Merchants of flesh.Violence against girls and women has been declared, by the Worldwacth Institute among others, the most common human-rights violation on earth. Yet a prevalent form of such violence often goes unrecognized as such--namely, internationally organized prostitution. White slavery white slavery n. Forced prostitution. and indentured servitude servitude In property law, a right by which property owned by one person is subject to a specified use or enjoyment by another. Servitudes allow people to create stable long-term arrangements for a wide variety of purposes, including shared land uses; maintaining the are not terms applicable only to a distant and benighted be·night·ed adj. 1. Overtaken by night or darkness. 2. Being in a state of moral or intellectual darkness; unenlightened. be·night past; they are as applicable today as they ever were. Throughout the so called free world, literally millions of girls and women do not voluntarily choose to become prostitutes but are duped, kidnapped, raped, coerced, or sold outright into the trade. And the poorer the country, the more likely it is that many of its girls and women find themselves trapped in a brothel life. Internationally organized prostitution depends on a pernicious combination of Third World poverty, First World economic development policies, laws that permit international trafficking and indentured servitude, and worldwide patriarchal cultural norms that encourage male sexual prerogatives. But despite the sheer magnitude of these factors, there are some signs of hope. More and more women, both in the Third World and the developed world, are discussing the global politics of prostitution: the direct links between developmental policies pushed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and the experiences of 14- and 15-year- old village girls in such countries as Kenya, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Thailand, the Philippines, Brazil, and Honduras. In some places, activists are organizing to help the children and women who have been forced into a life of prostitution. And feminists and others are beginning to demand an end to those policies, laws, and practices which promote prostitution as a multinational growth industry. Lured and Sold Each year thousands of uneducated, orphaned, abandoned, and destitute girls and young women across Asia, the Pacific, and Africa are given false promises of good jobs, transported across borders, and then sold into brothels BROTHELS, crim. law. Bawdy-houses, the common habitations of prostitutes; such places have always been deemed common nuisances in the United States, and the keepers of them may be fined and imprisoned. 2. in urban centers from Bombay to Bangkok to Nairobi. A 1991 conference of Southeast Asian women's organizations This is a list of women's organisations. International
1. the chemical and physical cleaning of fleece wool. 2. diarrhea. dietetic scour see dietary diarrhea. peat scour see secondary nutritional copper deficiency. train stations, poor villages, and urban streets looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. young girls and women who appear vulnerable. In 1991, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (Urdu: تنظیم حقوق انسانی پاکستان), or HRCP estimated that there were 200,000 Bangladeshi women in forced prostitution in Pakistan, yet not a single trafficker was arrested or convicted that year. When arrests do occur, it is always the women who are arrested and charged with violation of immigration laws immigration laws npl → leyes fpl de inmigración immigration laws npl → lois fpl sur l'immigration immigration laws npl . New Delhi New Delhi (dĕl`ē), city (1991 pop. 294,149), capital of India and of Delhi state, N central India, on the right bank of the Yamuna River. has become a major center in South Asia This article is about the geopolitical region in Asia. For geophysical treatments, see Indian subcontinent. South Asia, also known as Southern Asia for the international buying and selling of girls and women. In Bombay, there are at least 100,000 prostitutes in 25 grubby red-light districts A list of world red-light districts. Africa Kenya
Morocco
. Many were lured into the city by promises of domestic or factory jobs or marriage. The women (some actually girls as young as 11) learn too late that they are being sold into prostitution. Shamed by their fate, frightened, and financially indebted to the brothel owners for their food and clothes, few can escape their circumstances; and even if they do, it is unlikely they will be accepted back into their villages because their families often come to depend upon the money sent home from their meager mea·ger also mea·greadj. 1. Deficient in quantity, fullness, or extent; scanty. 2. Deficient in richness, fertility, or vigor; feeble: the meager soil of an eroded plain. 