Border Thinking on Migration, Trafficking and Commercial Sex

Varias municipalidades en España han optado por esquivar los debates parlamenta-rios sobre la prostitución en sí, incluyendo la venta de sexo en las actividades prohibidas por ordenanzas cívicas sobre el uso del espacio público (la calle). Así el vender sexo parece ser solo uno de una serie de comportamientos vistos como perjudiciales a la vida urbana, lo que se llama la convivencia.  Es curioso ver cuales son las ocupaciones que supuestamente afean la ciudad y molestan los demás. Mira las fotos e intenta apostar qué es lo que tienen en común. Look at the pictures and guess what these activities have in common that cause city ordinances to name them as making cities ugly and disturbing peaceful coexistence.

Aquí son las actividades a veces mencionadas como prohibidas, una mezcla de formas de entretenerse y de ganarse la vida:

Los grandes ayuntamientos apoyan la norma contra el sexo callejero y la mendicidad

Ramón Ferrando Valencia, 21 enero 2010, levante-emv.com

Comunitat Valenciana: Los grandes ayuntamientos de la Comunitat Valenciana están detrás de la normativa de la Federación Valenciana de Municipios y Provincias que persigue la prostitución, la mendicidad, la actividad de los gorrillas o cualquier otra que perturbe la tranquilidad de los vecinos. La norma, como ayer adelantó Levante-EMV, es muy restrictiva y prevé sanciones de hasta 3.000 euros por mantener relaciones sexuales en un coche dentro de la ciudad o de 400 euros para las personas que compren música pirateada.

Un portavoz de la Federación Valenciana de Municipios y Provincias (FVMP) explicó que una comisión mixta formada por juristas y los responsables de las policías locales de Valencia, Alicante, Castelló, Elx, Paterna y Vila-real han trabajado durante cuatro meses en la elaboración del documento que prohíbe la mendicidad, la venta callejera sin licencia, la prostitución en la vía pública o la actividad de los gorrillas. La comisión ha celebrado una quincena de reuniones desde el 17 de agosto en las que de manera exhaustiva han dado forma al soporte legislativo que necesitaban los ayuntamientos para luchar contra fenómenos como el botellón o el vandalismo.

El texto, denominado Ordenanza de Protección del Espacio Público, cuenta con una amplio respaldo político. El portavoz de la FVMP recordó que lo aprobó por unanimidad el pleno de la federación y cuenta con apoyos de municipios como “Polinyà del Xúquer de Esquerra Unida, Torrent del Partido Popular o Muro d’Alcoi del Bloc”. Jaume Bronchud, edil de Participación Ciudadana de Mislata, apuntó que “es un documento marco que acogemos con optimismo porque puede contribuir a mejorar la convivencia“. El Ayuntamiento de Torrent ya está trabajando para aplicar las normas.

La Federación Valencia de Municipios y Provincias ha trabajado a fondo el texto para que no fracase como otras iniciativas. Elena Bastidas, presidenta de la federación de municipios valencianos y alcaldesa de Alzira, señaló: “Lo hemos hecho con la máxima rigurosidad. Han participado intendentes de las policías municipales y especialistas del ámbito jurídico. Es una norma muy completa que intenta dar respuesta a algunas de las cuestiones que nos planteaban. Ha sido auspiciada por todos los partidos y enriquecida desde el punto de vista técnico. Tiene un plus de garantía que posiblemente otras normas no tienen”.

La federación de municipios ha analizado normativas similares puestas en marcha con éxito en Barcelona, Lleida, Granada o Sevilla. Además, ha estudiado iniciativas como las del Ayuntamiento de Castelló contra las conductas incívicas, las de Alicante contra el botellón y los aparcacoches o las de Burriana que fija sanciones de hasta 3.000.

Elena Bastidas añadió que han previsto una gran cantidad de multas porque es “una normativa ambiciosa. No nos hemos limitado a los gorrillas o al botellón. Hemos abordado otros fenómenos que se han agravado con la crisis como la prostitución callejera. Tratamos de proporcionar normas específicas como la prohibición de lavarse en fuentes públicas o dormir en un banco“.

