Oppression Paradigm Versus The
Introduction Prostitution is defined as a form of non-marital sexual activity characterized by financial reward and absence of long-term fidelity between two parties (Tierney, H.1999). Prostitution has been widely debated, condemned for its immoral and degrading nature. On the other hand, there are liberal feminists who have counter argued saying that prostitution is very empowering. The controversy surrounding prostitution has divided feminists worldwide. Radical feminists are of the opinion that prostitution is an institution of male dominance that exploits economically vulnerable and emotionally damaged women for the sake of male pleasure. In this regard, prostitutes become involuntary victims of patriarchy or conscious participants in the degradation of women. This therefore has impacts on all women as a group as prostitution continually affirms and reinforces patriarchal definitions of women as having a primary function to serve men sexually. Conversely, liberal feminists find in prostitution a practice of women‘s resistance to and sexual liberation from norms and traditional moral precepts of sexuality that have long served to control and subordinate women. Others see prostitution as a means of wrestling patriarchal control over women‘s sexuality that women should be at liberty to do (Tamale, S, 2008). Prostitution therefore raises moral and legal questions. The legal question is should the practice be criminalized? In addition, the moral question is, is it wrong to sell or buy sex? These are questions I will endeavor to answer which are informed by the lived realities of women who make their living through prostitution. Prostitution or the selling of sex is, as some would call it, one of the oldest professions in the world as it has been there since time immemorial. What is of interest is the way the law has decided to make it its business who and how people have sex by criminalizing prostitution. As criminal law is meant to regulate social harms, what harm is caused by prostitution? The law seems to be a toothless bulldog in light of the fact that regardless of the criminalization of prostitution many women still engage in the trade and make a living out of it. Criminalizing prostitution seems to be a futile exercise as it is failing to achieve the intended results that of deterring other possible perpetrators; instead. it just frustrates the women who engage in it as they are essentially constantly harassed by the police without any prosecution. Why are there double standards as regards prostitution; why is it that it is only the sellers and not the buyers who are penalized? Is it not a case for patriarchy to further want to domesticate women and ensure that their sexuality is controlled and tamed within marriage? Considering that women in Africa are the least educated and when they are employed it is usually an extension of work done in the domestic arena which is the least paid; is prostitution not one of the better choices from the pool of work that they have to choose from? (Tamale, S, 2008). It is therefore a need to look at prostitution as work and not on the sex as it were so that prostitutes not further driven underground which makes them vulnerable and susceptible to violence. Criminalization creates a culture permitting violence against sex workers and sanctions violence and discrimination against them. Sex workers are also afraid to report crimes against them, knowing that police may arrest them or may not take their claims seriously. If criminalization has failed to reduce prostitution or protect the most vulnerable, what alternative model should take its place? It is this research case that prostitution should be viewed as a legitimate option of work for women that identifies with bodily autonomy, financial independence and the notion of choice (Sanders et al 2009, 23).
Prostitution and Gender-based Violence
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2014
Prostitution is not the oldest "trade" in the world; rather, it is the oldest form of exploitation, slavery and gender-based violence devised by men to subjugate women and keep them at men's sexual disposal. Whenever prostitution is discussed, the role played by the client is disregarded, protected and minimised. However, it is essential to understand the starting point of this situation: "There is no supply without demand". It is men who, as a class, maintain, enforce and perpetuate subjection to this form of genderbased violence, demanding this "trade" and socialising new generations in its "use". In general, studies on the subject have failed to address this issue, and the consumers of prostitution themselves experience difficulty recognising and accepting their responsibility. This refusal to engage in a critical examination of the users of prostitution, who are by far the most important link in the system of prostitution, is nothing more than a tacit defence of male sexual practices and privileges. It is therefore fundamentally contradictory to talk about and advocate equality between men and women during the education of children whilst simultaneously supporting relationships and spaces of power that are an exclusively male preserve and in which women only seem to have a place when they are at the service of men. We have a duty to imagine a world without prostitution, just as we have learnt to imagine a world without slavery, without apartheid, without gender-based violence and without female infanticide or genital mutilation. We must not abandon our aspirations to transform society and teach equality between men and women.
Consultation seeking views on UN Women approach to sex work, the sex trade and prostitution
Consultation seeking views on UN Women approach to sex work, the sex trade and prostitution Question 1) Goal 16.2 of the Sustainable Development Agenda is to 'End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children'. This goal cannot be achieved while the global sex trade persists. Child prostitution is not an incidental feature of the global sex trade; the trade fundamentally relies upon it.0 F 1 This is due to five factors: 1. Male sexual demand met through prostitution generates greater profits for pimps in the case of younger victims. Research shows sex buyers preferring younger victims,1 F 2 intentionally and frequently requesting underage victims,2 F 3 and younger victims as having higher monetary value in the global sex trade.3 F 4 2. Recruiting and retaining victims for sexual trading is easier in the case of children. The heinousness of prostitution means that pimps must employ strategies of deception and manipulation to recruit sufficient numbers of people to trade for sex.4 F 5 These tactics are more easily deployed in relation to children who are unworldly, developmentally vulnerable, and often seeking emotional sustenance.5 F 6 Recruitment in adolescence is shown to increase the length of time women are in the sex trade.6 F 7 The profitability of this fact further makes children a preferred target for sex trade recruiters. 3. Once in the sex trade, children are more easily controlled and exploited than adult victims. By virtue of their social standing relative to adults, children have little capacity to resist or escape the control of pimps, and few ways of deflecting sex acts inflicted by prostitution buyers.7 F 8 4. Familial systems of inter-generational trading of women and girls in countries like India rely fundamentally on the incorporation of underage girls in prostitution systems while they are still wholly dependent on family members and before they reach marriageable age.8 F 9 5. Children are a disproportionately impoverished section of the worldwide population, even in rich countries.9 F 10 Research shows poverty making girls highly vulnerable to sexual exploitation. Even when poverty affects children only indirectly through families, they are still disproportionately impacted by it when these families sell them to brokers,1 0 F 11 or send them away in order to receive remittances.1 1F 12
Sex Work and Human Rights in Africa
Fordham International Law Journal, 2009
This Article serves as the first law review essay to engage the feminist debates regarding sex work and human rights in the African context. This Article surveys "antiprostitution" and "pro-sex-worker" feminist arguments and activities in the sub-Saharan Africa; explores the debate surrounding the legal frameworks of legalization, decriminalization, prohibition, and abolition of prostitution in a number of African countries including Senegal, where prostitution is legal and regulated, and South Africa where prostitution remains illegal despite civil society advocacy for decriminalization; and calls for the empowerment of African sex workers by arguing for a human rights-based transformation in African governments' legal and policy posture towards sex work. Part I of this Article explores both the feminist arguments against prostitution and in favor of sex workers' rights. Part II traces the development of the distinction between forced and unforced prostitution in international law and argues that the international human rights system creates a foundation for the realization of sex workers' rights in Africa. Part III explores the debates regarding the criminalization of prostitution in a number of African countries and includes case studies from Senegal and South Africa.