The Exploitation/Choice Dichotomy

The arguments for and against women‘s choice in prostitution are represented ideally by The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW or Coalition)⁸⁴ feminists (Aurora

84 The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW or Coalition) is an international feminist non-governmental organization with Category II Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. Its regional headquarters (Asia, Latin America, North America, Europe, Africa and Australia) provide networking services for women in prostitution and sex trafficking (and any other forms that are included in the Coalition's category of sexual exploitation of women) in cooperation with the Coalition's partner or member organizations in each region. The Coalition - Asia Pacific (CATW-AP), an umbrella organization, is located in the Philippines, and their membership organizations provide direct services to women in various areas such as

Javate De Dios, Aida F. Santos, and Mana Dulce F. Natividad) on the one hand and an Asian Women's Human Rights Council (AWHRC) representative, Nelia Sancho, on the other.⁸⁵

Coalition feminists argue that, for poor women, given their limited job opportunities, there is no such thing as voluntary prostitution, because they have no choice but to become prostitutes as a matter of survival thus sell themselves for sex reluctantly. On the other hand, Nelia Sancho argues that there can be voluntary prostitution, because women can decide to enter prostitution for material reasons, no matter how limited their alternatives. Sancho also stresses that women's choice to enter into prostitution is not a matter of liking sex (sexuality), as their choices are not necessarily made in an ideal situation, where they can fully exercise their preferences in work. The following comments by Sancho explicate her notion of choice:

…there are two types of women in prostitution: women who find themselves forced into prostitution and women who went into prostitution through mutual agreement with their client. Poverty may be a factor, but it is not the only reason for women to go into prostitution. There are so many poor Filipinos in this country....if you say it's because of poverty, it means that every poor Filipino woman would become a prostitute. But that is not the case. It is not the question of liking, either. I became an activist but I never dreamed of becoming an activist. I am a former beauty queen, and then found myself here. It does not mean I like this, but this is where I found myself because of the situation in my country at that period, where I was and things like that.‖ ⁸⁶It just means that each woman made a choice, according to how she perceives legal assistance, skills and educational programs and material and medical support. The major Philippine organizing members of the Coalition are feminist advocacy groups in Quezon City such as Women, Education, Development, Productivity and Research Organization (WEDPRO), Women's Crisis Center, and Bukluran ng kababaihan sa Lansangan (BUKAL, association for women in Street prostitution), but it also includes organized groups of women who are currently and previously involved in prostitution such as BUKLOD Center (Olongapo), Nagkakaisang Kababaihan ng Angeles City (NKAC, Angeles), and Lanig Bubai (Davao, Mindanao). Some women from these groups also work for organizations like WEDPRO and BUKAL. Therefore, the Coalition assists the programs of membership organizations based on life-experiences of women who were previously involved in prostitution. Crimes on Asian Women: The Case of the Filipino Women. Book II (Manila: AWHRC, 1999). She is also an active organizer and participant of numerous international forums on prostitution and trafficking, in collaboration with the other Asian AWHRC counterparts and feminist NGOs such as Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women (GAATW) of Thailand.

86 See Mina Roces, Women. Power, and Kinship Politics: Female Power in Post-War Philippines (Pasig: Anvil Publishing, Inc., 2000). Sancho was the winner of the 1971 regional beauty contest, Queen of Pacific. Yet the declaration of martial law in the following year stimulated her political awareness to become a militant activist of the leftist anti-Marcos group, which led to her involvement with the Communist Party and its military arm, the New People's Army. While being herself a political prisoner, she addressed the issues of national liberation in the communist underground movement. At the same time, she also advocated feminist concerns, and co-founded "the General Assembly Binding Women for Reforms, Integrity, Equality, Leadership, and Action (GABRIELA), which was organized to serve as the umbrella for al1 women's organizations‖ after the assassination of Marcos's political opponent, Benigno Aquino in 1984 (p. 180).

her situation. Situations for making choices are not always ideal. Many people in our country have to make a choice at any given situation, most often it is done in a situation of difficulty. Such is not always a nice environment to make a choice. Some people find themselves in an ideal, positive situation, however, for many Filipinos;

they make choices in a difficult situation. So, it becomes academic to talk about "Is that a real choice? A genuine choice? I am saying that each one makes choices according to what she thinks is the best for her at a given stage in time.