Melilla-Morocco fence

Fences and walls are still seen as a reasonable barrier to keep unwanted migrants out. Along the Mexico-US border, between Morocco and Spain’s colony of Melilla and now on two of Israel’s borders: a physical barrier to stop migrants identified as ‘economic’ from getting past. It seems strange that this adjective, referring to migrants’ desire to make money, should become a negative term, when all of life is suffused with the message that we must make lots of money and buy lots of stuff in order to be successful. Some people in Europe cite the fear that national characters will be lost and authentic cultures spoilt if too many outsiders get in. Those ideas are overt in the reasoning of Israel defending the building of fences to keep migrants out.

Israel orders new fence to keep out African migrants

12 january 2010

Ben Lynfield, The Independent

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the construction of two massive fences along his country’s southern border with Egypt in a bid to keep out African asylum seekers he claims are threatening the country’s Jewish character. The barrier will also thwart terrorists from infiltrating the porous border, according to Mr. Netanyahu. “We are talking about a strategic decision to guarantee the Jewish and democratic character of the state of Israel,” Mr. Netanyahu said. The prime minister insisted that the step will not stop refugees in dire need from reaching Israel, saying that the country would “remain open” to those with a genuine claim.

But critics dispute this. “This nationalist and racist rhetoric is divorced from reality,” said Dov Khenin, a left-wing member of the Knesset. He added that it was “intended to frighten the Israelis that ‘the Africans are coming’. Sudanese and Eritreans make up many of the about 20,000 asylum seekers to reach Israel via Egypt since 2005.

The project is expected to cost $270m, and will cover two parts of the border, near the city of Eilat and on the edge of the Gaza strip. Although the army began planning the fence in 2005, Mr. Netanyahu’s backing for it now is part of a wider crackdown against the influx, which refugee-rights activists say has dropped somewhat recently because of Israel’s policy of immediate returns of refugees to Egypt and shootings of refugees along the border by Egyptian troops.

The government insists the asylum seekers are economic migrants seeking a higher standard of living, but the refugees themselves often have harrowing tales of persecution in their home countries and Egypt. Egyptian police killed at least 28 Sudanese refugees during a protest in 2005, the year people began trickling to Israel. Egypt has also come under criticism for forcibly repatriating refugees to Eritrea and Sudan, where human-rights groups say they face imprisonment and even torture.

To justify its often harsh approach, the Israeli government has been repeatedly playing on the core fears of public opinion. Tzahi Hanegbi, the chairman of the Knesset’s foreign affairs and defence committee, told Israel Radio yesterday that there is no alternative to building the fence. “The infiltration of the migrants is threatening the very existence of Israel and its character,” he said. The country defines itself as both a Jewish and democratic state, something its leaders believe depends on maintaining the country’s present clear Jewish majority.

But critics of the government believe that it is contriving the threat. They note that the government itself issues visas each year to 120,000 non-Jewish migrant workers who arrive at Israel’s borders legally and that hundreds of thousands among the wave of immigrants from the former Soviet Union to reach the country during the 1990s were not Jewish. Read the rest of this entry »

Many people would like to see sex-industry businesses normalised as a way to improve the situation for workers. This rights movement is opposed by another that wants to rid the world of prostitution by criminalising the purchase of sex. Sweden and Norway currently have such a law; Finland and the UK have a diluted version and other countries are debating it (Denmark, Israel).  The theory of such laws is an over-simplified idea of supply and demand: If there were no men willing to pay for sexual services, there would be no market and commercial sex would go away. The idea that prohibiting an activity can make it disappear ignores the complexity of culture and social life and is not supported by what we know about laws that have attempted to prohibit alcohol and drugs, on the one hand (in more than one western country) and laws that criminalise specific sexual activities like sodomy or oral sex). Some people may well feel discouraged or afraid enough of being caught that they stop participating, but a lot of other people continue despite laws. Nevertheless, those who believe that Gender Equality can be legislated  - imposed by laws - are in favour of laws prohibiting the purchase of sex. 

