Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition [Paperback]

Kamala Kempadoo (Editor), Jo Doezema (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0415918294 | ISBN-13: 978-0415918299 | Publication Date: June 18, 1998

Global Sex Workers presents the personal experiences of sex workers around the world. Drawing on their individual narratives, it explores international struggles to uphold the rights of this often marginalized group.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This anthology of essays by scholars, activists, and organization leaders uses studies concerning both male and female sex workers of primarily Third World and developing countries to explore the social and economic issues of the industry. The writers first define both the forced and voluntary trafficking of sex in terms of a labor pool that is often migratory and at times even unionized. Issues of race and morality also play a role in the status and legitimacy of sex workers. These writings also highlight the major organizational movements and conferences of sex workers since the 1970s, as well as discussing the effects of AIDS and other health issues. Much of the literature on prostitution centers on Western cultures or single localities in the developing world. Few works have presented as well-rounded a view of prostitution as this volume, although there is Nannette Davis's Prostitution: An International Handbook on Trends, Problems, and Politics (LJ 9/1/93). Recommended for large public and academic libraries.AJenny Lynn Presnell, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

These studies provide a wealth of information and data. The analytical chapters that precede and follow them are enlightening.
–The Progressive

A provocative collection of essays on prostitution, by scholars, journalists, and sex workers, with a focus on developing countries along with two essays on Japan....While the authors strongly condem forced labor, they contend that law enforcement should address the question of coercion, not sexual activity itself.
–Foreign Affairs

Few works have presented as well-rounded a view of prostitution as this volume.
–Library Journal

Frankly, I expected this book to be depressing, if informative; it turned out to be exhilarating and educational. The international group of scholars, activists, and sex workers whose voices Kempadoo and Doezema have brought together shows us women as victims and agents of resistance, colonized bodies, and defiant minds, rejecting all received clichés about prostitution, whether the source of the cliché be academic, imperial, or (even) feminist.
–Lillian S. Robinson, co-author Night Market: Sexual Cultures and the Thai Economic Miracle

Global Sex Workers is an important new work on the changing global politics of sex work that will shake up anyone used to thinking of women sex workers solely as victims.
–Elaine Bernard, Executive Director of the Harvard University Trade Union Program --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Routledge (June 18, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415918294
• ISBN-13: 978-0415918299
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #762,016 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Global Sex Wokers, March 30, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition (Paperback)

Global Sex Workers is a series of pieces by a variety of authors on sex worker issues around the globe. The term "sex workers" has been used deliberately by the editors and contributors, as it emphaises the work in sex work and to some extent avoids the stigmatization associated with the term "prostitute". The editors and contributors' perspective on sex work is radical in its opposition to traditional ways of approaching the question. Rather than advocating abolition of prostitution because prostitution always violates women's rights, the contributors take a more nuanced approach, acknowledging that some sex work takes place in conditions of oppression and indeed slavery, but that much does not. Furthermore, crimialization of sex workers, their clients and those associated with sex work (eg pimps and madams) hamrs the women involved in sex work, although such laws are often said to be for the benefit of sex workers.

The book exmines a variety of issues in the area of sex work - theoretical approaches to sex work; migration of women for sex work; sex tourism; sex workers' organizations; and issues of AIDS prevention and sex workers' empowerment. The chief virtues of the book are twofold: first, its global perspective is refreshing, in a debate that has so often centered on the experiences of sex workers in the west; and second, the focus on sex workers' organizations themselves. Much that is written about prostitution ignores the voices of women involved in sex work, and it is good to see that trend being countered in this book.

Countires discussed in the book include Japan, Cote d'Iviore, Cuba, the Caribbean countries, Thailand, Ecuador, South Africa, Mexico, India and Malaysia, to name some. The book will be of interest to anyone interested in sex work, though it is probably of most use to academics and activists.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars very informative, April 13, 2001

By 

doris (norfolk, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition (Paperback)

if you want to learn a little about how prostitution is done in the world, what types of prostitutes are desirable in each part of the world, what conflicts and problems prostitutes faced whether cultural or international, and how prostitutes live, this is the book for you. i gained a lot of knowledge from this book, especially about prostitution in south america. highly recommended

4 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A bright shining lie, January 2, 2007

By 

Seth J. Frantzman (Jerusalem, Israel) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition (Paperback)

This book claims to want to show the 'nuance' of the sex trade, so therefore it must use complicated words such as 'debt bondage' to in fact describe what is an inhuman situation where people are threatened with death and beaten and raped in order to be forced to sell thier bodies to pay off a non-existent death. Essay after essay encouraged prostitution as 'sex work' and claims that if only all prostitution were legal there would be no sex-slave trade in young girls and no forced prostitution. This is strange becuase in the Netherlands, where prostitution is legal, it turns out there is just as much sex-slavery and beatings and rape. This book also tries to claim all the talk against prostitution and the sex slave trade is 'racist'. But how it is racist when Thai girls are sent to 'work' in Japan and Russian girls sent to Saudi Arabia and Columbian girls to Spain is not clear. It is racist in the sense that rich Europeans, Arabs and Japanese are the buyers, but that is not what the authors wrote.

As typical of anything that is examined by academia this text has to dry all things down so nothing is ever what it seems. A woman who is raped at the age of 11 by wealthy 'clients' and kept chained to a bed for five years until she gets AIDS, this is called 'western sensationalism' and in addition is described as 'sex work' and 'debt bondage'.

It is too bad that none of the authors of any of the essays experienced sex work first hand as one of trafficked people.

Seth J. Frantzman