Suchergebnisse

This article draws on the findings of the research project Sexual Humanitarianism: Migration, Sex Work, and Trafficking (SEXHUM), a study investigating migration, sex work, and human trafficking in Australia, France, New Zealand, and the US. In this article, we focus on how racialized categories are mobilized in antitrafficking practices in France. Since April 2016, the French government has enforced a prohibitionist and neo-abolitionist law criminalizing the demand for sexual services. This coincided with the targeting of Chinese and Nigerian cis-women and with the neglect of Latina trans women working in the sex industry according to racialized and sex-gendered understandings of victimhood. Whereas Chinese women tend to be presented by humanitarian rhetoric as silent victims of Chinese male-dominated mafias, Nigerian women have come to embody the ultimate figure of the victim of trafficking by an overpowering Black male criminality. Meanwhile, (sexual) humanitarian actors have neglected Latina trans women's ongoing experiences of extreme violence and marginalization.

People living with HIV/AIDS (PLH) experience high rates of depression and related psychosocial risk factors that vary by gender. This study examines gender differences in depression severity among antiretroviral therapy (ART) patients (n = 362) from a large government ART clinic in Kolkata, India. Hypotheses for multiple linear regression models were guided by an integrated gendered stress process model focusing on variables reflecting social status (age, partner status), stressors (stigma), and resources (income, social support). Depressive symptoms were assessed with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS); 22% of the sample reached the cutoff for severe depression, 56% moderate, and 13% mild depression. Compared to men, women reported lower income, education (50% no formal education vs. 20% men), availability of emotional and instrumental support, and were less likely to be married or cohabiting (53% women vs. 72% of men). However, more women had partners who were HIV-positive (78% women vs. 46% men). Overall, depression severity was negatively associated with availability of emotional support and self-distraction coping, and positively associated with internalized HIV/AIDS stigma, availability of instrumental support, and behavioral disengagement coping. Interactions for instrumental support by income and partner status by age varied significantly by gender. Analyses stratified by gender indicated that: 1) Frequently seeking instrumental support from others was protective for men at all income levels, but only for high-income women; and 2) having a partner was protective for men as they aged, but not for women. These results suggest that gender disparities in depression severity are created and maintained by women's lower social status and limited access to resources. The effect of stigma on depression severity did not vary by gender. These findings may inform the tailoring of future interventions to address mental health needs of PLH in India, particularly gender disparities in access to material and social resources for coping with HIV. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov registration #NCT02118454, registered April 2014.

Globally, sex workers have highlighted the harms that accompany anti-prostitution efforts advanced via anti-trafficking policy, and there is a growing body of social science research that has emerged documenting how anti-trafficking efforts contribute to carceral and sexual humanitarian interventions. Yet mounting evidence on the harms of anti-trafficking policies has done little to quell the passage of more laws, including policies aimed at stopping sexual exploitation facilitated by technology. The 2018 passage of the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the corresponding Senate bill, the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA), is a case study in how efforts to curb sexual exploitation online actually heighten vulnerabilities for the people they purport to protect. Drawing on 34 months of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with sex workers and trafficked persons (n = 58) and key informants (n = 20) in New York and Los Angeles, we analyze FOSTA/SESTA and its harmful effects as a launchpad to more broadly explore how technology, criminalization, shifting governance arrangements, and conservative moralities cohere to exacerbate sex workers' vulnerability.

Centred on the slavery trial "Crown vs. Rungnapha Kanbut" heard in Sydney, New South Wales, between 10 April and 15 May 2019, this article seeks to frame the figure of the "Mother Tac" or the "mother of contract", also called "mama tac" or "mae tac"—a term used amongst Thai migrants to describe a woman who hosts, collects debts from, and organises work for Thai migrant sex workers in their destination country. It proposes that this largely unexplored figure has come to assume a disproportionate role in the "modern slavery" approach to human trafficking, with its emphasis on absolute victims and individual offenders. The harms suffered by Kanbut's victims are put into context by referring to existing literature on women accused of trafficking; interviews with Thai migrant sex workers, including Kanbut's primary victim, and with members from the Australian Federal Police Human Trafficking Unit; and ethnographic field notes. The article unveils how constructions of both victim and offender, as well as definitions of slavery, are racialised, gendered, and sexualised and rely on the victims' subjective accounts of bounded exploitation. By documenting these and other limitations involved in a criminal justice approach, the authors reveal its shortfalls. For instance, while harsh sentences are meant as a deterrence to others, the complex and structural roots of migrant labour exploitation remain unaffected. This research finds that improved legal migration pathways, the decriminalisation of the sex industry, and improved access to information and support for migrant sex workers are key to reducing heavier forms of labour exploitation, including human trafficking, in the Australian sex industry.

In 2003, Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) passed the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 (PRA), which decriminalized sex work for NZ citizens and holders of permanent residency (PR) while excluding migrant sex workers (MSWs) from its protection. This is due to Section 19 (s19) of the PRA, added at the last minute against advice by the Aotearoa New Zealand Sex Workers' Collective (NZPC) as an anti-trafficking clause. Because of s19, migrants on temporary visas found to be working as sex workers are liable to deportation by Immigration New Zealand (INZ). Drawing on original ethnographic and interview data gathered over 24 months of fieldwork, our study finds that migrant sex workers in New Zealand are vulnerable to violence and exploitation, and are too afraid to report these to the police for fear of deportation, corroborating earlier studies and studies completed while we were collecting data.