Pascha is an 11-storey brothel in Köln, where prostitution is legal. The below interview in Swedish describes the experience of a Swedish filmmaker, a man, who spent time at Pascha making a documentary in order to understand why men buy sex. In the interview published in ECT, Svante Tidholm reveals both his assumption that buying sex is wrong and a certain comprehension of the male employees and punters. The title, Jag blev en av dem (I became one of them), refers to the ease (insidious, to Tidholm) with which people, including himself, can become accustomed to the normalising influence of the brothel. Normalisation can be seen as a way to improve sex workers’ lot people’s lot and, simultaneously as a way of continuing women’s oppression.

Jag blev en av dem

8 januari 2010, ECT

För dem som driver bordellen är det bara business, och de är inga onda människor. De gör sitt jobb. Precis som lägervakter. De är aktörer i ett samhälle som kollektivt tillåter att det här sker,’ säger filmaren Svante Tidholm som gjort en dokumetär om livet på Europas största bordell, Pascha

Svante Tidholm flyttade in på Europas största bordell, Pascha i Köln, för att försöka begripa: Hur tänker den som köper sex?

– Det handlar om ett manlighetens problem.

Första bilderna: Ett betongtak mot regntung himmel och Kölns alla kyrkor och katedraler, men senare i Svante Tidholms dokumentär är presenningen undandragen och män – putmagar och masker á la Eyes wide shut, fast billiga – porrligger med influgna kvinnor från Brasilien.

Pascha, bordellen som varken är stilettförsedda hallickar eller limousinlevererade eskorter, utan tysk prostitution som den är mest, euro mot en gnutta extas, 365 dagar om året, inte som på film.

Det var förresten här hiphop-stjärnan 50 cent hade sin konsert när han senast var i Tyskland.

– När jag berättar om Pascha är det många som nästan tror att jag hittar på. De kan inte föreställa sig, säger Tidholm.

Första gången han besökte bordellen var under fotbolls-VM, i samband med en av Sveriges matcher. Han hade läst om den och var nyfiken. När han frågade ledningen om han fick filma, var svaret oväntat positivt.

– Då hade jag egentligen ingen aning om vad jag ville göra. Read the rest of this entry »

Calling escort websites online brothels is silly, a typical editor’s attempt to make a mildly interesting story sensational. Police raids are a widespread tactic for suppressing prostitution, but are often said only to move the business from one place to another (see, for example, a story about Goa and another about Italy and Switzerland. Here, the place is online, and some of the sex workers were mobile anyway, not originating in a red-light district. But referring to mobile businesspeople or vendors as ‘gypsies’ is also dumb. I also don’t care for the implication that mobile workers are inherently vulnerable just because they move! Still, it is plausible that, as policing increases, more sex-industry headquarters move online. The non-online, red-light kind in Singapore look like this.

Online brothels becoming more popular with Singapore youth

2 January 2010, The Temasek Review

Singapore: Online brothels offering girls from various nationalities are becoming increasingly popular among Singapore men looking for a quickie, especially the youth. Frequent raids on the red-light district of Geylang had forced the freelance prostitutes to retreat to cyberspace to solicit for customers. As many as five new websites have appeared in the last few months alone offering a myriad of “services” from sexy massage to discreet sexual encounters from freelance prostitutes. Some appear to be websites set up by organized syndicates while others are hosted by independent freelance prostitutes themselves who are here in Singapore to make a quick buck.

Online prostitution is not new in Singapore. Famous sex forum Sammyboy has a dedicated “freelance” section to allow prostitutes and pimps alike to post their services and contacts. One owner of such a site claimed he is a “landlord” who is helping his PRC tenants to earn some “extra cash”.

The photos of the girls are listed on the site including their “statistics”, prices, types of services offered and “field reports” from previous patrons. Propsective clients have to contact the pimp directly using the handphone number provided who will inform him of the time and venue for the “transaction” to take place. Such online brothels are seeing an increase in business lately as they offer customers the flexibility to choose their time and girl as well as a place outside the usual red-light district to pursue their pleasures.

