A-Infos (en) Britain, Anarchist Journal, Organise! #72 - Sex work and `trafficking' ­A vile trade?

UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has declared war on prostitution. In November 2008 she 
unveiled a set of proposals to criminalise prostitutes' clients as well as giving new 
powers to the police to close down brothels. She's doing all this in the name of 
`protecting vulnerable women' ­ women who, she says, are exploited, `trafficked' and 
coerced into the sex industry against their will. But in fact her proposals have very 
little to do with protecting the women, men and transgendered people who work as 
prostitutes. ---- What they're really about is controlling immigration, keeping 
prostitutes divided ­ amongst themselves and from other workers­ and increasing state 
control over people's lives.

What is `trafficking'?

In announcing her proposals for this
new legislation, Smith declared that
she wanted to target the client as
"the person responsible for creating
the demand for prostitution markets
which in turn creates demand for
the vile trade of women to be
trafficked for sexual exploitation".
So what is this "vile trade", and who
are its victims?
    First of all, there is a difference
between "trafficking" and people-
smuggling. According to the
definitions laid down by the United
Nations, smuggling is helping
someone to cross a border illegally
in return for payment. "Trafficking",
on the other hand, is using either
force or deception to make someone
move for the purposes of
exploitation ­ the movement itself
does not necessarily have to be
illegal, or even across a national
border, to count as "trafficking".
Anti-Slavery International, an NGO
which campaigns against all forms
of forced labour, has documented
cases of people being trafficked into
the UK to work in agriculture,
construction, domestic work, food
processing and packaging, care
work, catering and many forms of
casual labour as well as in the sex
industry. Most of those people wer
coerced to work in appalling
conditions by means of debt
bondage (agencies charge the
workers a fee for arranging their
work, and the workers are then
forced to work until they have paid
it off), by removal of passports or
other identity documents, or simply
by means of threats, intimidation
and violence. Anti-Slavery
International has also found that
many ­ perhaps even most ­
trafficked migrant workers actually
enter the country perfectly legally.
In other words, "trafficking" is a
workers' rights issue, not an
immigration issue.
    Not surprisingly, the UN
definition of "trafficking" has
become the gold standard for
international anti-trafficking
initiatives. In 2007 the government
published the UK Human Trafficking
Action Plan, which quotes the UN
definition at length and proudly
boasts that the government has now
adopted a "human rights based
approach" to trafficking. But a closer
look at all these declarations and
action plans soon reveals that these
so-called human rights are a world
away from any genuine notion of
workers' rights ­ whether for
prostitutes or anyone else.
Human rights? Whose human rights?
For sex workers, the UN definition
of "trafficking" ­ the movement of
persons by force or deception for
purposes of exploitation ­ is
dangerously ambiguous. It's that
word "exploitation" that's the catch.
The UN definition goes on to say
that by "exploitation" they mean (a)
prostitution or other forms of sexual
exploitation, (b) forced labour, (c)
slavery or slavery-like practices, (d)
servitude, or (e) the removal of
organs. Notice that prostitution is
listed separately from either forced
labour or slavery. In other words, it
is simply assumed that all
prostitution is by definition a form
of exploitation. What's more, if you
are a migrant sex worker, the mere
fact that you are working in
prostitution in a foreign country is
often regarded as evidence that you
are a victim of "trafficking".
    But the idea of "exploitation"
used in anti-trafficking policies is
not just bad news for sex workers
in particular. It also makes a
mockery of work in general. The
UK Human Trafficking Action Plan
demonstrates this very clearly when
it turns its attention to forced
labour. The Plan notes without
irony that "One of the difficulties
we will face in investigating
trafficking for forced labour is
distinguishing between poor
working conditions and situations
involving forced labour. The
element of coercion is an
important indication of the latter."
At this point we might start to
wonder who on earth would be
working in such poor conditions
unless they had been forced into it!