3. earnings (after the brothel has taken at least so percent). Washington Post reporter Molly Moore has collected the stories of some of these women ("Third World Prostitutes: Entrapped by Fate in a Sordid Trade," February 16, 1993). Asha, whose name means "hope," is typical: she was 12 years old when a man from her rural Bangladeshi village offered to take her to India and marry her. Instead, once in India, the man sold her to a trafficker who in turn sold her to a brothel. Asha resisted, ran away, and was brought back; after a year or so, she lost her spirit and her desire to escape. Now she has been a prostitute for a decade. Shanta Bai, at age 10, was sold to a trafficker for $17 by the elderly village woman who had taken care of her when her parents died but found she could no longer afford to feed her. Sarla was abandoned by her parents when she was eight and raised in a New Delhi brothel. And in "The Skin Trade" (June 21, 1993), Time reporter Margot Hornblower tells the story of Manju, daughter of a poor farmer, who was 12 when her mother died. Unable to care for three children, Manju's father handed her over to two strangers who said they would take her to Bombay to work as a housemaid. In Bombay, the two men sold Manju to a brothel for $1,000. She is never allowed to set foot outside the brothel; the brothel owner takes half of the approximately $7 Manju earns each day, also deducting for rent, food, and clothing. She is also expected to repay her "purchase" price; after seven years, she still "owes" $300. The fate of these women is dismal. In Bombay, more than one third of all prostitutes tested positive for HIV HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), either of two closely related retroviruses that invade T-helper lymphocytes and are responsible for AIDS. There are two types of HIV: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is responsible for the vast majority of AIDS in the United States. , making them, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the World Health Organization, one of the highest risk groups in the world. In the June 12, 1994, edition of the Houston Chronicle, Binaya Guruacharya tells the story of Gita, one of an estimated 200,000 women from rural Nepal who work as prostitutes in India. Gita was lured from her impoverished Nepalese village by a cousin who promised her a good job in a carpet factory in Katmandu. He then left her in a Bombay brothel. For five years the brothel owner paid her nothing, saying he had given her wages to her cousin. When she fell ill, she was thrown out of the brothel. She couldn't read the health report or the prescription the doctor had given her because she was illiterate. It was only when she returned home that she found out she had the HIV virus. Gita's story is representative: whether sick or well, after age 40 most prostitutes in India are forced out into the streets, where they attempt to survive by begging or stealing. Once on the streets, they soon die. The Packaged Sex Tour A growing form of international prostitution is the government,sponsored sex tour. Thailand is a notorious example. In bars all along Bangkok's Pat Bong and Soi Cow,boy streets, teenage girls, just brought in from rural villages where female modesty is a strong part of Thai culture, dance awkwardly on stage in scanty bathing suits with numbers pinned on. Waitresses circurate among the tables taking drink and girl orders. In a brothel in Chiang Mai Chiang Mai (jyäng` mī`) or Chiengmai (jyĕng`–), city (1990 pop. 164,902), capital of Chiang Mai prov., N Thailand, on the Ping River, near the Myanmar border. , young women sit behind a plate-glass display window. Each wears a heart-shaped price tag on tag on Verb to add at the end of something: a throwaway remark, tagged on at the end of a casual conversation Verb 1. her blouse advertising how much a half hour of sex with her will cost. The women are always on call, with 10 to 20 customers a day. In this particular brothel, four out of five women carry the AIDS virus AIDS virus n. See HIV. . Even in the more expensive brothels, at least one out of five women is infected. Despite these ominous facts, the brothels and bars of Bangkok and other Thai cities are described in glowing, exotic terms by Thai government literature. It is all part of the promotion of tourism among businessmen from Japan, Germany, Norway, Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia (sä  `dē ərā`bēə, sou`–, sô–), officially Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, kingdom (2005 est. pop. , Holland, Australia, and the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. . Foreign johns, who feel safely anonymous away from home, are now among Thailand's leading sources of hard currency. In 1991, a group of women from several countries, including the United States, picketed the World Trade Fair in Tokyo to protest Thailand's government sponsored exploitation of girls and women. Thailand's sex tour industry is best understood from a global economic perspective. In 1967, Thailand contracted with the U.S. government to provide "rest and