Migrant sex work is sex work done by migrant workers. It is significant because of its role as a dominant demographic of sex work internationally. It has common features across various contexts, such as migration from rural to urban areas and from developing nations to industrialized nations, and the economic factors that help to determine migrant status. Migrant sex workers have also been the subject of discussions concerning the legality of sex work, its connection to sex trafficking, and the views of national governments and non-governmental organizations about the regulation of sex work and the provision of services for victims of sex trafficking.
Demographics and background The illegal nature of migrant sex work makes it difficult to obtain reliable and conclusive estimates of migrant sex workers.Augustin, Laura. 2006. “The Disappearing of a Category: Migrants Who Sell Sex.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 32(1):29-47. However, social scientists have discovered significant trends regarding the identity of migrant sex workers. While migrants who work in agriculture or construction are largely male, migrants who engage in commercial sex work are largely female with ages ranging from the early teens to middle age.Agustín, Laura. 2007. Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry. London: Zed Books. Migrant sex workers make up significant proportions of the sex worker population in many countries, with estimates ranging from 37% in the UKUK Network of Sex Work Projects. 2008. "Working with Migrant Sex Workers." Manchester, United Kingdom: UK Network of Sex Work Projects to 90% in Spain.TAMPEP international Foundation. 2009. “Sex Work in Europe.” European Network for HIV/STI Prevention and Health Promotion among Migrant Sex Workers.
Migrant sex workers are diverse in terms of nationality of origin. In certain national contexts, such as in the United Arab Emirates, sex workers come from a diverse range of nations of origin, such as Russia, Nigeria, and Thailand.Mahdavi, Pardis. 2011. Gridlock: Labor, Migration, and Human Trafficking in Dubai. Stanford: Stanford University Press. About 60% of sex workers in large Dutch cities, for instance, are women of color from developing nations.Kempadoo, Kamala. 2001. “Women of Color and the Global Sex Trade: Transnational Feminist Perspectives.” Meridians 1(2):28-51. As a result, what distinguishes migrant sex workers from local sex workers are primarily their low socioeconomic status, primarily illegal immigration status, and poor language skills.Bernstein, Elizabeth. 2007. Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, and the Commerce of Sex. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. This results in their frequent marginalization in the unregulated and dangerous sectors of the sex industry.Davidson, Julia O'Connell. 2005. Children in the Global Sex Trade. London: Polity Press.
Reasons for migration and sex work
Reasons for migration Low economic status and harsh living conditions in migrant sex workers' home country often serve as push factors for migration to more economically advantaged nations. Vast migration between third and first world countries in response to diminishing economic prospects at home has been prevalent since economic globalization widened the income gap between developed and developing nations.Ehrenreich, Barbara and Hochschild, Arlie. 2004. Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy. New York, NY: Holt As a result, the number of international migrants doubled between 1960 and 2005.Morrison, Andrew R., Maurice Schiff, and Mirja Sjoblom, eds. 2008. The International Migration of Women. The World Bank. This international migration has increasingly become feminized, with females making up 50% of all international migrants.
Reasons for sex work Migrants enter sex work for a variety of reasons. Female migrants largely migrate for jobs in the care sector, such as domestic work, childcare, and sex work, as opposed to males who engage in more physically demanding labor, such as construction and agriculture. Some migrants may have originally intended to work in commercial sex while others found themselves turning to commercial sex after alternate labor means failed or proved to be less lucrative. Others may engage in sex work as a result of situations involving the need to pay off debts incurred during migration or fees to a wide variety of middlemen who may help secure papers, travel passage, and places of work.
For women who engage in rural to urban migration in developing nations with growing free-trade zones and importation of foreign financial capital and tourism, sex work is often more lucrative than alternative forms of labor, such as working in manufacturing or in factories subcontracting to foreign corporations. Women can choose to engage in commercial sex over these forms of labor, or use sex work to supplement other labor activities, such as domestic work.
Problems in data and research Several scholars have noted the growing number of academic studies, news media coverage, and government and NGO reports on migrant sex workers, victims of sex trafficking, and the overlap between these two groups. As the perception of an international sex trafficking pandemic grows, there have been a large number of attempts to count the number of individuals who engage in some sort of migration and sex work, either voluntarily or coerced.Tyldum, Guri and Anette Brunovskis. JH. 2005. "Human Trafficking in East Asia: Current Trends, Data Collection, and Knowledge Gaps." Pp. 165-202 in Data and research on human trafficking: A global survey edited by Laczko, Frank and Gozdziak, Elzbieta. Geneva: International Organization for Migration. However, scholars and activists have often criticized the methodologies of these studies and the motivations behind them.
