Trafficked? Filipino Hostesses in Tokyo’s Nightlife Industry by Rhacel Parrenas
After a few months in Tokyo, I became known as ate, meaning big sister, to man of the Filipino contract workers whom I met in the course of my research. Most were in their early twenties, but those older than me, including those who had returned to Japan more than ten times as contract workers and who were now in their late thirties, still called be “big sister.” They did so not necessarily out of respect but because they often forgot their real age, as they consistently have to...
Read MoreSexual Labors: Interdisciplinary Perspectives Toward Sex as Work by Rhacel Parrenas with Eileen Boris and Stephanie Gilmore
What constitutes ‘sex’ and defines ‘labor’ has varied across time and space, we have learned over the last 35 years through an explosion of monographs and articles in the history and sociology of sexuality and labor studies. But rarely has the new labor studies, with its attention to gender, race, and ethnicity and its consideration of unpaid as well as paid work, put sexual labors at the center of its focus. Even the rich literature on prostitution more likely has come out of women’s...
Read MoreThe indentured mobility of migrant women: How gendered protectionist laws lead Filipina hostesses to forced sexual labor by Rhacel Parrenas
In 2004, the U.S. State Department labeled migrant Filipina hostesses as sex trafficked persons. As the U.S. Trafficking in persons report (U.S. Department of State, 2004: 14) claimed, On arrival at their destination, victims are stripped of their passports and travel documents and forced into situations of sexual exploitation or bonded servitude. . . . For example, it is reported that Japan issued 55,000 entertainer visas to women from the Philippines in 2003, many of whom are suspected of...
Read MoreReview: Children in the Global Sex Trade by Rhacel Parrenas
With Children in the Global Sex Trade, Davidson adds to her growing corpus of works on globalization and prostitution a study on children in the global sex trade. Children in the Global Sex Trade
Read MoreSEXUALITY, VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN, AND HUMAN RIGHTS: Women Make Demands and Ladies Get Protection by Alice Miller
Although women’s rights advocates came to human rights demanding accountability for all human rights, this demand has been stymied. Specific elements of violence against women (VAW) as a human rights issue, coupled with sexual harm’s particular operation to make VAW visible, produced a parodox: the harms themselves are not yet effectively responded to, yet women’s sexual vulnerability is now firmly on the global agenda. This piece explores the state-oriented focus of rights...
Read MorePreparing for Civil Disobedience: Indian Sex Workers and the Law by Prabha Kotiswaran
This article deals with the reform of prostitution laws in India. It begins with an outline of the current legislative framework available in this regard and then critically evaluates the various alternatives to the framework that have been proposed through the 1990s by the Indian government, universities and research institutions, the Indian women’s movement and sex-worker organizations. Mter undertaking an historical examination of prostitution laws in India from colonial times up to...
Read More