The fact is that millions of low-
paid workers in the UK and
elsewhere are forced into
exploitation ­ by threats of
violence or incarceration, by debt,
hunger and the need for survival in
an economic system which is
intended to produce profit for the
few rather than to provide for the
needs of all. The difference
between the kind of exploitation
experienced by "trafficking"
victims and the exploitation
experienced by all the other
workers facing low pay and poor
conditions is not qualitative but
quantitative ­ they are at the
extreme end of a continuum of
misery under capitalism.
    So the so-called human rights
approach to "trafficking" is based on
a thoroughly confused notion of
"exploitation" which does nothing
to get to the real roots of workers'
misery, whether in the sex industry
or in any other sector. On the one
hand, it assumes that all prostitutes
are exploited simply because they
are prostitutes, as if they had no will
or agency of their own; on the other
hand it also assumes that workers in
any other industry are only exploited
if they have been subjected to
specific types of coercion, regardless
of how low their pay or how poor
their working conditions may be.
This only reinforces the
stigmatisation of prostitutes as
"other" and keeps them divided
from workers in other sectors.
    Talk of "trafficking" also helps to
reinforce divisions between migrant
and non-migrant workers by
promoting the perception that the
exploitation and oppression faced by
"trafficked" workers is
fundamentally different from the
exploitation and oppression faced by
all working class people everywhere.
It helps to disguise the fact that what
we all have in common is not just
our exploitation at work ­ or, for
increasing numbers of us these days,
out of work, as we become "surplus
to requirements" ­ but also our
ability to unite and fight back.
State control and market forces
The state metes out different kinds
of treatment to different categories
of "trafficked" workers after they
have been "rescued". There are
currently no government support
agencies for "trafficked" workers in
any sector other than prostitution.
Once you are discovered to have
been "trafficked" and your
"traffickers" have been arrested,
you're on your own ­ and if you
entered the country illegally you can
expect to be deported. Nor does the
government provide any support for
men or transgendered people who
have been "trafficked". However, the
situation is different for "trafficked"
female prostitutes, who can be taken
in by the Poppy Project, a
government-funded agency offering
"support and accommodation". The
Poppy Project "encourages" women
to co-operate with the authorities ­
for example, by providing
intelligence to the police or other
state agencies ­ in order to qualify
for long-term support. The Project
also explicitly shares the UN's
assumptions about prostitution and
exploitation, and puts a lot of energy
into helping the women in its care
to leave prostitution, while doing
precisely nothing to promote the
rights or welfare of women who
remain in the industry. So under
this apparently benevolent guise, the
government can exercise a great deal
of control over migrant sex workers.
If you are a migrant prostitute and
get arrested on some prostitution-
related charge or other, you have a
choice: go along with the
assumption that you are a victim of
"trafficking", in which case you will
be offered accommodation, a
subsistence allowance, healthcare
and education, on condition that
you play along with the authorities;
or insist that you are working in the
industry of your own free will, in
which case you will be prosecuted ­
and, unless all your papers are in
order, deported. Victim or criminal,
"vulnerable woman" or whore ­ the
state has got you either way. The UK
Human Trafficking Action Plan cites
the Poppy Project as an example of
best practice, and reveals that the
government intends to extend
similar schemes for workers
"trafficked" into forced labour. Such
workers will, for example, be
entitled to apply for residence
permits for as long as they co-
operate with the authorities.
    The sleight-of-hand which equates
all prostitution with exploitation,
and assumes that all prostitutes are
victims, is not unique to the Poppy
Project, nor to the UN. It dates back
to at least the 19th century, when
Christian philanthropists like
Josephine Butler notoriously
campaigned to "rescue" vulnerable
"unfortunates" ­ working-class
women and girls ­ from a life of
vice and train them for so-called
decent employment such as
domestic work. This assumption
denies sex workers any agency of
their own, treating them as poor
helpless individuals who need to be
saved rather than as workers with
their own voice, their own strength,
and their own demands. It's exactly
the sleight-of-hand which Jacqui
Smith is performing now in her
attempt to criminalise the clients of
all prostitutes in the name of
"protecting vulnerable women".
