Doubtless the high respect in which prostitutes are held in Italy explains the lively business of smuggling in Nigerian women without papers and using them for rough trade:
Last October, a local weekly, The News, reported the Italian ambassador to Nigeria, Giovanni Germano, as saying that 60 percent of all sex workers in his country were Nigerians. Statistics show that more than 90 percent of those repatriated or intercepted came from Edo State in the southwest. Olateru-Olagbegi, whose organisation has embarked on a campaign against the trend, says even where the girls realised that the object of the trip was to engage in prostitution, most did not bargain for the type of bondage and abuse to which they were subjected. "The sponsors usually make them undertake secret oaths or lawyers are brought in to make agreements. They now arrange all the travel documents, give them orientation and send them into the streets," she said. "The type of sex involved often includes bestiality - sex with dogs and monkeys, and many of them didn't bargain for that," she added. The amounts they owe to their sponsors, usually in the region of US $50,000, have to be paid off over years before the women can earn their freedom.
Olateru-Olagbegi, whose organisation has embarked on a campaign against the trend, says even where the girls realised that the object of the trip was to engage in prostitution, most did not bargain for the type of bondage and abuse to which they were subjected.
"The sponsors usually make them undertake secret oaths or lawyers are brought in to make agreements. They now arrange all the travel documents, give them orientation and send them into the streets," she said.
"The type of sex involved often includes bestiality - sex with dogs and monkeys, and many of them didn't bargain for that," she added.
The amounts they owe to their sponsors, usually in the region of US $50,000, have to be paid off over years before the women can earn their freedom.
Followups: Two articles which make it pretty clear that trafficking works about the same in the UK, where prostitution is technically illegal, and in Italy where it is legal: BBC article 1, BBC Article 2
More:
Anyway, here's some reading material to enrich the debate.
Here is an argument for the elimination of commercial sex, "counterbalanced" by what I take to be a satire on arguments for its promotion (though it could be serious): Prostitution: Solutions for a Global Problem ... and here is an interview with one of the most active "investigative journalists" (actually an academic) researching the material conditions of modern prostitution Merge Magazine interviews Dr Melissa Farley, which states the "anti" case pretty succinctly.
This may be the most cogent argument I know of for legalisation, and it makes telling points (but I am not sure it stands up all that well to actual research and testimony from "legalised" countries and brothels): Prostitution in Canada: The Invisible Menace or the Menace of Invisibility?
And this may possibly be the best summary of the counterargument: Ten Reasons for Not Legalising Prostitution
As to the actual experiences of many prostituted persons and how they compare to the sanitised, "happy hooker" or "top dollar dominatrix" story told by Hollywood and popular humour and folklore: Here is a study on PTSD among prostitutes, a comparative survey across five countries: "Across countries, 73 percent reported physical assault in prostitution, 62 percent reported having been raped since entering prostitution, 67 percent met criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD. On average, 92 percent stated that they wanted to leave prostitution. We investigated effects of race, and whether the person was prostituted on the street or in a brothel." The whole paper is worth a read.
Is prostitution simply a matter of a commercial transaction between adults? Not really, since a large percentage of prostitutes start working the streets as children or teenagers: "Undercutting the myth that prostitution is an act between two consenting adults, a study of the lives and needs of prostituted women in Chicago reveals that the women started in prostitution as teens. According to the Center for Impact Research, 32 percent first exchanged sex for money between the ages of 12 and 15."
This is a fairly comprehensive paper (warning, PDF!) from the anti-prostitution viewpoint, including specific data based on interviews with legalised brothel workers in Australia (the poster child for legalisation). I apologise for the somewhat explicit and disturbing nature of the excerpt below, but I think it is important to bear in mind what kind of work this really is, what the customers demand as "sex," and how often and to what extent their demands include, inevitably, the 'right' to treat contemptuously, hurt, and damage the bodies of the prostituted women.