recreation" services to the troops during the Vietnam War Vietnam War, conflict in Southeast Asia, primarily fought in South Vietnam between government forces aided by the United States and guerrilla forces aided by North Vietnam. . Robert McNamara For the figure skater, see . Robert Strange McNamara (born June 9, 1916) is an American business executive and a former United States Secretary of Defense. McNamara served as U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968, during the Vietnam War. was then U.S. Secretary of Defense. In 1971, while the war was still on, the World Bank, headed by the same Robert McNamara, recommended the development of mass tourism in Thailand Tourism in Thailand is a major economic factor of Thailand. The tourism industry received a boost when US soldiers went there in the 1970s pausing from the Vietnam war. In 2005, 13.38 million international guests visited Thailand, a 14.84% increase on 2004, staying 8. as a way for the country to pay on its debts to the bank for agricultural development loans. The economic initiatives consequent on the bank's report led directly to the $4 billion a year multinational Thai sex tour industry, which involves a net work of cozy relations between banks, airlines, tour operators, hotels, and bar and brothel owners and agents, all of whom extract their profits from the bodies of pitifully underpaid village girls, some as young as 14. So entrenched en·trench also in·trench v. en·trenched, en·trench·ing, en·trench·es v.tr. 1. To provide with a trench, especially for the purpose of fortifying or defending. 2. and officially sanctioned is the sex tour industry that many Thai politicians, officials, and policemen invest in the trade and grow rich from it, with certain politicians reputed to own chains of brothels. Moreover, the Thai government depends for part of its annual revenue on the prostitution of its women to foreign johns, making it in effect the consummate international pimp. Estimates by the International Labor Organization International Labor Organization (ILO), specialized agency of the United Nations, with headquarters in Geneva. It was created in 1919 by the Versailles Treaty and affiliated with the League of Nations until 1945, when it voted to sever ties with the League. as to the number of female prostitutes in Bangkok alone total as many as 200,000; and some observers think there may be as many as 500,000 prostitutes in Thailand altogether, with occasional estimates (if one includes child prostitutes) as high as two million. Pasuk Phongpaichit Pasuk Phongpaichit is a Thai economist, a Professor at Chulalongkorn University, and the author of several books on corruption in Thailand. Her books include A History of Thailand, Thaksin: The Business of Politics in Thailand, and Thailand's Crisis , a Thai sociologist, estimates that up to 8.2 percent of the Thai female population between the ages of 15 and 34 is or has been employed in the sex industry. The highest estimated earnings for a bar girl--in terms of earnings and working conditions, an elite among Thai prostitutes-- is only $160 a month (about what two nights at an international hotel would cost), yet entire families in the countryside survive on the earnings of one daughter in Bangkok, and whole villages are made up of such families. Compared to the magnitude of organized prostitution in Thailand Prostitution in Thailand was first described in the West in reports by sailors visiting what was then called Siam, as early as the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the Vietnam war, Thailand has gained international notoriety among travelers from Japan, Korea and Western countries as , organized resistance is still on a much smaller scale. Organizations such as Friends of Women and Empower work with prostitutes, teaching them about condoms and about AIDS and other risks that they face. Empower enrolls over 100 women in English classes so they can avoid being cheated by foreign johns. Chantawipa Apisuk, who runs Empower, says, "People don't want to talk about the profiteers" Apisuk maintains that the rich need to be controlled, not the poor; and she asks, "Why not open factories instead of brothels and bars?" However, the terrible fire at a doll factory near Bangkok in 1993 gives an idea of the current conditions of employment conditions of employment that part of an employment that sets out the duties, responsibilities, hours of work, salary, leave and other privileges to be enjoyed by persons employed, for example a veterinary nurse, in private practice. options outside the sex industry for young, uneducated Thai women. Indentured Servitude Most of the women in city brothels come from small rural villages where agricultural development policies have pushed many families off the land and into poverty. Slick brothel agents visit the villages where they induce parents to bond their daughters to the brothels in exchange for cash, supposedly an advance on salary. Additional