The rhetoric of "trafficking" and
"vulnerable women" acts as a smoke
screen from behind which Smith can
attack prostitutes in general by
further eroding their working rights
and conditions. Smith's proposals
do nothing to help any men,
women, transgendered people or
children who might want to get out
of the sex industry, nor to improve
the health, safety or working
conditions of those who simply
prefer prostitution to any of the
other kinds of work available to
them (or to unemployment). In
fact, as many sex workers'
organisations have been quick to
point out, closing down brothels
and criminalising clients in the way
Smith is proposing will actually
make prostitutes more vulnerable,
driving the trade further
underground and forcing workers
onto the streets and away from
relative safety and solidarity with
their co-workers in the brothels. The
rhetoric of "trafficking" may also
serve to reinforce divisions between
migrant sex workers and local
prostitutes. Migrant workers who
have entered the country illegally
and/or with the help of third
parties, and who are therefore in fear
of arrest and deportation, may be
forced as a consequence to accept
lower pay or worse conditions for
their work than local prostitutes
would usually tolerate. Local
prostitutes often blame migrant
workers for undercutting prices and
lowering the standard of working
conditions in general.
    The rhetoric of "trafficking" is
also being used as a pretext to clamp
down even further on immigration.
Despite the fact that the UN
definition of "trafficking" very
clearly states that "trafficking" does
not necessarily mean illegal
immigration ­ or indeed any
immigration at all ­ the UK Human
Trafficking Action Plan is only too
happy to present "trafficking" as one
of "the main threats and challenges
to our borders". The Plan states that
a series of new immigration controls
will be introduced over the next ten
years to tighten the UK's borders,
including the use of biometrics, and
that the prevention and detection of
"trafficking" will form an essential
part of immigration control. This
can only mean that it will become
even more difficult for migrant
workers to enter the UK ­ which in
turn, of course, will make workers
more likely to pay agencies or other
third parties to get through the UK
borders, placing them at greater
potential risk of debt bondage or the
loss of identity documents. In other
words, the clampdown on
immigration on the pretext of
"trafficking" will again make
prostitutes and other migrant
workers more vulnerable to abuse.
    Many women, men and
transgendered people working as
prostitutes in the UK face a struggle
against low pay, poor working
conditions, and risks to their health
and safety of a kind which that
workers in other sectors do not.
They also face criminalisation and
police harassment at work, not to
mention vicious stigmatisation and
discrimination from society at large.
Talk of "trafficking" does nothing to
tackle any of these issues. What it
does instead is to criminalise
prostitutes and their clients even
further while also eroding
prostitutes' pay and conditions ­ a
double whammy of state control and
market forces which can only make
prostitutes' working lives more
difficult. Little wonder that sex
worker activists have demanded that
all "trafficking" policies be scrapped
and the term "trafficking" itself
abandoned. It is not just useless ­
it's positively harmful.
Sex workers' rights and anarchist
communism
Governments and policy-makers like
to stoke the myth that prostitutes are
simply victims ­ at worst helpless
sex slaves, at best pathetic fools who
are too stupid and/or drug-addled
and/or "socially excluded" to know
any better. But prostitutes and other
sex workers have a long history of
struggle against oppression and
stigmatisation, and in the last 15
years the international sex workers'
rights movement has grown in
strength and confidence. In 2005
the International Committee on the
Rights of Sex Workers in Europe
(ICRSE) issued both a manifesto and
a declaration of rights in the wake of
a huge and important international
conference of sex worker activists in
Brussels. Their demands include the
right to travel and cross borders for
purposes of sex work, an end to
abusive working practices and
conditions in the industry, effective
action against violence and coercion,
and the right to enter, remain in or
leave the industry of one's own free
will. Here in the UK the
International Union of Sex Workers
(IUSW) was founded in 2000 and
subsequently became a branch of the
GMB trade union with TUC-
recognition. This means that
prostitutes and other sex workers,
such as dancers and porn actors, can
join the IUSW and gain all of the
usual GMB member benefits,
including legal advice and support
over health and safety issues at work.