The idea that prostitution should be seen as work is one of the arguments that was made in favour of the legalising or decriminalising of brothel prostitution that has taken place in several states of Australia. In fact there is always an illegal industry vastly larger than that which is licensed or has planning permission. In Victoria, according to the owners of the legal brothel industry, there are 400 illegal brothels to 91 legal ones. So the industry is mostly illegal and run by criminals. Street prostitution, in which women dependent on drugs and girls too young to work in brothels are exposed to the most extreme forms of sexual exploitation and violence, is increasing in Victoria. None of the problems that legalising brothels was said to solve, such as an out of control illegal industry and street prostitution, has been alleviated. It is well known that street prostitution is extremely dangerous. Women are at risk of rape and murder, beatings, knifings [...] The violence is carried out against so-called high class prostituted women as well. A booklet for call girls in London recommends having mirrored walls so women can see whether the man has a knife behind his back. [...] In brothel prostitution these extraordinary problems (after all what other form of work includes murder as an ordinary hazard?) are supposed to be reduced. Let us consider the legal brothels of Melbourne, supposedly the créme de la créme of prostitution. One of my students did research in a legal brothel by interviewing women both before and after bookings about the boundaries they tried to create to control what men were able to do to them and to what extent they were successful. The brothel she studied contained a lounge in which the introductions took place. All the women waited in the lounge. Men came in one at a time to make their selection and the women had to compete to be chosen. They would come up and touch the men sexually and vie with each other in offering what they would do. Some might offer sex without condoms if they particularly needed the money. Then they went up to the room. Women would often apply lubricant in a bathroom on the way up because the men would be most unhappy if they got the impression the women were not sexually aroused and some would refuse to pay. Then the women had to try to control the encounter. Men would sometimes want an all around the world i.e. access to any orifice in any way and the right to touch any part of the womans body. The woman must then struggle to restrict him whilst not losing the booking. One woman said that for anal she would charge $500 but this would be according to how large it was i.e. a larger penis means more pain. Another woman said a man had started to put lubricant on his fist and when she asked what it was for he said he intended to fistfuck her. The demand for fistfucking suggests that the increasingly violent and degrading practices carried out upon women in pornography are educating men in what they wish to do to women, first in prostitution and then in their relationships. This applies also to anal sex. When women came down from bookings one would shower for 10 minutes in very hot water to get the dirt off her body. Before a booking one woman would come out in goose bumps. Her skin was crawling at the thought of what she would have to endure. Sexual harassment is what the man pays for. The women dissociate to survive the ordeal using psychological techniques or drugs and alcohol. Women in prostitution are not a different kind of women who can endure the unwanted hands and penises of men in and on their bodies more easily than others. It is true that many are seasoned by previous sexual violence in childhood or adulthood. To such women the violence of prostitution can seem less severe. But they hate it just as much. Any acceptance of prostitution is an acceptance that certain women can reasonably be set aside as appropriate objects of exactly the harassment that other non-prostituted women seek to get out of their workplaces and lives. This is the story of the most respectable form of prostitution in the world. Here in Australia there are codes for the implementation of occupational health and safety OHS) in brothels drawn up by state authorities, but only for the tiny number of brothels that are legal. It is hard to work out occupational health and safety codes for work in which women are regularly at risk of violence and harassment such as men twisting nipples and shoving fingers up women's anuses. Codes have to deal with diseases which are life-threatening, where women may be required to handle faeces and urine as well as semen, where they have to suffer the psychological damage of dissociation. Codes for other workplaces require the isolation of dangerous substances, wearing gloves etc. Prostituted women are in no position to do these things.
It is well known that street prostitution is extremely dangerous. Women are at risk of rape and murder, beatings, knifings [...] The violence is carried out against so-called high class prostituted women as well. A booklet for call girls in London recommends having mirrored walls so women can see whether the man has a knife behind his back. [...]
In brothel prostitution these extraordinary problems (after all what other form of work includes murder as an ordinary hazard?) are supposed to be reduced. Let us consider the legal brothels of Melbourne, supposedly the créme de la créme of prostitution.
One of my students did research in a legal brothel by interviewing women both before and after bookings about the boundaries they tried to create to control what men were able to do to them and to what extent they were successful.
The brothel she studied contained a lounge in which the introductions took place. All the women waited in the lounge. Men came in one at a time to make their selection and the women had to compete to be chosen. They would come up and touch the men sexually and vie with each other in offering what they would do. Some might offer sex without condoms if they particularly needed the money. Then they went up to the room. Women would often apply lubricant in a bathroom on the way up because the men would be most unhappy if they got the impression the women were not sexually aroused and some would refuse to pay.