inducements--such as refrigerators, television sets, or jewelry--may be offered, especially for virgins under age 17. Brothel agents may induce village monks to hold beauty contests on temple grounds so that parents will be more wiling to bring their daughters to market. Once in a brothel, a young woman is virtually in indentured servitude. She must earn back her "debt" She must buy from the company store at inflated prices, while money is deducted for days lost due to illness, menstruation menstruation, periodic flow of blood and cells from the lining of the uterus in humans and most other primates, occurring about every 28 days in women. Menstruation commences at puberty (usually between age 10 and 17). , turning away a customer who refuses to wear a condom, or any of many "sins." She may never see any of the money she earns but may work her entire time trying to pay off her debt. Thai brothels are nationwide chains and women are shipped around the country. If a woman becomes infected with the AIDS virus or becomes pregnant, she may be sent home with nothing but bus fare Noun 1. bus fare - the fare charged for riding a bus or streetcar carfare fare, transportation - the sum charged for riding in a public conveyance . At home, her future is bleak, with small chance of being accepted back by her family. It is likely she will end her days in a village brothel. Organized prostitution and the sex-tour business have spread to Cambodia, South Korea, and Myanmar (formerly Burma). Cambodian women activists and the Cambodian Human Rights Task Force report that forced prostitution is growing and that the male-dominated government does nothing about it. An article in the April 10, 1994, Houston Chronicle, entitled "Forced Prostitution Flourishes,' describes the anguish of May, a 14-year-old Cambodian girl from the countryside, who was rescued by a Cambodian local aid group and tear fully reunited with her brother after she had been kidnapped and sold into prostitution in Phnom Penh Phnom Penh (nŏm pĕn, pənŏm`) or Phnum Penh (pən  m`), city (1994 est. pop. . She told her rescuers that a man approached her in a car, touched her on the shoulder, and knocked her out with a drug. The man sold her for $160 to a woman who owned a brothel. May was forced to have sex with up to 10 men a day; she tried to escape but was followed even when she went to the toilet. In Japan, there are an estimated 70,000 Thai women, mostly from rural villages, working in indentured servitude as "hostesses" in sex clubs run by yakuza yakuza Japanese gangsters. Yakuza, who trace their roots back to ronin (masterless samurai), often adopt samurai-like rituals and identify themselves with elaborate body tattoos. gangsters. The women are sold by Thai brokers for an average of $14,000 each and resold to the clubs by Japanese brokers for $30,000 --a sum they are obliged to work off but rarely can. De spite the efforts of citizens' groups in Japan to publicize the women's plight, Japanese officials have been largely indifferent; there have even been recorded instances in which police returned escapees to the gangsters. Recently, Thai prostitutes, trying to escape, killed three of their overseers, known as "Mama-sans" Now citizens' groups in Japan who sympathize with Verb 1. sympathize with - share the suffering of compassionate, condole with, feel for, pity grieve, sorrow - feel grief commiserate, sympathise, sympathize - to feel or express sympathy or compassion the prostitutes are lobbying for a fair trial. Gun, one of the young women involved, was quoted in Margot Hornblower's Time article as follows: "My life was like an animal's. I was sold three times. I begged my boss to let me go home, but she said I owed much money and must pay it back. Every day I had to sleep with men. I was not allowed to leave even during menstruation. I was told if I escaped, they would track me, kill me--and my parents, too" The Nation's Dignity In the Philippines (as in Thailand), international banks encouraged the government to promote tourism as the primary method of economic development. Filipino women were seen as a natural re source to be exploited. By the mid 1980s, sex tourism had become pivotal to the govern meet's economic survival. Women's activist groups, such as Gabriela, urged Corazon Aquino Maria Corazon Sumulong Cojuangco Aquino (born January 25, 1933), widely known as 'Cory Aquino', was President of the Philippines from 1986 to 1992. She was the first female President of The Philippines. , who campaigned on a pledge to restore the nation's dignity after long years of the Marcos dictatorship, to give up sex tourism as a development strategy. They also urged her not to renew leases on the two U.S. military bases, around which prostitution had grown along with many acts of violence by U.S. servicemen against Filipinas. In their campaign against the bases, the activists were ultimately successful--perhaps helped along by the eruption of the volcano, Mt. Pinatubo. Aquino, though