Conflation of sex work and sex trafficking Because prostitution can be an extremely political topic that represents differing political interests, the method of data collection and the use of collected data can vary in reliability. While more pro-sex work academics, organizations, and activists make an explicit demarcation between sex workers and victims of sex trafficking, many other groups consider prostitution to inherently lack a voluntary component. Many anti-sex work activists consider any form of migration for the purpose of commercial sex to be a form of human trafficking. As a result, depending on the definition of human trafficking by the organization or data collector, the number of either migrant sex workers or victims of sex trafficking can dramatically change depending on whether or not these two categories of individuals are conflated. Scholars, service providers, and practitioners who attempt to remain apolitical and outside the feminist views on sex trafficking and sex work regarding prostitution still often remark how the legal definitions of human trafficking are still too vague for them to efficiently and neutrally define and count victims. As a result, who is considered to be a migrant sex worker or victim of sex trafficking can widely vary.
Illegality of sex work The illegal nature of either the migration, sex work, or both components of migrant sex work make it difficult to obtain reliable and conclusive estimates of migrant sex workers. Scholars Guri Tyldum and Anette Brunovski call sex workers "hidden populations" which they define as "A group of individuals for whom the size and boundaries are unknown, and for whom no sampling frame exists." The reasons why a sampling frame does not exist lies in the illegal and stigmatized nature of sex work. In order to protect their identity from law enforcement and family members, sex workers are often unwilling to participate in studies and surveys that may compromise their privacy and identity.
Diversity in migrant sex work Migrant sex work is also incredibly diverse due to the large number of countries and migration contexts that are involved.Brennan, Denise. 2005. “Methodological Challenges in Research with Trafficked Persons: Tales from the Field.” International Migration 43:35-54. There is no statistically generalizable portrait of migrant sex workers' day-to-day lives, living and working conditions, and relationships with other sex workers, clients, or third party intermediaries. Studies are unlikely to capture the sheer diversity in migrant sex worker experiences, especially when many of them come from selective samples, such as from a sex worker service provider or even shelter for human trafficking victims. As a result, many scholars caution against accepting any survey or study of sex workers as generalizable.
Relationship with human trafficking
Risk of human trafficking Because of their illegal and vulnerable economic status, some migrant sex workers may find themselves in situations where coercion and forced sex work may be present. Under international legal definitions of human trafficking, forced and coercive forms of sex work are considered to be instances of involuntary sex trafficking. However, many scholars caution against categorizing sex workers as either completely voluntary or completely involuntary. They often argue that sex work, like other forms of labor, can span a spectrum between the two extremes, with most circumstances falling in the middle through various labor rights violations. Nevertheless, the vulnerability of migrant sex workers can make them susceptible to exploitative or coercive labor practices that can resemble or be human trafficking.
Conflation with human trafficking Whether or not human trafficking and migrant sex work should be considered the same concept has been a contentious debate among feminist activists, government officials, scholars, and religious organizations for the past 20 years. This debate currently dominates much of the public discussion surrounding human trafficking and sex work. On one side of the debate are anti-prostitution activists who conflate migrant sex work and human trafficking because they do not believe in voluntary prostitution or because they view any migration for the purpose of sex work as human trafficking. This perspective has largely dominated mainstream governmental and NGO perspectives toward human trafficking across international contexts. On the other side of the debate are pro-sex worker rights academics and activists who argue for the separation of voluntary migrant sex work from involuntary human trafficking and a greater focus on labor and migration rights instead of trafficking. This group works for the recognition of the right of women to pursue sex work as a legitimate form of work, more flexible and open borders for migrants, and a greater focus on the spectrum of coercive labor conditions.Doezema, Jo. 2002. “Who Gets to Choose?: Coercion, Consent, and the UN Trafficking Protocol.” Gender and Development 10(1):20-27.
Sex work and sex trafficking conflation is also a heavily debated legal topic. Several scholars argue that existing legal provisions aimed at combating human trafficking, such as the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act and the 2000 United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, do not adequately account for the variety of sex worker conditions and contexts, voluntary or involuntary. For instance, Filipina hostesses who migrate to Japan to work as entertainers must give up their legal documents to their recruiters during the migration process.Parrenas, Rhacel. 2011. Illicit Flirtations. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. While the law considers the process of giving up a passport to a third party intermediary as a condition of human trafficking, several scholars, activists, and the sex workers themselves do not regard this to be human trafficking, particularly when individuals consent to this component of the migration process.