Then the women had to try to control the encounter. Men would sometimes want an all around the world i.e. access to any orifice in any way and the right to touch any part of the womans body. The woman must then struggle to restrict him whilst not losing the booking. One woman said that for anal she would charge $500 but this would be according to how large it was i.e. a larger penis means more pain. Another woman said a man had started to put lubricant on his fist and when she asked what it was for he said he intended to fistfuck her. The demand for fistfucking suggests that the increasingly violent and degrading practices carried out upon women in pornography are educating men in what they wish to do to women, first in prostitution and then in their relationships. This applies also to anal sex. When women came down from bookings one would shower for 10 minutes in very hot water to get the dirt off her body.
Before a booking one woman would come out in goose bumps. Her skin was crawling at the thought of what she would have to endure. Sexual harassment is what the man pays for. The women dissociate to survive the ordeal using psychological techniques or drugs and alcohol. Women in prostitution are not a different kind of women who can endure the unwanted hands and penises of men in and on their bodies more easily than others. It is true that many are seasoned by previous sexual violence in childhood or adulthood. To such women the violence of prostitution can seem less severe. But they hate it just as much. Any acceptance of prostitution is an acceptance that certain women can reasonably be set aside as appropriate objects of exactly the harassment that other non-prostituted women seek to get out of their workplaces and lives.
This is the story of the most respectable form of prostitution in the world. Here in Australia there are codes for the implementation of occupational health and safety OHS) in brothels drawn up by state authorities, but only for the tiny number of brothels that are legal. It is hard to work out occupational health and safety codes for work in which women are regularly at risk of violence and harassment such as men twisting nipples and shoving fingers up women's anuses. Codes have to deal with diseases which are life-threatening, where women may be required to handle faeces and urine as well as semen, where they have to suffer the psychological damage of dissociation. Codes for other workplaces require the isolation of dangerous substances, wearing gloves etc. Prostituted women are in no position to do these things.
More on Prostitutes and PTSD
The experiences of a woman who prostituted primarily in strip clubs, but also in massage, escort and street prostitution, are typical (Farley et al., 2003). In strip club prostitution, she was sexually harassed and assaulted. Stripping required her to smilingly accommodate customers' verbal abuse. Customers grabbed and pinched her legs, arms, breasts, buttocks and crotch, sometimes resulting in bruises and scratches. Customers squeezed her breasts until she was in severe pain, and they humiliated her by ejaculating on her face. Customers and pimps physically brutalized her. She was severely bruised from beatings and frequently had black eyes. Pimps pulled her hair as a means of control and torture. She was repeatedly beaten on the head with closed fists, sometimes resulting in unconsciousness. From these beatings, her eardrum was damaged, and her jaw was dislocated and remains so many years later. She was cut with knives. She was burned with cigarettes by customers who smoked while raping her. She was gang-raped and she was also raped individually by at least 20 men at different times in her life. These rapes by johns and pimps sometimes resulted in internal bleeding. Yet this woman described the psychological damage of prostitution as far worse than the physical violence. She explained that prostitution "is internally damaging. You become in your own mind what these people do and say with you" (Farley et al., 2003). Almost two decades earlier, Norwegian researchers noted that women in prostitution were treated like commodities into which men masturbate, causing immense psychological harm to the person acting as receptacle (Hoigard and Finstad, 1986).
Yet this woman described the psychological damage of prostitution as far worse than the physical violence. She explained that prostitution "is internally damaging. You become in your own mind what these people do and say with you" (Farley et al., 2003).
Almost two decades earlier, Norwegian researchers noted that women in prostitution were treated like commodities into which men masturbate, causing immense psychological harm to the person acting as receptacle (Hoigard and Finstad, 1986).
In other words, the harm done to women in prostitution is not merely a byproduct of the illegality of the trade and the secrecy, repression and coercion typical of an illegal business. Harm is also the commodity being sold. In the legal brothels of Australia, a woman can lose income if she refuses painful anal intercourse with a client; her only other option is to charge more for enduring the painful experience. I suggest the reader -- particularly the hetero male reader -- might wish to think seriously about how much a well-endowed man would have to pay him to cooperate with such a demand -- would it be more than $500 AUD? How much would it be? What would it be like to make a living catering to such demands, several times a day? To lose significant money by insisting on only "safe" or ordinary sex? To be offered big bonuses for risking HIV infection by not insisting on a condom? How much money would one have to earn to make it worthwhile? Would it be preferable to other "dirty" jobs like bricklaying, ditch-digging, or cleaning toilets?