not a feminist, did change the leadership of the tourism ministry and some of its policies. But when, without consulting women's groups, she authorized raids on the bars and massage parlors in Ermita (the red light district of Manila), feminists were alarmed. Hardly any pimps, brothel owners, bar and hotel owners, or johns were arrested. Yet hundreds of women were arrested, and the government did nothing to provide alternative jobs or education. Not until 1988, when Miriam Defensor Santiago Miriam Palma Defensor Santiago (born June 15 1945) is a Filipina politician, Constitutional Law expert, and a Senator of the Philippines. She is popularly known as Miriam. became the Philippines commissioner of immigration immigration, entrance of a person (an alien) into a new country for the purpose of establishing permanent residence. Motives for immigration, like those for migration generally, are often economic, although religious or political factors may be very important. , did the government take any significant action; shortly thereafter, some American, German, Australian, Belgian, British, Canadian, Dutch, Japanese, Swiss, and Spanish johns who purchased sex with children were deported. In 1993, a new law was passed in the Philippines under which pimps and johns now face prison and deportation. Child Prostitution Vitit Muntarbhorn, a Thai law professor, reported recently to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) was a functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations. It was a subsidiary body of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and was also assisted in its work by the Office of the United that fear of AIDS is contributing to the global growth in the sale and prostitution of children  This article or section may be confusing or unclear for some readers.Please [improve the article] or discuss this issue on the talk page. . The Muntarbhorn report says that a multitude of children worldwide fall into a web of organized prostitution and that their numbers are increasing daily. In Asia and Latin America Latin America, the Spanish-speaking, Portuguese-speaking, and French-speaking countries (except Canada) of North America, South America, Central America, and the West Indies. , millions of street children--some as young as four years old, many only nine or 10--are taken across borders and then lured, tricked, or forced into prostitution. Parents sometimes sell their children to traffickers in order to support other children in the family. In Brazil, an estimated 25,000 girls from poor families, some girls as young as nine, have been forced into prostitution in remote Amazon gold mining regions. "Recruiters" promise well-paying jobs, fly the children in, and deliver them to brothels. The girls are told they must work to pay back their plane fare, food, and lodging. If they are caught trying to escape, they are tortured and killed. Police corruption Police corruption is a specific form of police misconduct sometimes involving political corruption, and generally designed to gain a financial or political benefit for a police officer or officers in exchange for not pursuing, or selectively pursuing, an investigation or arrest. in the area makes these practices possible. In Thailand, ILO ILO abbr. International Labor Organization Noun 1. ILO - the United Nations agency concerned with the interests of labor International Labor Organization, International Labour Organization figures taken from nongovernmental sources estimate that between 200,000 and 800,000 children are involved in prostitution. Although the Thai government announced it is cracking down on child prostitution and pornography, the ILO says that concrete and effective action by the government has yet to take place. Meanwhile, certain brave individuals and groups have begun to take direct action. Marie France Marie-France Garcia is a French singer and actress born 9 February 1946 in Oran. She is transsexual and is a Parisian pop icon of the 1970's. Biography Marie-France was hired in 1969 at the Alcazar in the Latin Quarter, where she became famous as a Marilyn Monroe Botte works with the Center for the Pro section of Children's Rights The opportunity for children to participate in political and legal decisions that affect them; in a broad sense, the rights of children to live free from hunger, abuse, neglect, and other inhumane conditions. , a private local organization in Thailand that tries to rescue children from the brothels. The center has helped over 2,000 children and is hated by the brothel owners for its success. In March 1993, Botte was attacked by two local thugs employed by the brothels. They battered her unconscious, beat her face into a bloody pulp, and burned her forehead with cigarettes. There is also evidence for an increase of child prostitution in Africa, North America North America, third largest continent (1990 est. pop. 365,000,000), c.9,400,000 sq mi (24,346,000 sq km), the