Sancho's respect for women's choice stems from her conception of empowerment:

One component of empowerment of a person is the development of his or her own individual which includes that person's knowledge, talent, skills or competence that would enable the person to be fully functioning in one's day to day life. As such, the capacity for self-agency or self-determination of that person has to be supported and enhanced at whatever level. Self-agency means being able to determine what's best for yourself and to take care of one's self in any situation one finds oneself in - whether it is a survival or crisis situation; or whether one finds oneself in a good environment where choice could be made at a higher, positive level. One must exercise one's own self-agency by being able to choose what one wants to be. And there must be respect for one's choices. No matter how others think that those choices are not the best choices, the person who chooses what is best for him or her at a given situation expresses the person's power over oneself. The situation to make choices for one self may not always be ideal. For example, the situation of a battered woman who has to make a choice to leave or stay with her husband. Whatever her decision is, even if we as outsiders don't believe that she has made the best choice for herself, we have to respect her will, her own capacity for self-determination. That's what it al1 means by power. Only an individual knows what would be good for her or him. An individual decision made is an expression of one's power.⁸⁷

Thus, AWHRC respects the agency of women in prostitution for consensual/voluntary sexual service; what constitutes human rights violation is not the act of prostitution per se, but the abuse and exploitation behind the operation of the prostitution business. This statement from the Asia-Pacific Consultation⁸⁸ on prostitution epitomizes this point:

This forum defines al1 labor performed by women in the sex industry as work and recognizes women in prostitution as workers. And hence, prostitution, by definition, is recognized as work. The acceptance and recognition of prostitution as work is to recognize and validate the reality of women who are working in prostitution. There is a need to make a distinction between prostitution and trafficking. Sex work per se is not exploitation. The element of abuse, violence and criminality in prostitution, particularly vis-a-vis trafficking, is the problem. The sex industry is a large and profitable industry in the Asia-Pacific region. However, having no rights as workers, women in the sex industry see little of the profit and encounter a majority of the risk

87 Ibid.

88 The consultation was organized by Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) and the Foundation for Women in Bangkok, Thailand on February 17-18, 1997, followed by its subsequent Regional Meeting on Trafficking in Women, Forced Labour, and Slavery-Like Practice in Asia and Pacific on February 19-21 of the same year. The outcome of the consultation came out with a publication of Removing The Whore Stigma (Bangkok: GAATW, 1997).

and abuse.⁸⁹

In this context, AWHRC sees women's empowerment as recognizing the agency of women to choose prostitution as a livelihood, for whatever reasons, and the protection of the rights of women in prostitution to work under equal and humane conditions, should they choose to do so. Their human rights principle likewise centers on the respect for women's agency and subsequent rights of self-determination. Poverty is not viewed as the sole reason that causes women to enter prostitution, even if it is one of the essential factors that motivate women to engage in it; some women enter prostitution for financial reasons, but other women do not necessarily follow the same route. Recognition of prostitution as a work of women's choice distinguishes voluntary prostitution from sex trafficking the latter being a form of involuntary prostitution that infringes human rights by violating women's right to consensual activities. Prostitution evolves into trafficking, when women's involvement in the sex trade involves ―movement, force/coercion/deception, and abusive/exploitative conditions.‖⁹⁰

In order to distinguish between women's choice and women's exploitation in entering prostitution (especially in trafficking), the above consultation statement also calls for the need of legal reform in the decriminalization of prostitution as work and of prostitutes as workers:

All state laws on prostitution in the Asia-Pacific region contribute to women's powerlessness because they fail to respect the human dignity and agency of women in the sex industry. The laws are often used as repressive tools by both the law enforcement machinery and traffickers to abuse and exploit women working in prostitution. …We hold our governments accountable for failing to recognize the rights of al1 women to work under safe and humane conditions. Our governments have one set of policies for workers at the center of society and another for those at the margins. Having recognized prostitution as work and women within prostitution as workers, we seek the decriminalization of prostitutes as workers and of prostitution as a site of work.⁹¹

Sancho thus argues that there is a need to address state power and corruption and their

89 AWHRC, Asian Womenews, Vol. 4 No. 1, August 1997, 8.

90 AWHRC, Asian Womenews, Vol. 5, May 1999, 29. This is the outline of a working definition of trafficking in the Human Rights Standards for the Treatment of Trafficked Persons (based on several UN human rights instruments including the IL0 Forced Labour Convention) advocated by AWHRC and other related groups such as GAATW. The document defines trafficking as follows: "Trafficking consists of all acts and attempted acts involved in the recruitment, transportation within or across borders, purchase, sale, transfer, receipt or harboring of a person involving the use of deception, coercion (including the use or threat of force or the abuse of authority) or debt bondage for the purpose of placing or maintaining such person in a situation of abusive or exploitative labor or service, whether for pay or not, such as in the garment, agricultural, fisheries, begging, sex or other industries, in the provision of domestic, sexual or reproductive services (including forced or servile marriages), or in any other form of abusive and exploitative labor or servitude or slavery-like practices in the public or private sector" (p.28).

