The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade - Research Paper Example

 INTRODUCTION The emergence of globalization has encouraged the growth of the sex industry, which in most respects has taken the form of most legitimate multinational corporations particularly in the way they operate, network and they conduct their business, among other processes. This is, particularly, made possible because of technology, which effectively reduced the world into a global village wherein geography, time and cultural barriers no longer matter. According to Pentinnen, the global sex industry is operating via a complex international system that is characterized by global flows and according to the correlation with the processes of globalization (7). The point is that the sex industry benefits from all the advances, models, resources, tools, policies, among other processes conveniently provided by globalization. This paper examines how prostitution and other aspects of the sex industry have moved from (as stated by Jeffreys i) being small-scale, clandestine, and socially despised practices to become very profitable legitimate market sectors that are being legalized and decriminalized by governments.  THE GLOBAL SEX TRADE Prostitution and all form of the sex trade are not exactly a new phenomenon or exclusively a by-product of globalization or any recent/modern phenomenon. The fact is that the industry is perhaps as old as man himself. However, what is significant, especially in the context of this study, is that current economic and political developments have brought about an unprecedented expansion of the sex industry to the point that it has assumed legal and semi-legal forms in many countries. According to Munck: The global sex industry takes many forms, ranging from the entertainment industry and tourist-related activities to bonded labor and slavery now being (re)produced by capitalism’s most advanced expression: globalization (91). The technologies available which have ushered in a global age has paved the way for further opportunities and platforms that created a vibrant sex market wherein access is easy and fast. A case in point is the Internet. It has become an important and often used platform wherein people can transact pay-for-sex. For example, if a customer wants to procure sexual services, he or she could go online and visit a number of websites and forums that cater specifically to this requirement. The client can even source a sex worker from across the world or search for locations wherein he or she could travel in order to avail of the service. In addition, there are many resources available in the Web for clients such as reviews on services, promotional prices, price comparisons and even directories from where contact details and personal information are made available for speedy transactions. The Internet is also peppered with travel agencies that offer packaged tours; provide price quotations and catalogues advertising sex workers both domestic and abroad. Certainly, as the available literature on subject supports, there are direct links between technological progress and economic liberalization, on the one hand, and the growth of transnational crime (as demonstrated in sex trade) and the accompanying anxiety, on the other hand. A case in point is the way illegal child pornography became easier to distribute and access via the Internet. Also, there is the removal of barriers to international trade goods and the free flow of funds that have facilitated cross-border trafficking, particularly, in the illicit sex trade. There are still no exact figures or statistics that could determine the extent and number of sex workers. Estimates by the UNICEF, however, places the number of women who engage in this kind of work to be about four million every year while millions of children suffer from sexual exploitation worldwide as well (Munck 90) Because, globalization has been blamed for the dramatic growth of the sex industry, it appears that the success is also underpinned by the dynamics that has made capitalism widespread the world over. If one examines the situation from this perspective, one finds that the body has become subject to commoditization as evident in most aspects of Western life. Here, the body becomes a product that can be traded – sold and bought – in the market. For this reason, the global sex industry has become an important contributor to the wealth of global capitalism as revealed in the various establishments from where it could be traded. The lucrative businesses of the hospitality and hotel industries; the bars, dance clubs; massage parlors; the pornography industry and airline companies were major contributors in many countries service and tourism sectors. Again, there is the existence of the global sex industry. Though it may not take such systematic and highly organized nature of legitimate and mainstream multinational organizations, they function and take advantage of globalization in the same way. This dimension underscores how the sex industry works along the parameters of the IPE. In this regard, Koffman and Youngs explain: For example, in Amsterdam in the 1970s and 1980s migrant sex workers were predominantly from Southeast Asia and Latin America. After the fall of European state