In the recent times
the twitter hash tag #notyourrescueproject has become a battleground between a
group of radical feminist abolitionists and many of the sex working women who
were speaking out on the hash tag about their experiences.
The abolitionist group
have apparently chosen as their spokesperson @meganemurphy and have in
consequence repeatedly reposted a link to her analysis of #notyourrescueproject
at http://www.straight.com/news/572896/meghan-murphy-whats-missing-notyourrescueproject
In her analysis
Megan critiques a number of issues and seeks to show how radical feminist
abolitionists have been misunderstood and misrepresented. She also posits sex
working women as all being victims of exploitation and quotes others who
suggest that sex workers who represent themselves otherwise derail the global fight for freedom and equality.
There
is obviously a deeply contested notion of sex work that has fuelled quite angry
and bitter exchanges between the different groups.
I
would like to unpack some thoughts about why so many Sex Workers feel so much
anger and then consider the misunderstandings and misrepresentations raised by
Meghan.
Firstly
I want to make it clear that I am fully seized that many women experience
considerable harm when in sex work. I believe the marginalised nature of sex
work and its stigmatisation has often allowed exploitative people to abuse the
consequentially vulnerable sex workers. I believe many women have been
compelled by coercion to sell sex, while others have been emotionally
manipulated into exploitative sex work. I know of other women who through
poverty have resorted to selling sex and have felt devalued by that experience.
I have also noted that many women can only pay for their drug use by selling
sex. Therefore I am fully seized that many women resent their sex work
experiences and want to protect other women from the abuse they suffered.
I
am also quite convinced that many privileged actors resent women demanding to
be paid for their sexual labour and as such they want to constrain and punish
us for our insolence. Furthermore they have legislated and socially constructed
sex work to push sex workers to the edges of society so criminal elements can
easily harass and exploit sex working people often in collusion with law
enforcement.
I
believe the barriers to be able to sell sex safely and free of exploitative
forces makes sex work unnecessarily dangerous. However the exploitation of sex
work is not inherent in sex work it is a consequence of allowing structures and
legislation that prevent sex workers from organising effective resistance. The idea that women need to be protected from
men is a patriarchal myth that underpins the practice of woman exchange,
marriage to ensure patrimony, and purduh. Laws that protect women are usually
grounded in the notion that women must be protected from sex that might
compromise patrimony. I believe women need rights that allow them to organise
their own resistance, however abolitionism demands to control the legitimacy of
sexual access to my body; as such it is predicated on the patriarchal notion of
“woman protection” rather than effecting “woman autonomy”.
My
own matriarchal culture has been all but destroyed by centauries of deliberate
persecution by powerful actors who resented our rejection of marriage and
patrimony. This matriarchy predates patriarchy and as such it is not a reaction
to patriarchy but an alternative. However it is now a weak and mostly forgotten
tradition buried under the opprobrious rhetoric of those who demanded to
control our sexual behaviour. (You can read something about the Devadasi here)
So
apart from the many women who experience exploitation and abuse in sex work
there are also many women who successfully negotiate the various sex work
environments and find sex work to be interesting and meaningful work. These
women do not deny the hazards nor do they deny the experiences of those who
have suffered harm and hurt. These sex working women believe that their stories
and experiences should also be heard and used to inform a better understanding
of the diversity of sex work. When they are told that their experiences and
opinions are not useful and that they do not properly understand the dynamics
of sex work some of these sex workers have become quite angry at such contrived
exclusion. They are also sometimes accused of being “not representative” or being
“pimps” or “men”. These dismissals are hurtful and provocative; they also
suggest that when someone doesn’t exist theoretically there is a tendency to
obfuscate that possibility so as to protect the theoretical canon over
contradictions that challenge its validity.
Before
I spoke English and could use Twitter I was representative of some young Indian
sex workers now I have broken through that technological and cultural glass
ceiling I am no longer representative and I can be ignored according to
Meghan’s analysis. I do not believe it is likely that will be any reach out to
enable the voices of young Indian sex workers to speak in open social forums
unless such voices are mediated by more powerful agents. In any case, any of us
who do access twitter will, by definition, no longer be representative. This is
a disingenuous argument and disqualifies our attempts to participate. It also
allows for the unheard voices of my still "representative" friends to
be appropriated and spoken for by others. I think many people would be very surprised to
know how many simple Indian sex workers use facebook, but unless you are
willing to learn an indigenous Indian language they will remain unheard by
English speakers.
I will now try and
address the misunderstanding and misrepresentations raised by Meghan.
Meghan
contends that many women consider the use of the “rescue industry” to be strategic misrepresentation intended to undermine
women’s solidarity. She also highlights that much abolitionist work is undertaken
by volunteers and is underfunded. As a survivor of the “rescue industry” I am
convinced that women are sometimes “rescued” and then detained in abusive
circumstances so they can be used to entice donors to fund NGO rescue projects.