When interviewed by the Straits Times, Dr Carol Balhetchet, director of youth services at the Singapore Children’s Society, said: “The scary part is prostitution has come to your doorstep – and it’s not just available to adults…..the scary part about the young is, they want to experiment. Now, they don’t need to go to Geylang…Prostitution can be more gypsy-like…In that sense, it’s risky.”

Unlike licenced prostitutes working in designated brothels, freelance prostitutes who ply their trade online do not have to go for monthly medical examation and blood tests to detect sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV. With the two Integrated Resorts set to open this year, the demand for such online sexual services is likely to increase especially with Singapore’s lax immigration and travel restrictions.

Foreign prostitutes, especially those from China, often come to Singapore to “work” on a one-month tourist visa. Others come on a two-year student visa ostensibly to study in private institutions, but end up working in KTV lounges. Asked about the online brothels by the Straits Times, the police would only say: ‘Police will investigate reports made and take action if any offence is disclosed.’ The police did not say whether anyone has been arrested in connection with the online brothels which have been in existence for Singapore for a very long time already.

I take the view that we know little about the sex industry. Most of what we hear is polemical, rhetorical or simply abstract. The laws that governments of all kinds debate and impose nowadays are mostly lame: primitive prohibitions with little chance of success. Until we know a lot more about what’s going on, it will be impossible to make laws or regulations that actually function fairly. In the case of Pakistan’s sex industry, information is so scarce that I am posting excerpts from an article whose sources appear to be anecdotal: blogs and youtube, but the information is suggestive. The author’s disapproval and moral bias come through too clearly for my taste in the original; if you want to hear it all, go to the source. If you’re interested in more about the cultural study of commercial sex, read the original conception and then what came later. Note: 1000 Pakistan rupees = 8.28 euros.

In Pakistan, a dark trade comes to light

William Sparrow, 17 May 2008, Asian Times Online

. . . quickly after his arrival in the capital, he realized the house next to his own was a Chinese brothel.

. . . The local sex industry comprised of Pakistani prostitutes has also grown in recent years. . . . videos show unabashed red-light areas of Lahore. . . house after house with colorfully lit entranceways always with a mamasan and at least one Pakistani woman in traditional dress. The women are available for in-house services for as little as 400 rupees (US$6) to take-away prices ranging 1,000 to 2,000 rupees. These districts are mostly for locals, but foreigners can indulge at higher prices.

. . . More upscale areas like Lahore’s Heera Mundi or “Diamond Market”, cater to well-heeled locals and foreigners. At these places prettier, younger girls push their services for 5,000 to 10,000 rupees for an all-night visit, and the most exceptional can command 20,000 to 40,000 rupees for just short time.

. . . “The Lahore, Karachi and Rawalpindi sex scenes are totally changing and it’s easier and easier to get a girl for [sex],” another blogger wrote. “Most of the hotels provide you the girls upon request.” Bloggers also reported that it is easy to find girls prowling the streets after 6 pm, and foreigners can find young women hanging out near Western franchises like McDonald’s and KFC. Such women, the bloggers claim, can lead the customer to a nearby short-time accommodation.

. . . Pakistan can also accommodate the gay community with prostitution. . . A Pakistani blogger wrote, “. . . [In Pakistan] the wives are only [had sex with] once or twice a year. There are lot of gay brothels in Peshawar - the famous among them is at Ramdas Bazaar. [One can] go to any Afghan restaurant and find young waiters selling sex.”

I’ve been living and working in Sweden for 16 months now, and, although I’d written a few things about Swedish gender-equality culture before, today marks my debut as a participant in debate culture here. It’s in Expressen’s Sida 4, including the paper edition, which is widely read. An earlier English version appeared on The Local not long ago. It’s all about how a Feminist Party slogan claiming ‘Feminists have better sex’ is not based on academic research, as the party claimed, and is also not a feminist way of thinking at all. To contact me in Sweden, click here.