socialism, increasing numbers came from Central and East Europe. These shifts replicate the racialized, nationalized hierarchy of states and women among sex workers in First World locations (168). What the above statement reveals is that the sex industry supports the so-called “poverty/dislocation model” wherein marketization and the integration of the global economy has come to be applicable into the sex industry as well (168). The model considers the body as being symbolically used to stand in for body politic, or the national body in the dynamics of international relations wherein countries from where most sex workers come from are considered as those lacking in political and economic powers and signifying a status of conquered or possessed territory. The Rise of Sex Tourism The common wisdom is that the proliferation of the sex industry and the dramatic rise of sex workers all over the world are usually brought about by poverty. There are more specific factors than this generalized causality and this include a country mired in debt crisis, falling commodity prices, among others factors that takes away legitimate job opportunities or high-paying occupations for people. There is the case of Jamaica as an example. Because of the country’s debt and the decline of its bauxite and sugar industries back in the 1980s, the government was forced to adopt severe austerity programs and to encourage tourism. By 1990, one in every four of Jamaica’s workers was employed in this industry and this success in the tourism sector has also resulted in the growth of a large and diverse sex industry. (Schaeffer, 178) The Jamaican sex industry saw both men and women voluntarily working as sex workers, “without the coercive debt contracts common in East Asia, and children do not comprise a large percentage of the work force as they do in East Asia” (178). The tourism boom in Dominican Republican also resulted in the thriving sex industry in the country. In most respects, the circumstances that lead to and fostered this development are similar to those in Jamaica. Available statistics reveal staggering numbers. To quote Schaeffer’s study: The number of women in the sex industry doubled from 25,000 in 1986 to 50,000 in 1996, and another 50,000 worked in sex industries overseas. Women in this latter group often work under more coercive conditions than domestic sex workers. Foreign agents advertise regular jobs in other countries, pay the cost of travel to foreign destinations, seize women’s passports on arrival, and then demand women repay their debt by working in the sex industry (178). While most governments do no explicitly sanction the legitimization and proliferation of sex trafficking, the policies being adopted as well as prevailing values, which are byproducts of cultural and social factors, encourage sexual workers. A case in point is the Philippines. Currently, the country owes a significant portion of its income from the remittances of Filipinos working abroad. Battersby and Siracusa observed that the goverment is consciously promoting an image of the Filipina as malleable and obedient domestic and factory workers and that price “incentives” doled out by the government has contributed much to the perpetuation of the exploitation of women as cheap labor and commercial sex workers (62). There are worse practices that are rampant in other countries. For instance, the lax and inaction of governmental agencies to prevent human trafficking has resulted to the thriving trafficking industries in Burma and Thailand. The reason for this, says the Coalition Against Trafficking of Women or the CATW is that young village girls either kidnapped or recruited attract exorbitant amount of money in countries like Japan, where they fetch as much $40,000 per person (Battersby and Siracusa 62). In Thailand, there is a more explicit and direct involvement from the government. This started during the Vietnam War wherein Bangkok became the center for rest and recreation for American soldiers. When the war ended, the Thai government initiated the sex tourism in order to maintain the sex industry, which has proved to be a lucrative income generating resource that complements the Thai tourism industry. In line with this, sex tourism was intensively promoted and that numerous wealthy countries including those in Europe, the United States and, consequently, Japan, cooperated with Thailand especially in the latter’s offering of organized tours that are specifically developed to provide sex (Fahlbusch and Bromiley 394). Today, Thailand is the destination of some five million sex tourists coming from developed countries such as the US, Western Europe, Australia and Japan, raking for the country an impressive $26.2 billion revenue every year (Ritzer 462). THE GROWTH OF PORNOGRAPHY AND ITS NEW GLOBAL REACH It is important to underscore at this point that the Internet plays a crucial role in the way pornography has permeated and reached global in coverage. The medium is a communication tool that disregards geographical boundaries as well as jurisdictions in terms of legal and other regulatory constraints. In tandem with the swift distribution methods courtesy of, again, technology, pornography became a very lucrative and popular industry. The manner in which it is produced, marketed and