I do not believe that many individuals actually profit directly from such
activities but I believe that many “rescue” agencies receive considerable
funding from the US government and religious organisations to conduct “rescues”
regardless of the desires of the “rescued”. The policy of the US Government not
to fund agencies that refused to consider prostitution abusive prevented many
Sex Worker led NGOs from receiving funding and privileged funding to “rescue”
NGOs. This prejudicial funding stream spawned a myriad of anti-prostitution NGO
opportunists that slavishly repeated the moralistic polemic of Ambassador John
Miller. Agencies such as the DMSC
in Songachi lost USAID funding while abolitionist agencies increasingly received
substantial funding. The underwriting of abolitionist agencies with such
preferential funding required the delivery of various outputs and that included
so many “rescued” women and girls. Anti-trafficking is dominated by the 4 Ps,
prevention, protection, prosecution, and policy.
Consequently for our protection we were rescued to
order and then detained with safe custody orders so we could be displayed as so
much rescued “flesh”. When we were
visited by white women feminists, I was allowed to do a dance display and then I
was taken upstairs and locked in a room because the NGO staff knew I could
speak English and they did not want me to translate for the other detained
women. During the Q&A the other women repeatedly said they wanted to go
home and this was translated as them appreciating the safety of the home.
Eventually most of us managed to escape and then other women were “rescued”.
I believe that there is a “rescue industry” and that
it is preferentially funded and that this funding has created and sustained the
abusive detention of many women and girls. I believe many residential rescue
centres are not centred on the needs and best interests of detained women and
girls but are often driven by the prosecution agenda. Many rescue NGOs need to
deliver prosecution outputs and as such women and girls can be held by the NGOs
for years as material witnesses demonstrating that the NGOs are engaged in “prosecution”.
So there is a conflict of interest between the best interest of a woman wanting
to move on from a rescue centre and the NGO detaining her who also needs to
deliver a prosecution output even if that means years of detention for the
woman or girl involved.
So while not every abolitionist group is preferentially
funded enough are so as to have created a “rescue industry” model of
intervention in many places.
With regards to Maghan’s comments regarding race,
class, and the myth of the white upper-class abolitionist, I am not well
positioned to respond as I find the nexus of these matters to be confusing in
Europe. I come to these issues in a post-colonial world were sex workers in my
country are subaltern to various elites, these elites most certainly once included
white upper class abolitionists who petitioned for draconian laws against
Indian sex workers and the LGBT community. Now we are confronted by other
elites whose moral authority is intended to reinforce patriarchal and heterosexist
norms. The NGO sector in South Asia is dominated by the elites who often then keep
the third sector as the means to police the poor. These seem strange allies for
those who would like to break the stranglehold of patriarchy.
With regards to choice I consider this to offer little in helping to
understand the intentions of women and girls. I did not have the choice to
become an astronaut or the wife of a rajput or a bus driver, but equally I did
not have to be a sex worker. I do not intend to be a sex worker all my life. I
have met people in the UK who deliver leaflets about home delivery pizza
services the work is dreadful in the winter but they tell me they have no
choice. I know a woman teacher who really does not like her job but she says
she will stay for two more years because of her pension. Most poor women do not
sell sex but many choose to get married in exchange for the security of being considered
male property. I decided if a man wanted sexual access to me he was going to ask
very nicely, and then if I agreed he would have to pay me what I considered appropriate.
I have met arrogant Rajput men who have a sense of entitlement to the bodies of
women but these men are so angry if you say to them if you want me you must
pay! Arrogant men want free sex not paid sex. My clients are overwhelmingly
simple kind men who are trying to deal with their sexual needs in an honest,
transparent and equitable way. The only men I have ever been really scared of
are Policemen and Politician family men.
With regards to notions of the “feminist prude” it is a matter of record
that the abolitionists have achieved a great deal through their alliance with
the religious right, and frankly I
think their manipulation of the religious right was and is a masterful
political coup. The moral panic sustained by the religious right allows the
more astute feminists to often direct policy and practice regarding sex working
people.
However I would like to return to the notion that it is considered acceptable
to legislate regarding what is legitimate sexual access to women.
Many years ago women were allowed to have sex for procreation with their
husbands. Then women were allowed to have sex with their husbands for
procreation and pleasure. More recently women are being allowed in some places
to have sex for pleasure.
Laws that determine who is to be allowed sexual access to women are
driven by patronymic concerns. If women seek to subvert patrimony especially
sex workers they have always been subjected to extreme penalties including
death. If women are to live free of patriarchy we must strike down every law
that seeks to determine what is or is not legitimate sexual access between non-consanguineous
adults.
I do realise that I have
probably missed so much but I hope that will help some to see how radical feminist
analysis of sex work needs to be revised to go beyond Eurocentric constraints
and that it needs to welcome the voices of all sex workers not just survivors.
To those who felt compelled
to invade #notyourrescueproject with links to meghan’s analysis, you are
welcome to ignore me as not “representative”
I acknowledge the help of
the @nagarvadhu in translating some of this from my mother language to English