Sluta moralisera över våra sexliv, Gudrun

22 January 2010, Sidan 4, Expressen

Är Fi:s slogan “Feminister har bättre sex” ett oskyldigt skämt, liksom “Blondier har roligare”? Eller är det ett försök att skapa en känsla av överlägsenhet, något som faktiskt strider mot vad feminismen handlade om
från början? Är det ett skämt, är det ett farligt sådant.

Den svenska statsfeminismen har redan gjort sig känd för att sprida budskap som går ut på att Sverige är bäst på jämställdhet och att Sverige är det mest feministiska landet i världen. Så när påståendet att
feminister har bättre sex också sprids över världen, är jag nog inte ensam om att känna att detta inte är den slags feminism som jag tror på. Förtsätta här

Earlier this month Calabrians and itinerant African farm workers came to blows. One politician said ‘We have to go to the root of the problem: mafia, exploitation, xenophobia and racism, which are too many roots. Also it is implied that migrants are found in southern Italy only because trafficking rings and mafiosi have forced them to be there. There are indeed controlling gangs in Calabria: There’s no doubt but that men from the ‘Ndrangheta shot at the immigrants, just to remind everyone that they control the territory: Alberto Cisterna of the National Anti-Mafia Squad. But another interpretation of the conflict was For all these years clandestine immigration has been tolerated, which feeds crime: Interior Minister Roberto Maroni. Crime - always a politician’s safe fall-back position.

Unaddressed is a typical contemporary dysfunctional migration policy that doesn’t want these migrants at the same time that native farmers need them. These farm workers, like their more famous counterparts from Mexico in the US, move from one area to another as harvests are ready: tomatoes in Campania, grapes in Sicily, olives in Puglia and Calabria for oranges.

It is also unclear what ‘evacuation’ meant in this case, whether the workers might be deported or what their status will be.

Below this story follows some background from Médecins Sans Frontières.

Migrants evacuated from southern Italian town 

9 January 2010, BBC

Italian authorities have evacuated hundreds of migrants from a southern town and brought in extra police after violent protests broke out. Some 320 African migrants, many of whom work as fruit-pickers in Calabria, were taken by bus to an emergency centre.

Extra police were deployed after two days of riots, during which 37 people were injured and cars were set alight. The violence broke out after two migrants were shot at with pellet guns by a group of local youths. Italy’s Interior Minister Roberto Maroni prompted a storm of criticism from the leftist opposition by suggesting that the violence was the result of not addressing the issue of illegal workers in the country. “There’s a difficult situation in Rosarno, like in other places, because for years illegal immigration - which feeds criminal activities - has been tolerated and nothing effective has ever been done about it,” he said according to Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper.

Opposition leader Pierluigi Bersani said: “Maroni is passing the buck … We have to go to the root of the problem: mafia, exploitation, xenophobia and racism.”

Some 320 African migrants - mainly from Ghana and Nigeria - were taken by bus from the southern town of Rosarno to a reception centre at Crotone, some 170km (105 miles) away. Local residents applauded as the eight buses carrying the migrant workers left the town, AFP reports.

Police said reinforcements had been called in at intersections and squares in the town to keep order on Saturday. Many of the migrants, most of whom work as fruit-pickers in the region’s citrus farms, live in difficult conditions - camped in abandoned factories and buildings with no running water or electricity, and were paid as little as 20 euros per day.

Italy: MSF Assists Migrant Workers Living in Appalling Conditions

29 September 2009, Médecins Sans Frontières 

For the sixth consecutive year, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is providing health care to undocumented seasonal migrant workers in southern Italy. Once again, poor living and working conditions pose a serious threat to their mental and physical health.

Since mid-August, thousands of migrants have been flocking to the southern Italian region of Puglia for the annual tomato-picking season. The majority are from sub-Saharan Africa, living in Italy undocumented and in appalling sanitary conditions in abandoned houses and cardboard shacks without electricity or gas. Since last year, following MSF’s requests, regional authorities have taken some measures to improve living conditions for migrants, such as providing water tanks and latrines,” said Antonio Virgilio, MSF’s head of mission in Italy. “However, this is still far from enough to meet their basic needs.”

