On the Dehumanization of Sex Workers

Posted on January 15, 2007 by chatombre.
Categories: Articles, General, My Art, Political, Writing.

This is a research brief that I wrote for school last semester.

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On the Dehumanization of Sex Workers

by Katie Armistead

Dehumanization is happening in the world today. An example of this is the dehumanization of sex workers.

“Whore” is often used as a derogatory term; this is common knowledge. This seems just as dehumanizing to sex workers as using “gay” as a derogatory term is to homosexual people. This is also proof that sex workers are often considered lowly creatures in many cultures today.

Many people seem to think that a person who is a sex worker cannot be raped. Because of this unfortunate, but commonly held belief, sex workers are very rarely able to prosecute rapists (Karen 145-146, Lockett 39-40, Gardener). An example of this from 2003 is a case mentioned in a publication by the Human Rights Watch. According to their publication, “one police officer suggested that because a woman who had been abducted was a prostitute, her case was not rape, despite the fact that the woman reported it as rape and there was evidence of significant bruising and other injuries.” Not only do many police officers not protect sex workers, but sometimes they are the people who rape or otherwise harm the sex workers (Lockett 39-40).

Sex workers are often harmed in other ways as well (Frundt, Times Reporter, Tjaronda, Gardener). Sometimes a customer will become rough with a sex worker and abuse a sex worker, refuse to pay a sex worker, or pay with a check that bounces. Sex workers are often afraid to go to the police in these cases as well because they fear what the police will do to them (Lockett 39-40, Gardener).

The issue of the dehumanization of sex workers is not simply a sex workers’ rights issue, but is a women’s rights and human rights issue as well.

“The only solution to the oppression of women exploited as prostitutes is a political elimination of the very notion of female sexual/economic transgression (chosen or forced) by granting all women the same rights, liberties and protections against violation as those to which human beings in general, i.e. men, are entitled. All women’s rights are attached to prostitutes’ rights because the whore stigma can disqualify any woman’s claim to legitimacy and throw suspicion on any woman accused of economic and/or sexual initiative” (Pheterson 105).

If sex workers have no rights, then women do not truly have the same rights as men. Men’s rights are also endangered, as some sex workers are male. Thus, denying sex workers their rights is endangering human rights as a whole. According to Tutu, such is the way with all forms of dehumanization; “Injustice [and] oppression dehumanize the oppressor as much as – if not more than – the oppressed.”

Ann Gardener learned quite a bit about the problems sex workers have to face when a sex worker hired her as a computer consultant. One of these problems is money. Because of the risks involved in being in a sex worker’s business place, the sex worker had to pay four times the normal price to have Gardener teach her to set up and use her new computer. This is because Gardener could have been arrested simply for being in the sex worker’s business place. If any police officers had caught Gardener doing business with the sex worker, she would have been dehumanized as well.

Another problem that sex workers face is a lack of healthcare (Gardener). Sex work does not have benefits; sex workers cannot acquire health insurance through their jobs. This is a very serious issue, as there are many sexually transmitted diseases.

Apparently President Bush has not only started a war on terror, but has also started a war on sex work. According to Audacia Ray of $pread magazine, in 2005, Bush “put forth a requirement that all United States HIV/AIDS organizations seeking funding to provide services in other countries must pledge to oppose commercial sex work” (24-25). The organizations that did not sign a written pledge lost funding. This is an example of more recent attacks on sex workers.

Works Cited

French, Dolores, and Linda Lee. Working: My Life as a

Prostitute. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1989.

Frundt, Tina. “Life with an Abusive Pimp.” Prostitution.

Tamara L. Roleff, Ed. Contemporary Issues Companion Series. Greenhaven Press, 2006. Tina Frundt, testimony before the House Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade, and Technology, Committee on Financial Services, April 28, 2005. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Dekalb County Public Lib., Decatur, GA. 12 Nov. 2006 < http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/OVRC?locID=dkpl>.

Gardener, Ann. Personal Interview. 15 Nov. 2006.

Human Rights Watch. “Climate of Fear: Sexual Violence and

Abduction of Women and Girls in Baghdad.” Human Rights Watch July 2003. 11 Nov. 2006 < http://hrw.org/reports/2003/iraq0703/index.htm>.

Karen. “The Right to Protection from Rape.” Sex Work:

Writings by Women in the Sex Industry Eds. Frédérique Delacoste and Priscilla Alexander. First Edition. Pittsburgh and San Francisco: Cleis Press, 1987. 145-146.

Lockett, Gloria. “What Happens When You Are Arrested.” Sex Work:

Writings by Women in the Sex Industry Eds. Frédérique Delacoste and Priscilla Alexander. First Edition. Pittsburgh and San Francisco: Cleis Press, 1987. 39-40.

Pheterson, G. The Prostitution Prism. Amsterdam:

Amsterdam University Press. 1996. P. 105

Ray, Audacia. “Global Sex Worker News.” $pread. Summer 2005:

24-25.

Sex Workers Outreach Project. 15 Nov. 2006

< http://www.swop.org.au/>.