distributed globally has augmented its universal appeal. It is widely acknowledged that pornography addresses the needs of huge and highly diverse group consumers and that the efficient distribution system has made many pornographic materials available everywhere (106). Sarikakis and Shade outlined the relevant statistics that demonstrate how lucrative the industry has become: The pornography industry – or “adult” industry as its producers prefer to call it – is estimated to be worth approximately $60 billion in 2007, or, put in a comparative context, equal to Hungary’s foreign debt or Thailand’s total sum of exports. The world leader in pornography industry is the US, which spends $12 billion annually on porn – more than it spends on Hollywood and the same as on foreign aid. Each week, over two hundred films are produced, on the smallest possible budgets. In 2002, porn films brought nearly half as much as Hollywood’s $9 billion at the box office, with 11,300 hardcore titles, 70 percent of them being produced in Los Angeles, compared to Hollywood’s 470 film releases annually (107). The above figures are quite fantastic and are mainly attributed to the ease in the way they are produced and sold through the Internet. The medium, as previously emphasized, escapes regulation as international authorities are rendered powerless due to the sheer freedom in the way communication and data are transmitted. Criminal liability is usually vague since the industry operates globally without any specific borders, which could have determined the issue of jurisdiction. In addition to this, the platform also offer certain degree of anonymity to people and that it serves as a place wherein people could interact, exchange information, data and files. In a way, the porn industry – through its use of the Web – has become a leading innovator in terms of taking advantage of the distributive opportunities of the Internet. The porn industry, Sarikakis and Shade found, accounts for the greatest growth of content on the Internet and to be driving the demand for broadband technology and that currently, about 15 million web pages are online offering pornographic content – a dramatic surge from the 66,000 websites documented back in 1999 (108). An important dimension to the popularity of porn is this: because of the expansion and wealth generated as evidenced in their astounding revenues, the industry is increasingly becoming influential especially in the US. It sort became a pressure group, supporting their political representatives that gradually but gradually advances their interests in the American policymaking, perhaps ensuring their unabated activities and money-making schemes today and in the long-term. This economic clout, stressed Slade, has started to achieve for the industry a growing legitimacy that certainly transforms sexual enterprises into quasi-respectable businesses as demonstrated in the way governments tax the profits in the sector, regulate some of the traffic, use diplomacy to counter its piracy in other countries and introduce and implement policies that protect the copyright of sexually oriented media (753). An assessment of the pornography phenomenon demonstrates how globalization and its processes encourage and nurtures the industry’s perpetuation. Like other forms of sex trade, it operates through networks and international distribution systems, particularly of the global media (the Internet, especially). Sarikakis and Shade stressed that this demonstrates a “one-way flow of meanings and labor in terms of content control and production, and utilizes an almost universally understood language, despite its diverse and fragmented audience around the globe” (107). Today, there is existing intraindustrial cooperation with pornographic outfits – a development that can be crucial in bringing pornography to the mainstream and respectable media. For instance, in France, the telecommunications giant Orange is already providing pornographic content to its cellular phones subscribers. Then, there are also the cable television companies, which – with its pornographic channels – have been patronized by most hotels all over the world. With all the factors considered, especially in terms of the way business processes are employed in order to survive and expand, the economic/business models applied in the pornographic industry is not really different from any private enterprise. INTERNATIONAL PROSTITUTION It was during the 19th century when prostitution achieved an international coverage. By 1904, the President of the Austrian League for the Suppression of White slavery declared: There exists an international organization which in many places of the earth has its general terminals; the export is so regulated that women of particular countries of origin are always sent to these centres where they are especially appreciated (Deflem 76). From that point till today, such reference to “international coverage” is no longer confined to a simple organization and few overseas terminals. The fact is that international prostitution is well-entrenched and operates within established network and systems not unlike those found in other forms of sex trade. Thanks to globalization and the trends in labor markets and migration flows, human trafficking has thrived