Limited access to health care, inadequate shelter and exploitation at work are some of the difficulties faced by the seasonal migrants. The consequences are seen during MSF medical consultations. Gastrointestinal complaints and general body pain are common. “These migrants are getting sick as a consequence of the conditions they are subjected to,” said Alvise Benelli, an MSF doctor in Puglia. The MSF team in Puglia provides free medical and psychological care to the undocumented migrant workers. They also facilitate access to public health facilities.

The concept of Gender Equality needs examining. I’ve started doing that in the place where Gender Equality is not only an official state policy but a way of life and, in the eyes of many people, a genuine fetish: Sweden. Not that there aren’t all sorts of positive aspets to this, but there are problems, too. I was very provoked when I read that Sweden’s feminist political party now claims Feminists Have Better Sex and wrote the following piece. It’s the third in a series, this time on the topic of equality in our sex lives and how we rate ‘quality’ sex anyway. Earlier I wrote about how the idea of Violence Against Women has got carried away and about the existence of dissent about Gender Equality in Sweden. 

Good sex, equal sex: Who has the best sex?

11 January 2010, The Local

Feminists have better sex is the latest catchphrase from Sweden’s feminist political party, Feministiskt Initiativ. That’s right, people supposedly interested in personal and class liberation sound as though they are engaged in a one-up-manship that says Our way of living is better than yours.

People who are alienated by this sort of stuff dismiss and hate feminism. Some years ago, I came to terms with the fact that there are different sorts of feminism. That is, many people who call themselves feminists believe in different, and sometimes opposing, ideas. I don’t see much future in endless battling about what ‘correct’ feminist values are. But this supposedly feminist claim about better sex is provoking.

One aspect of traditional value systems many dislike is how hierarchies are used to rank every aspect of life: grades, ratings, point systems all show how some people are better than others. Everyone can’t excel, many feel inferior and it all takes up too much time and energy.

It’s hardly significant that I don’t like FI’s catchphrase. But I wondered about the research that supposedly backed up the ‘better sex’ claim. Written by two psychologists at Rutgers University, Rudman and Phelan, the article is called The Interpersonal Power of Feminism: Is Feminism Good for Romantic Relationships? The quantitative survey research asked participants to consider three items about sex: My relationship is sexually satisfying, The sexual side of my relationship could use improvement and How often have you considered having a sexual relationship with someone other than your partner?

The basic finding was modest: ‘Contrary to popular beliefs, feminism may improve the quality of relationships, as opposed to undermining them.’ A measured conclusion hardly substantiating FI’s catchphrase and Schyman’s claim in her article Lycka kräver reservationslösa relationer (Happiness requires unreserved relationships).

Elin Grelsson responded in Expressen that the FI campaign sets up a new set of ideals for everyone to feel inadequate about, another demand that we live perfect lives. State Feminism tends to produce rigid, utopian formulas proclaimed the only proper way to live. Schyman and Svärd objected and agreed that they know sexual satisfaction comes in many forms. But their reply’s title still uses the phrase ‘better sex’, continuing the same old idea that some sexual experiences are superior to others. Which is not what the authors of the original research said.

In fact, it’s impossible to measure sexual relations, so we can’t know who has good ones and who does not. The surveys mentioned simply asked people to say whether or not they felt satisfied. People who say they never enjoy sex, or it always hurts or disgusts them, are probably not having the same experience as people who say they always enjoy sex. On the other hand, maybe they are having the same experience but evaluate it differently (yes, it’s thorny).

But most people’s experiences fall between the two extremes: sometimes they enjoy sex and sometimes they don’t. There isn’t any formula for good sex: even someone who has managed to figure out what pleases her or him and how to achieve it has different experiences on different occasions. Too much to eat or drink, a bad day at the office, a thrilling film: all have the capacity to change how we perceive an experience that is, on the face of it, ‘the same’ as the last time. Sex education and sex therapy are forced to rely on descriptions of acts, diagrams of bodies and formulae about consent – as though always asking people if they want things were proof that all is well.