The Sex Workers Project. 2006. Urban Justice Center.

15 Nov. 2006 < http://www.sexworkersproject.org/>.

Times Reporter. “Call-Boys Pounce On Suspected Sex Worker.”

Africa News Service. March 26, 2004. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Dekalb County Public Lib., Decatur, GA. 12 Nov. 2006 < http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/OVRC?locID=dkpl>.

Tjaronda, Wezi. “Ex-Sex Worker Tells of Life On the Streets.”

Africa News Service. Jan. 11, 2006. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Dekalb County Public Lib., Decatur, GA. 12 Nov. 2006 < http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/OVRC?locID=dkpl>.

Tutu, Desmond. “Just call me Arch.” New Internationalist

July 1992. < http://www.newint.org/issue233/endpiece.htm>.

2 comments.

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Mohammad Khairul Alam

Comment on April 18th, 2007.

Street Sex Workers are Vulnerable HIV/AIDS in Bangladesh

Mohammad Khairul Alam
AIDS Researcher
24/3 M. C. Roy Lane
Dhaka-1211, Bangladesh
rainbowngo@gmail.com
Tell: 880-2-8628908
Mobile: 01711344997

Sexually transmitted diseases/ infections — also known as STDs/STIs and once called venereal diseases — are infectious diseases that spread from person to person through intimate/ sexual contact. There are different kinds of STDs, Some kinds of STDs are very dangerous for human health. It can cause permanent damage, such as infertility (the inability to have a baby) and even death. HIV/AIDS is one of the STDs/STIs that are on the rise in sex workers and Injection Drug Users.

Sex work is central to an epidemic that is primarily spread by unprotected heterosexual intercourse. It is also a feature of all countries and cultures, encompassing a wide range of people and behaviours. Sex work can involve men and transgender people, as well as women. People who are engaged in selling sex obviously have multiple sex partners and are therefore highly vulnerable to several Sexual Transmission Diseases (STDs/STI) and HIV/AIDS infection. Because they have many sexual partners, they are also more likely to transmit the virus to other people unless condoms are always used. As mentioned by AIDS researcher Mr. Anirudha Alam, “Street Sex Workers contracting HIV/AIDS through unprotected sex with HIV infected men and sexual abuse has become a persistent problem, especially in South Asia”.

Bangladesh is still a low prevalence country (HIV-infection rate is less than 1%), but there is a potential for expanding HIV/AIDS epidemic in the future, because the country is very receptive to HIV infection. Sex work exists at significant levels in Bangladesh, and condom use is low. In Bangladesh, sex workers in brothels as well as on the streets reported rather high client turnover, by Asian standards. Women working in brothels nationwide averaged 19 clients a week, and street workers reported between 12 and 16 in different cities. Consistent condom use is among the lowest in the region.

Street Sex Workers (SSWs) in Bangladesh would play a critical role of HIV/AIDS infections. Due to the types of their work, the lack of sexually transmitted infections (STI/STDs) knowledge and low acceptance of condom use, SSWs represent a highly vulnerable group in Bangladesh. The sharp rise in others sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in Bangladesh contributes to the spread of HIV and may lead to a extensive epidemic, as the heterosexual mode of others STI transmission accounts for an increasing percentage of HIV transmission. Studies of street beggars conducted by Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation & L.R.B Foundation in mid-2006s at Kamrangir Char, Lalbagh and Polashi in Dhaka city in Bangladesh surveyors confirm the 40-45 per cent of homeless beggars (adult male) indulge in multi-partner sex with less than 10 per cent of them reporting condom use. Street Sex Workers are the main sexual partners of them.

Street Sex Workers are closely associated with the tourism and transport industries where they find a large supply of potential clients. They get their clients by waiting on the streets. Most of them run on their work separately, though some rely on brokers for help in getting clients. The favored method of work is to wait on busy streets, which make available custom as well as relative confidentiality to the contract, as opposed to the less frequented localities. Bus stops, railway stations, cinema halls and river-bank are the usual locations where the contract is negotiated, from where they go to cheap hotels, under constriction building, darkness park-place and lodges with their clients.

Day by day, Sex work is increase in Bangladesh. However Ms. Roushan Ara Rekha, Executive Director of GHARONI, an expert in the field, she said, ‘On a regional basis, infected men probably outnumber infected women by a factor of 3 to 1 or more, since commercial sex clients, injecting drug users and men having sex with men have contributed most strongly to the rapid initial growth of the epidemic. This male/female ratio is expected to drop as the epidemic spreads into the general population through spread of HIV from clients of sex workers to their regular partners and spouses.’

M. C. M. Lokman Hossain, Executive Director of Association for Social Advancement & Rural Rehabilitation (ASARR) said, if we want to reduce sex trade we have to clarify our vision on sex work first. Traditional perspectives on prostitution have been repressive, moralising and controlling, perceiving sex workers and their customers to be objects rather than active subjects, excluding them from discussions and decisions around policy and legislation.

Reference: GHARONI report, ASARR report, Sex work network

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