northern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. , and Europe. According to Martin Staebler of the Third World Tourism Ecumenical Network, the increase is being fueled not only by the fear of AIDS but also because many "sex tourists" have become bored with adult sex and are looking for something new. In any event, the belief that buying sex with children will eliminate the risk of getting AIDS is mistaken, as many child prostitutes in India, Thailand, and the Philippines have tested positive for the AIDS virus. The U.S. Connection There is a direct relationship between Third World prostitution and U.S. military bases. Women have long been considered part of the spoils of war--and foreign women of color not of the white race; - commonly meaning, esp. in the United States, of negro blood, pure or mixed. See also: Color are viewed by many in the military as theirs for the taking, even in the absence of armed conflict. Host nations find it almost impossible to prosecute U.S. servicemen for acts of violence committed against women nationals. The U.S. Navy, for example, has been known to give accused servicemen certificates to "prove" they were on duty when a crime occurred. Another method is to ship an accused serviceman out of the country before a case can be filed in court. If these ploys don't work, U.S. tax dollars, through the foreign claims fund, are often used to pay off the victims of rape, sexual abuse, and other individual assaults by servicemen. Meanwhile, the U.S. military has developed calculated policies to shape its servicemen's sexuality; to determine the location of bars, brothels, and massage parlors; to structure women's economic opportunities; to affect wives, entertain meet, and public health. Wherever the military has established bases, prostitution economies have grown up around them-- that is, economies based on the prostitution of a nation's women to the American occupying forces. But forced and economically coerced prostitution is not limited to women and girls who actually reside in Third World countries. It also happens to some Third World women in the United States. "Sold into Slavery: An Immigrant's Nightmare," an article by John Davidson John Davidson can refer to more than one person:
Maria left Honduras in June 1990, coming to the United States to look for a job that would allow her to earn enough to send some money home to her family. She swam the Rio Grande with another young Honduran woman and, while in the valley, was approached by a "smooth talking Honduran coyote coyote (kī`ōt, kīō`tē) or prairie wolf, small, swift wolf, Canis latrans, native to W North America. It is found in deserts, prairies, open woodlands, and brush country; it is also called brush wolf. " and his Cuban exile accomplice. (A coyote is one who conducts people illegally across the border.) Maria and her friend were promised good jobs and safe passage to Houston, Texas. They trusted their coyote because he was a fellow Honduran, so they accepted his offer and were smuggled smug·gle v. smug·gled, smug·gling, smug·gles v.tr. 1. To import or export without paying lawful customs charges or duties. 2. To bring in or take out illicitly or by stealth. across checkpoints in the Rio Grande Valley. Once in Houston, however, the coyotes demanded $450 from each woman. Having been robbed of all their money in Mexico, the women couldn't pay. Then the coyote delivered them to his sister, who at that time was operating a cantina can·ti·na n. Southwestern U.S. A bar that serves liquor. [Spanish, canteen, from Italian, wine cellar.] . Maria and her friend had essentially been sold into slavery to pay their debt to the coyotes. They were to work as "cantina girls," sitting or dancing with male customers and drinking beer with them until the debt was settled. Maria didn't like the taste of beer, so she drank very little. Some of the women had sex with the men in trailers and shacks provided by the cantina owners, who took up to four-fifths of what the women got. But Maria refused to have sex with the men. Maria and her friend continued to be held hostage along with other young women. They were moved from the original apartment because the coyotes were smuggling smuggling, illegal transport across state or national boundaries of goods or persons liable to customs or to prohibition. Smuggling has been carried on in nearly all nations and has occasionally been adopted as an instrument of national policy, as by Great Britain more Honduran women into Houston and needed more room. At the apartment where they were next held, bars covered the windows and the door had a keyed lock. Someone was always there with a gun to make sure none of the women escaped. From the money Maria made cashing in what few bottle caps she had at the end of each night, the cantina owner charged her for rent and the one meal a day she was fed. At that rate, she figured she would never work herself out of debt. This was the time when Maria might have turned to prostitution