The term Gender Equality is usually used as though its meaning were obvious. Nowadays, equality in its most general sense is widely agreed to be a good idea; we believe human beings ought to enjoy equal opportunities to live, work and progress. In the abstract, it doesn’t seem difficult, but problems appear when we consider sex. Proponents of Gender Equality have a hard time understanding that people can consent to activities that don’t sound equitable (always being the ‘bottom’ or ‘top’ in sexual relations, one person having fewer orgasms than another). Read the rest of this entry »

The link between ‘development’ (a helping industry I really don’t like) and migration is now both recognised and fashionable. This piece from 2006 shows how informal-sector jobs contribute importantly to economies, even when the workers and their jobs are disrespected. When you go to pick up wire transfers, the money’s just money: no stigma, no dirt, no provenance.

Contributing to ‘Development’: Money Made Selling Sex

Laura Agustín

Research for Sex Work, 9, 8-11, 2006.

Earlier this year I was in Ecuador talking with poorer women who sell sex and who might consider travelling to another country to do it. Politicians in wealthier countries talk about ‘economic migrants’ as though their desire to make money were a bad thing, and in many such countries migrants have a better chance of being allowed to stay if they present themselves as victims (refugees, asylum-seekers, ‘trafficked women’) than as people who have just arrived and are willing to do whatever work is on offer.

This prejudice against economic motives is ridiculous, since we live in a world where individuals are not only expected to make money but where success in life is judged on how much money they make. And economic motives are entirely acceptable when migrants find jobs in the so-called ‘formal’ sector of the economy, which refers to businesses that governments have decided to recognise (and regulate, tax, inspect and so on), even if these businesses pay workers miserably and provide neither decent working conditions nor fair workers’ rights. Only jobs said to be in the ‘informal’ economy are considered unacceptable, despite the fact that nowadays there are probably more jobs available ‘informally’ than formally. Note: No one knows the numbers here, since businesses and people that are not registered anywhere cannot be counted.

The term informal economy or sector was invented in the early 1970s to describe income-generating activities not protected by labour legislation in poorer countries. At the time it was presumed that the informal sector was a transitory phenomenon associated with lower levels of economic development, something that would disappear as development occurred. This presumption has however been proven incorrect. A greater number of workers than ever before are now working outside the ‘formal’ economy and they are engaged in an increasingly diverse range of activities and situations (ILO 2002: v).

Now, however, the categories informal and formal are increasingly accepted as descriptions of economies in wealthier countries, too. Businesses said to be formal, simply by being recognised by bureaucracies, are said to be ‘real’, ‘productive’ and normal. Informal economies are called grey, black, submerged, underground and often thought of as bad, undesirable, temporary, not serious or not productive. To workers, however, the technical status of a business may not matter, a secretarial or factory job pretty much consisting of the same tasks in both licensed and unlicensed businesses.

Informality produces unjust working conditions and rampant opportunities for mistreatment of all workers, but at least non-migrant workers may fall back on the basic rights, protections and benefits that citizenship provides. Migrant employees’ safe standing, on the other hand, depends on the personal relationships they are able to develop with owners, managers and other employees. If something goes wrong, these workers cannot appeal to government authorities or ask for help in criminal-justice systems. Why? Because they can be dismissed at bosses’ will and, if they are migrants, easily harassed or deported back to their home countries. Workers who enjoy citizens’ rights are, however, increasingly subjected to temporary and informal contracts and poor working conditions (Precarias 2000-6).