But the IUSW is much more than
just a GMB branch ­ it campaigns
actively for sex workers' rights and is
involved in a number of workers'
projects and initiatives, including the
recently-founded X:Talk project, an
organisation specifically by and for
migrant sex workers.
    Organisations like these are vitally
important in the struggle for sex
workers' rights. Not only do they
campaign hard against the
criminalisation and oppression of
prostitutes and other sex workers,
but they also foster a sense of pride
and empowerment among sex
workers themselves. In an industry
where stigmatisation and shame
have been a stock-in-trade for
centuries, it is hard to underestimate
the importance of initiatives such as
Prostitution Pride marches, or the
appearance on demonstrations of red
umbrellas, an internationally
recognised symbol of sex workers'
rights since their use by
demonstrators in Venice in 2001. In
all of these organisations, sex
workers' self-organisation and self-
determination are the cornerstone of
every campaign. Clients, allies and
friends may be welcome to support
the campaigns or even to join certain
organisations, but it is the sex
workers themselves who call the
shots, write the demands, organise
the campaigns, and make their
voices heard.
    From a revolutionary anarchist
perspective, the self-organisation of
sex workers to defend themselves
against criminalisation and
oppression can be seen in its rightful
place in the overall struggle for
workers' self-determination. But of
course workers' self-determination
as such is only part of the story. The
struggle for anarchist communism is
not just a struggle for workers but
also a struggle against work as we
know it today. Our ultimate aim is
to build a society where no-one has
to work for a wage ­ where goods
and services are distributed on the
basis of need, and where we all work
together to nourish our
communities rather than just to earn
a wage. While prostitutes today are
rightly proud of their own skill,
professionalism and earning power,
we want to see a world free from
capitalism, where everyone will take
pride in our abilities to control our
own lives and co-operate to organise
our own communities.
   There are lots of reasons why
these anarchist goals might at first
glance seem quite alien to the sex
workers' movement. Centuries of
criminalisation and state harassment
have meant that sex worker activists
are much more focussed on the
reform or abolition of specific laws
and policies than on the abolition of
capitalism as a whole. In fact sex
worker activists today are more likely
to be heard defending their right to
work than attacking the institution
of waged work as such. For
example, one of the primary
demands of the sex workers'
movement is precisely to have
prostitution recognised as a
legitimate form of work and
prostitutes as legitimate workers. In
a context where for centuries
prostitution has been dismissed as
crime or immorality rather than
acknowledged as real work, that
demand makes perfect sense as a
way of improving prostitutes' lives
under capitalism. Similarly, the sex
workers' movement's demands today
tend to call for states and
international agencies to rescind
some laws while enforcing or
introducing others. The ICRSE
manifesto, for example, demands the
decriminalisation of sex work, but
also demands the introduction of
anti-discrimination laws and of
legislation to protect sex workers'
employment and conditions. Again,
these demands make perfect sense
for sex workers living under the
current system of nation-states,
legislative powers and international
agencies. But surely the logical
conclusion of migrant sex workers'
demands, including their rejection
of the language of "trafficking",
must be a demand for the lifting or
outright abolition of all national
borders ­ no borders, no passports,
no "traffickers".
    If demands such as those of the
ICRSE were met, sex workers would
at last have the same rights as
workers in other sectors. And for an
anarchist communist perspective on
sex work, that's precisely the point ­
because the rights, and the lives, of
all workers under capitalism are
basically shit, and going from bad to
worse. Sex workers' self-
organisation to pursue their
demands has been inspirational, but
for anarchist communists it's just
one step towards our larger goal:
the self-organisation of all workers
to create a world without bosses or
borders, where our lives will be
organised around co-operation and
solidarity rather than wages. It's
capitalism's exploitation in all
workers' lives, brains and bodies for
money that's the real "vile trade".
Useful websites
International Committee on the Rights of Sex
Workers in Europe ­ www.sexworkeurope.org
International Union of Sex Workers ­
www.iusw.org
X:Talk ­ www.xtalkproject.net
_________________________________________
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