91 AWHRC, 1997, 8.

failure to recognize the exploitation and abuse of women in the sex industry as a labor issue.

But I am not advocating for legalization of prostitution here, because those who make laws in the Philippine Congress do not see prostitution as work. They see this as a moral issue, not a labor problem. Some lawmakers have two lives—in their public life, they appear to be moral family men. Their other life is more hidden—often profiting from business relationships or bribes in exchange for favorable legislation. As part of the other lifestyle, they see prostitutes, like GROs. To highlight their public morality, they promote laws based on conservative values. But they never address the situation of women sex workers. The impact of current laws on prostitution encourages moral homogeneity but create abuse at the same time for the women in the sex industry. In actuality, women are placed in an abusive situation, because of the rigid moral legal framework applied to sex workers.

The issues highlighted in these arguments entail elements of abuse and exploitation in the sex industry and the state's policy and enforcement of it. In particular, women's entry into the sex industry is viewed separately as one's freedom to exercise decision-making power.

The liberal/neo-liberal perspectives of AWHRC highlights "the complex ways people seek to ensure their well-being in a changing world," one of the factors that Jane Parpart has included in her analyses of power in developmental theory.⁹² Insofar as there are differences in women's decision-making, the Coalition's sexual exploitation theory of prostitution does not account for the complex ways in which poor women decide how or not to enter the sex industry. On the one hand, many young lower-class women seek to earn higher incomes by becoming GROs or dancers. On the other hand, other poor women, such as street vendors, for instance, chose not to enter the sex industry, because bar hostessing was never an option.

In this regard, AWHRC‘s arguments obscure the distinction between "inequalities in people's capacity to make choices"⁹³ and "differences in the choices they make.” While AWHRC problematizes power inequality for women who are already in the sex industry, it does not focus on the impact of such power inequality on women's decision-making process.

It is true that there are differences between women in similar contexts of power inequality; all of these women, being poor and unemployed, make different strategic life choices based on their preferences, no matter how limited. These differences in women's choice, however, do not change the fact that many of these women's decisions to enter the sex industry result from

92 Jane Parpart, "Rethinking Participation, Empowerment and Development From a Gender Perspective," in Jim Freedman, ed., Transforming Development. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999, 262.

93 Naila Kabeer, "Resources, Agency, Achievements: Reflections on the Measurement of Women's Empowerment," in Development and Change (Vo1.30, May 1999), 439.

the extended power inequality reinforcing the Philippine sex trade. In fact, arguments by the Coalition feminists have shown that the survival imperative is dominant, if not absolute, in women's decisions to enter the sex industry. Poverty is clearly one aspect of power inequality limiting women's abilities to exercise strategic life choices, however, the distinction between prostitution and trafficking becomes blurred, when women are trafficked into involuntary prostitution as a consequence of entering the sex industry. For example, there are those who are trafficked to Japan or other countries, through their connections between bars and local entertainment promotion agencies in Quezon City. It is hard to say whether choices involved in their eventual trafficking overseas are different from the choices they made to become a GRO or go-go dancer in a Quezon bar context. Although the two contexts are different, these choices are still interrelated in the sense that they would not have been trafficked overseas, if they had not entered the sex industry in the first place.

Similar stories show that trafficking is often involved, even when women decide to enter the sex industry voluntarily, as many of these women are recruited from the provinces through the 'encouragement' of bar managers, pimps and their relatives and family in the bar.

Most of these women come to the sex industry without knowing or being informed that they will be forced to go out with customers. Yet they eventually 'choose' to engage in sex after being exposed to conditions of life in the sex industry. In such contexts, how can I still argue that one should respect and not interfere with women's choice? Thus, feminist understandings of women's choices cannot be qualified by simply considering the extent to which the act of prostitution per se or labor conditions of prostitution is sexually exploitative.

In short, the divergent arguments posed by Coalition feminists and AWHRC feminists degrade into an endless dilemma. If prostitution is defined as a system of sexual exploitation resulting from human rights violations, it will overlook the differences in women's decision-making agency. If prostitution is defined as work that prioritizes women's rational choices, it will in turn overlook the underlying inequalities in women's abilities to make choices. One way of getting around this dilemma is to focus on the ways in which the inequality of power dynamics, both within and outside the sex industry, influences women's decision making at the intersection of their life history and socio-economic background. I can now explicate at a deeper level the relationships between discourse, practices and power.

Figure 13: Filipino Feminism: The Exploitation/Choice Dichotomy