So, informal jobs sound like something to be avoided, right? But migrants without official permission to work in formal-sector businesses are glad to get them. Companies that are not officially recognised and licensed employ people without official permission to work, which explains the vast number of migrants working in countries that will not issue them visas and work permits. Restaurant, construction, domestic, factory, agricultural, caring and sex workers alike share this ‘clandestine’ situation. Without work permits, migrants cannot regularise their status, become documented residents or enjoy normal rights, but they can make money. The word informal makes these businesses sound small, temporary, unstable or even benign, composed of street traders and vagabonds, but this is far from the truth. Industries that are highly evolved and very large are called informal only because they are not (yet) formally recognised. The sex industry, which takes in both licensed and unlicensed businesses and many operating under non-sex licences (like bars), generates billions of dollars worldwide and uses sophisticated, high-technology equipment and business methods. Informality provides opportunities for businesspeople to operate outside government rules and make large profits, and for workers to accumulate more money than they could any other way, if they are willing to use sex. This applies to legal citizens and undocumented migrants, whether they have a lot or little formal education and whether they are women, men or transgender.

‘Flexible workers’ is a term referring to those who, rather than following a classical career-path or staying within a set profession their whole lives, change jobs according to the demands of markets and the information they receive from personal networks. Flexible workers go where the jobs are, and, if they are to succeed, they need to be adaptable. Sex workers are prime examples, flexible in where they work and what they do. And although some people have no moral objections to selling sex, others do but become morally flexible, suspending their objections in order to make money. This applies to most migrants, whose priority is on making as much as possible as fast as possible—sometimes to pay off debts contracted in order to travel, sometimes to be able to continue travelling and sometimes to send or take home.

Money that migrants send home is called remittances, and in some countries they are a major source of income. Records of these payments, through banks and services like Western Union, show which country the remittances come from but not what kind of work produced them. Given the enormous difference between wages for selling sex and most other jobs, it’s obvious that a large proportion of remittances must come from sex work.

A lot of people have thought that remittance money goes to buy only basic survival and consumer items (food, refrigerators, jewelry, DVDs), but recent studies reveal how money sent home by migrants finances important social and structural projects known as ‘development’ (O’Neil 2004; Sørensen 2004). This goes for money made picking strawberries, carrying building materials, giving babies baths and selling sex. It doesn’t matter whether this money comes in the form of coins, bills or credit lines, the amounts mean the same no matter how they were earned, and they are used to finance construction projects, small businesses and cooperative agriculture for families, communities and whole regions. Besides, the buying of a consumer item like a stove, which means the ability to boil bad water, can make the difference between unhealthful and healthful lives for people who then are able to work on larger projects.

In Ecuador, a lot of negative comments were made about women who sell sex abroad. I was told they ‘force’ husbands to find other sexual partners, that they withhold mother love from children and that they ruin traditional family life. Read the rest of this entry »

The fight for urban space: that’s what a lot of sex-industry news could be called. Jakarta cafes that provide opportunities for commercial sex are complained about by people who live nearby. The solution to tear down buildings en masse seems draconian compared with the manipulation of city ordinances common in Spain. The latter seek to get sex workers and clients off the streets and indoors, where they won’t offend certain residents’ sensibilities. In Jakarta, the offending market is already indoors. I know nothing about these particular businesses but suspect that a little work in the area of zoning or city planning might help avoid mass destruction of functioning businesses. It’s set to happen this week.

East Jakarta plans to raid tens of cafes in Pulogebang

4 January 2010, Beritajakarta

East Jakarta Municipal Administration is planning to conduct a raid on dozens of illegal cafes located in the area of Seruni flat, Pulogebang, Cakung next week, following public complaints over the existence of the cafes.

“We have sent letters to the managements of the cafes, urging them to immediately demolish their business places by themselves. We will tear down the buildings should they not conduct the order by next week,” said Murdhani, East Jakarta Mayor.

Agung (30), a local resident, said the cafes had become places for illegal sexual activities involving commercial sex workers. “The cafes also make noises, annoying the residents living nearby,” said Agung. There are around 20 units of cafe which also provide billiards located here. Every night, they are packed with visitors,” he said.

In the meantime, East Jakarta Public Order Police Squad (Satpol PP) head Tiangsa Surbakti said he had prepared a number of personnel for the operation. Regarding to the operation schedule, it is still waiting for the decision from East Jakarta mayor.