in a desperate at tempt to make enough money to pay off her debt. But she happened to overhear o·ver·hear v. o·ver·heard , o·ver·hear·ing, o·ver·hears v.tr. To hear (speech or someone speaking) without the speaker's awareness or intent. v.intr. the cantina owner telling someone that the women were never going to be able to leave because they were young and pretty and the men liked them. Eventually, Maria was lucky. The cantina owner had a heart attack and, in the confusion, all the women escaped. Maria and her friend ran off, hiding in the darkness while the cantina guards drove up and down Main Street looking for them. One might wonder why Maria didn't go to the police. However, if she had, she would have been deported as an undocumented alien, and the cantina would have been open for business as usual the next day, with a new set of cantina girls who had fled from the oppressive poverty in Honduras and were offered "good jobs" by coyotes. Maria has managed to elude her former captors and to stay in this country and find work. But how many other Marias are there who have not been so fortunate? Marx and the "Woman Question" Compare this situation to that which once prevailed in the Soviet Union. After the Bolshevik revolution in 1918, the U.S.S.R. abolished organized prostitution and ex-prostitutes were rehabilitated, educated, and brought into the mainstream of economic life. This was in accordance with communist ideology, which advocated the social equality of the sexes, and with Karl Marx's and Frederick Engels' theory of historical materialism, which postulated the importance of resolving what they referred to as the "woman question" In China, after the victory of the Red Army, women in the brothels of Shanghai and other cities were liberated, educated, and given jobs in the mainstream economy. And after the Cuban revolution in 1959, Fidel Castro's government similarly abolished organized prostitution and closed down the brothels in Havana, which had been one of the mainstays of the Mafia-controlled gambling and tourist industry under Fulgencio Batista. The Cuban government provided education and real jobs for the ex-prostitutes. In a speech welcoming the 1991 visit of Nelson Mandela to Matanzas province in Cuba, Castro said: "Before the revolution, women made up only 10 percent of the workforce and now they are 40 percent. And not only that, but those women... {formerly} without any future other than . . . domestic work or . . . prostitution, those women now constitute 60 percent of the technical work force of Matanzas" And again, in a speech delivered in the spring of 1992 to the Cuban High School Students' National Congress, Castro said: "Those who . . . think that the Cuban people will consent to see their country reduced once more to a U.S. satellite, a land of massive unemployment, poverty, illiteracy, and prostitution... are seriously deluded. Cuba will never again return to the era of beggars, homeless children, racial and sexual discrimination" Yet since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, a whole new population of impoverished girls and women has been created. Deregulation Deregulation The reduction or elimination of government power in a particular industry, usually enacted to create more competition within the industry. Notes: Traditional areas that have been deregulated are the telephone and airline industries. , privatization privatization: see nationalization. privatization Transfer of government services or assets to the private sector. State-owned assets may be sold to private owners, or statutory restrictions on competition between privately and publicly owned , and growing class inequality have produced serious social and economic problems such as organized criminal gangs, poverty, and unemployment. Many Russian and East European women and girls have experienced a great step backward and have now become grist for the mill of inter national organized prostitution. In Russia, over 75 percent of the unemployed are women and the difference between men's and women's wages has widened significantly in the last two years. Apparently, it doesn't take long for a country to start exploiting its girls and women once it joins the global capitalist economic system. A recently established striptease school in Moscow, called Aphrodite Aphrodite (ăfrədī`tē), in Greek religion and mythology, goddess of fertility, love, and beauty. Homer designated her the child of Zeus and Dione. , advertised, "Leave your clothes and shame behind" Hundreds of girls and women applied to Russia's first licensed school of striptease, saying it may be their only way out of the poverty that has engulfed them since de regulation and privatization. According to a report by Jack Kelly in USA Today (January 14, 1992), applicants for the school had to "try out" by stripping to their underwear and parading before the director, two male judges, and photographers. Many teenage girls who had never appeared unclothed