And more fundamentally, is there any such thing as a "fair price" for hurting and demeaning another person? Perhaps we can calculate one by asking, What price would you or I pay to have our daughter, or any other woman we cared about, spared from such an experience? What would we pay in ransom to get our daughter safely out of such a situation? I'm thinking five figures, six figures, heck, most parents would pay whatever was asked, if they had to go into debt for the rest of their lives. Why are not prostituted women paid these kinds of sums, if that is the fair-market price for the various harms they are expected to endure?
The question of why so many men wish to hurt or demean women is a far larger one. The scope of a discussion of patriarchy, misogyny, and their bearing on male sexuality as constructed in various cultures around the world, is so vast that I doubt a whole forum could hold it, let alone one thread or diary. (Head over to Stan's place and join the brawl in progress.) I would suggest that for the moment, rather than fleeing to idyllic fantasies of Bonobo-land, those concerned with social justice should accept the prevailing Hobbesian realities: that many men enjoy hurting women and find sex inadequate unless it includes bullying and hurting; that these men are very likely to try to buy access to "disposable" women and children for anonymous use, so as to avoid the complications and loss of reputation involved in being a known batterer or abuser within a community; and working from these distressing but well-attested realities, figure out how to curb this tendency and protect our society's most vulnerable women and children from it. Figuring out how these men got to be this way and how we could raise boys to be less violent and hateful towards girls and women, would be a fine project; but that's a multigenerational effort. In the meantime there is actually-existing abuse and suffering to be addressed, and no easy answers.
Certainly criminalising the prostituted women themselves is absurd and misogynist. They are either free agents engaging voluntarily in sexual trade, or victims of coercion, and in neither case are they coercing or doing harm to others. Perhaps what should be criminalised is "profiteering off the sexual labour of another person" (there have been laws like this in the past prohibiting pimping specifically). And of course existing laws against kidnapping, rape, assault and GBH should be applied without prejudice to offences against prostituted women (fat chance of that, in a world where male police, judges, lawyers and politicians are often among the men abusing the prostitutes, but it's a nice idea).
The paper on choice, law, and prostitution is S Anderson, "Prostitution and Sexual Autonomy: Making Sense of the Prohibition of Prostitution", from Ethics July 2002. I don't think it is available online, unless you have access to Lexis/Nexis or something similar. Which is a pity as it is one of the best discussions to date of the debate between normalisers and abolitionists. The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
There has been a series here (I believe originally on MTV) showing one of the legal brothels outside Vegas which is male owned but run by a madam. She appears to ensure new recruits are given help in negotiations etc with the clients by the more experienced. Part of their procedures involved the girls examining the client for obvious signs of infections or infestations and strict use of condoms. This did not stop a client causing one girl mental trauma when he slipped a condom off and she had to be tested and was off work with the shock. It was unclear whether the client was arrested over it. I believe not and that was clearly wrong. If legal brothels were to be introduced, the willingness of the police to apply the ordinary laws of assault and rape to protect the workers would have to be assured. The "fisting" episode described in the submission was clearly assault. Whilst I suspect most of the potential clients would wish to be the subject, there are will obviously be some women prepared to be the subject of sado-masochism so a defence against an assualt charge on the grounds it was consensual and paid for would have to be allowed. An important caveat to that would have to be that a signed or recorded verbal contract would be the best defence and that the client's "toys" could not be used so that in the absence of a contract the consent could be implied by the type of set-up. It would depend on the juridiction whether these should form part of a set of regulations or arose from case law.
If prostitution were legalised and controlled, compulsory regular health checks would form part of it and I see no reason why compulsory counselling at the same time could not be legislated for. Whilst an objection against this might be that workers not in brothels would not have to have such licences, the penalty for street walking could be ammended to compulsory testing and extended counselling, including in that case financial advice.
I think it is necessary for those who use the harm argument for prohibition and presumably punishment of those still working, to explain how that would protect the workers from abuse and harm.