internationally. The internationalization of prostitution can also be attributed to the way it is perceived and sanctioned/prohibited in various countries. There are laws against it but there certainly variations in the way sex workers are defined, in the degree of the trade’s criminalization, in regulation, enforcement and interpretation, among other factors. There is one important fact, however, in the way prostitution has permeated: that because it provides revenue both for the state and the people involved, the industry is sanctioned or the state itself, especially those in Third World countries, turns its head the other way. There are many ways by which prostitution is perpetuated internationally. This paper will cite some of these: adult shops, clubs and escort agencies; the business of mail order brides; and, military prostitution and sex in war. The Role of Adult Shops, Strip Clubs and Escort Agencies Sex businesses usually transpire in adult shops, strip clubs and bars found both in urban, suburban and rural areas and usually operate legally or in the guise of a legal enterprise such as restaurants or salons but actually are sex shops. Internationally trafficked women are sent to these establishments. In New York, for instance, sex businesses include, but are not limited to-, prostitution conducted in the streets, in strip clubs, bars, peep or fantasy booth shows, massage parlors, private apartments, hotels, as well as makeshift operations that transpire in beauty parlors and warehouses. According to Territo and Kirkham, organized businesses and crime networks are the main players in the recruitment of international women into the sex industry in the US and that the above establishments are frequently used to conduct their business. To quote: The majority of international (75%) and US (64%) women reported that people who recruited and/or trafficked them was connected to pimps in the sex industry. Recruiters, traffickers and pimps are involved in other criminal activities such as fraud, extortion, migrant smuggling, theft and money laundering, in addition to trafficking and prostitution (5). It is important to note that organized crime groups and individuals engaged in sex trade have highly structured organizations that are run by a hierarchy of individuals and groups who get together for the so-called business ventures that are usually started by opening an establishment like those mentioned above because these groups usually prefer to operate in many layers of people and businesses to run the trade. The Role of Mail Order Brides Another excellent demonstration of international prostitution, albeit in a more legal and tempered setting, is the proliferation of companies offering mail order brides. A search for keywords “marriage agency” in Google will list KievConnections.com in one of the top search results. In its homepage, it explained about the site and the introduction of its owner, who wrote: American managed Marriage Agency. I am Brett Ousley, the American owner and manager of Kiev Connections Ukrainian Woman marriage agency. I live in Kiev Ukraine and am directly involved with meeting and selecting our Ukraine ladies, as well as, ACTIVELY managing the office… our ladies want to marry you if you are from any Western country. We have gotten men married who live in America, Canada, The UK, Australia, France, German and many more Western countries. KievConnections contains a gallery of Ukrainian women who are advertising to meet their future husbands. In addition, there is an existing communications system in place that could facilitate correspondence among members. The system of mail-order-bride companies is not only a kind of human trafficking in women but also a form of prostitution because it involves men buying women for sexual as well as domestic service. There are cases when women, who found wanting after a “successful match” (which actually qualifies as a purchase), were turned over to prostitution or in harem-like environment. Barry provided a disturbing example: In 1991, [a] California man was being investigated for bigamy after having added a Thai wife to his household, which already included a Filipino wife he had purchased. The harem like arrangements built from mail-order-bride buying came to light when the Thai woman contacted police indicating that she had been sexually assaulted and held in restraint by her purchaser-husband (155). Because of the Internet, the mail-order-bride industry continues to thrive, matching women from poorer countries such as in Asia and Eastern Europe with predominantly rich men from Western countries. The Role of Military Prostitution and Sex in War As mentioned previously, specifically in the way sex tourism was developed in Thailand, prostitution is commonplace in military bases overseas. The Vietnam War sort of launched this practice when soldiers, for their R&R, flocked to Bangkok for sex. The US military base became a distinct and significant economic and social institution and this is underscored in the following statistics as outlined in the US Defense Policy Handbook: More than 200,000 troops on foreign soil and more than 50,000 personnel afloat in foreign waters; More than 800 foreign military installations including 60 major ones; Military presence in 140 countries; and, The