before anyone other than their immediate family found it difficult to strip, despite the urging of their mothers. Some who could not force themselves to strip started crying. According to the director of the school, "graduates" are to be sent to Germany, France, Norway, Sweden, and Singapore, where they will be guaranteed up to $120 a night for three to six months, with the director getting 15 percent of their earnings. The director predicted that many of the women will stay abroad to work as prostitutes, thus acknowledging that Aphrodite serves as a front and procurer for international organized prostitution. Putting It in Perspective A pattern emerges from all of this--a pattern that follows the inexorable logic of international capitalist economics itself. The supply side of international organized prostitution requires girls, young women, and families in Third World countries to be economically desperate, uneducated, and with few options. This desperation has frequently been brought about or exacerbated by development policies that have cut back on social services and have pushed rural families off their land. There must also be a virtual army of recruiters, brokers, and traffickers who are able to operate within and between countries with relative impunity and who have at their command a variety of methods to obtain these economically desperate girls and women. Finally, there must be a system of indentured servitude so that, once a girl or young woman finds herself in the sex trade, it is difficult to leave. On the demand side, there must be an army of pimps who tout the availability and submissiveness of the women of a particular ethnic group. This army of pimps may include private tour agencies as well as governments using sex tours as a means of obtaining hard currency for development and in order to pay on development loans to international banks. For example, a Swiss tour brochure describes Thai women as "slim, sunburnt sun·burn n. Inflammation or blistering of the skin caused by overexposure to direct sunlight. tr. & intr.v. sun·burned or sun·burnt , sun·burn·ing, sun·burns To affect or be affected with sunburn. , and sweet . . . masters of the art of making love by nature" And a Dutch agency describes Thai women as "little slaves who give real Thai warmth" Finally, there must be men from affluent societies whose imaginations are kindled kin·dle 1 v. kin·dled, kin·dling, kin·dles v.tr. 1. a. To build or fuel (a fire). b. To set fire to; ignite. 2. , often by racist sexual stereotypes, and who feel that, in a context of anonymity, they can buy sex from women of another culture with impunity. What is to be done? For starters, we can support the efforts of the U.S. based Coalition Against Trafficking in Women Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) was founded 1988 as the outcome of a conference titled "Trafficking in Women" organized by several American feminist groups including Women Against Pornography and WHISPER. to strengthen and enforce laws against traffickers and to create and enforce anti pimping pimping Academia See Pimp. Cf Pumping. laws. The coalition can be contacted at: The Coalition on Trafficking in Women, Times Square Station, P.O. Box 2166, New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , NY 10108. We can also sup port the proposal endorsed by UNESCO UNESCO: see United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. UNESCO in full United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to update the United Nations' 1949 Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, which would completely ban sex-for-sale, not just forced prostitution. And perhaps most important of all, we can support all local and international efforts to raise the social, political, economic, and educational status of women throughout the world. Alice Leuchtag received a B.A. in psychology and sociology from the University of California The University of California has a combined student body of more than 191,000 students, over 1,340,000 living alumni, and a combined systemwide and campus endowment of just over $7.3 billion (8th largest in the United States). at Los Angeles and an M.A. in sociology from San Diego State University San Diego State University (SDSU), founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School, is the largest and oldest higher education facility in the greater San Diego area (generally the City and County of San Diego), and is part of the California State University system. . She has been a cab driver cab·driv·er also cab driver n. One who drives a taxicab for hire. cab driver n → taxista m/f cab driver n → , social worker, counselor, college instructor, consultant, organizer, journalist, and an activist in the movements for freedom, peace, socialism, and women's liberation. She wishes to acknowledge Bob Helken for allowing her the use of his resource materials in the preparation of this article. |
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