United States conducts joint exercises annually with many countries sending sizable contingents, some in multinational settings (IBP 67). The above shows a remarkable military engagement overseas and, needless to say, each of the military bases and installations overseas are hotbeds for prostitution. Poverty is, again, a major factor for this. Historically, wrote James, militarized prostitution has played an important economic role because it became a source of income and foreign currency for host communities and countries. He cited, for example, the case of Korea during the 1980s: Disparities in income between GIs and prostitutes were such that even up to the late 1980s, when South Korea’s “economic miracle” began to touch some parts of the working poor, a “short time” cost the serviceman $5, and $10 got him an entire night with a woman. This was just a small fraction of the monthly salary of a serviceman – himself most likely from America’s urban or rural underclass (149). Today, even military bases in the US are also magnet for prostitution. McCabe cited the base in Fayetteville, North Carolina, which is also notoriously called Fayettnam because of the Asian prostitutes trafficked to serve the soldiers (24). Here, one sees that prostitution thrives because there was a need for it both from the prostitutes and the servicemen’s ends. CONCLUSION The globalization of the sex industry as well as its economic and political achievements has been demonstrated in the manner in which they have become sanctioned and protected industries in countries even in the US. They are also manifested in the astonishing expansion the industry has experienced in recent years. Speakers and advocates of the sector as well as policymakers have began to use words such as adult film, enterprise, private entity, freedom of expression, rational choice, among other neo-liberal language that underscore the success of the international sex industry. Specifically, there is the legitimation of the sex trade, which is demonstrated in the way mail order brides have been accepted and patronized. It also demonstrates the way the economic variables dominate the discourse and the past stigma of sex-for-pay. Here, there is already a semblance to an interplay between what is private and what is public within the auspices of capitalism. The dynamics of the internationalization of prostitution is anchored on issues of economics, primarily and then, of course, politics due to the fact that government involvement/sanction figures prominently in its proliferation. With the experiences of Third World countries such as the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Philippines and Thailand, there is a clear indication that adverse economic conditions force people to engage in sex trade and the government to encourage because it adds to the balance of trade. With the advent of globalization, this industry has elevated its processes as technologies and resources available made it possible for the ease and speed of transactions that transpire across borders. All in all, the sex trade is big business and that because of globalization and its ties to the global tourism industry many governments promotes it or, at least, encourages it because, in the context of limited economic capabilities and alternatives that results from the modern economic and political exigencies, it brings money that could augment limited resources. BIBLIOGRAPHY Barry, Kathlkeen, The Prostitution of Sexuality. New York: NYU Press, 1996. Battersby, Paul and Siracusa, Joseph, Globalization and human security. Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009. Fahlbusch, Erwin and Bromiley, Geoffrey, The Encyclopedia of Christianity, Volume 4. Grand Rapids: W,. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005. International Business Publications (IBP), US Defence Policy Handbook. Washington, D.C.: International Business Publications, 2005. James, Joy, States of confinement: policing, detention and prisons. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Jeffreys, Sheila, The industrial vagina: the political economy of the global sex trade. Oxon: Routledge, 2009. "Marriage Agency Kiev Connections American Manager in Kiev," Kiev Connections. 11 Aug. 2010 http://www.kievconnections.com/ Koffman, Eleonore and Youngs, Gillian, Globalization: theory and practice. London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2003. McCabe, Kimberly, The trafficking of persons: national and international responses, New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2008. Munck, Ronaldo, Globalization and social exclusion: a transformationalist perspective. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, Inc., 2005. Ritzer, George, Globalization: A Basic Text. West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons, 2009. Sarikakis, Katharine and Shade, Leslie, Feminist interventions in international communication: minding the gap. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008. Slade, Joseph, Pornography and sexual representation: a reference guide. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001. Territo, Leonard and Kirkham, George, International Sex Trafficking of Women & Children: Understanding the Global Epidemic. New York: Looseleaf Publications, 2010. Read More