Search results

This study aims to explore and discuss the ethical challenges that the authors encountered in the SWIPSER project, a study about the well-being of West-African women who work in the red-light district in Brussels.

The study was commissioned by the municipality of Schaerbeek and executed by a Nigerian–Belgian research team. Data were collected using a multi-method qualitative approach, predominantly through ethnographic fieldwork that consisted of detailed observations, informal interviews (with 38 participants), complemented by document analysis and stakeholder interviews.

The study presents the main ethical dilemmas in four themes: (1) representing diversity, i.e. how do we get access to all members of a migrant community that is inherently hierarchical?; (2) in the margin, i.e. how can we conduct research with undocumented migrants and what do we do when faced with violence and injustice?; (3) attraction and repulsion, i.e. what ethical consequences are involved when working in a multi-ethnic research team?; and (4) unveiling secrets, i.e. which ethical challenges are we faced with when presenting the results of research on vulnerable migrant communities?

This study goes beyond procedural research ethics and highlights the specific relational ethics (related to the relation between research(er) and participant) and the socio-political ethics (related to the relation between the research(er) and the socio-political context) involved in qualitative research with female migrants who work in prostitution.

Meng-Hsuan Chou starts the anthology with Chapter 2, ‘EU Mobility Partnerships and Gender: Origin and Implications’. Here she shows how current EU regulations regarding migration came to be formed they way they are and how this development was motivated. She not only explores the circumstances under which European Union (EU) mobility partnerships were established, but also examines the effects in terms of migration flows. She raises the question of how the migration policies of the receiving states gender migratory flows, and also wonder whether instrument formulations are intentional or unintentional. While previous research has mostly examined these issues from the perspective of national migration policies, Chou finds that a supranational viewpoint still is missing, a gap in the literature she here aims to fill in. The EU migration instruments known as the ‘mobility partnerships’ are established by participating EU member states and certain third-world countries with the aim of facilitating circular migration. Chou approaches her questions through empirical analysis of three different data sets: (1) existing studies on the migration-development nexus, European migration policy co-operation and EU mobility partnerships; (2) publicly available reports and official EU documents and (3) position papers circulated amongst national delegates who prepared for, and defended their domestic positions at, the Tampere European Council summit. She suggests that the European governments rarely had ‘gender balance’ as priority when it came to border control. However, by definition and design, EU policies are meant to affect migratory flows. To discern how, it is necessary to look more closely at what happens in practice when member states implement the measures (e.g. from the EU level to the national/bilateral level).

Sex work migration involves a huge number of females from Nigeria, and has attracted concerns within and across the country. To add to ongoing conversations about responsible migration, our review underscores the prevalence of sex work migration in Edo State, Nigeria, the drivers and interventions.

The review adopted exhaustive search terms coined with the aid of “Boolean Operators”. Search terms were entered into several search engines and databases to elicit peer-reviewed and grey literature within sex work migration and human trafficking for commercial sex. An output of 578 studies was recorded with 76 (43 academic papers and 33 grey literature) meeting the inclusion criteria.

The study acknowledged wide-spread prevalence of sex work migration involving Nigerian females who are largely from Edo State. It achieved a prioritization of the factors that drive sex work migration based on how frequent they were mentioned in reviewed literature: economic (64.4%), cultural (46%), educational (20%), globalization (14.5%) and political factors (13.2%). Several interventions were highlighted together with their several limitations which include funding, absence of grass-roots engagement, dearth of appropriate professionals, corruption, weak political will, among others. A combination of domestic and international interventions was encouraged, and social workers were found to be needful.

Our systematic review is the first on this subject, as none was found throughout our search. It seeks to inform policy measures and programmes, as well as horizontal efforts poised to tackle the rising figures of sex work migrants and attendant consequences in Nigeria.

This paper aims to examine, from a global macro perspective, the relationships between commercial sex, regulatory system and shadow economies.

The paper draws on eight years of research in the sex industries and literature from other sources that explore the nuances of the economic and social organisation of the sex markets in different countries.

First, a four point continuum is presented, based on the following types of economies: legal formal; legal informal; illegal informal and illegal criminal. Second, challenging principles that the sex industry is only “demand” driven, this paper looks at the nature of the sex industry, examining the dynamics of supply in the context of a prolific global shadow sex economy. Third, the concept of “supply” is broadened out to refer not only to women involved in selling direct and indirect sexual services but the legitimate and illegitimate service industries that are ancillary to the sex industry: namely: advertising, marketing, leisure industries, security, policing and welfare.

Contributing to the cultural analysis of the sex industry and drawing on original ethnographic observations, this paper stresses the relevance of the “supply” side of the sex industry, including ancillary industries that support the sex markets in the shadow economies.

This paper aims to explore the dark side of the relationship between gender, mobility, migration and tourism. Specifically, the paper looks at one form of human trafficking, the global sex industry and the relationship between sex trafficking and sex tourism. More particularly, the paper examines the global sex industry (Goh, 2009; Sasse, 2000, 2001) and the impact of migration and human rights aspects (Voronova and Radjenovic, 2016) of sex trafficking and sex tourism, as well as the emotional dimensions of trauma, violence and vulnerability (Heaslip, 2016).

The paper is an interdisciplinary discussion paper combining socio-economic perspectives (Goh, 2009; Brooks and Devasayaham, 2011), human rights perspectives (Cheah, 2006), migration perspectives (Voronova and Radjenovic, 2016), tourism perspectives (Carolin et al., 2015) and health perspectives (Cary et al., 2016; Matos et al., 2013; Reid and Jones, 2011). The contribution of these intersecting perspectives to an understanding of sex trafficking and sex tourism is explored.

The paper highlights the moral and ethical responsibility of the tourist industry to counteract sex trafficking and sex tourism, an issue which tourism studies have failed to fully engage with. In presenting the human costs of trafficking from a gender perspective, the paper considers the ways in which the tourism industries, in some countries, are attempting to respond.

The originality of the research is the focus on the dark side of the relationship between gender, mobility and tourism through sex trafficking and sex tourism drawing on an interdisciplinary perspective.

The paper looks at the individual and social implications of sex trafficking and sex tourism for different countries and states and for the individuals concerned. In addition, it looks at the ways in which the tourism industry is responding to sex trafficking and sex tourism and the social impact of this.

In theorising the relationship between gender, migration, sex trafficking and tourism from an interdisciplinary perspective, exploring the societal and individual impact, this paper provides a framework for further empirical research or policy changes with regard to the intersection of sex trafficking and tourism.

Samuel Huntington’s vision in the early 1990s of a “clash of civilizations” struck a chord to such an extent that his core theme was reignited after the attacks of September 11th. International migration seems to be viewed as an issue that signifies this so-called clash (Bade & Bommes, 1996). Migration, culture, ethnicity and conflict have become linked. The result is that conflicts arising from migration are more likely to be seen as an outcome of the multiplication of different cultures within one country. Germany, the U.K., the Netherlands and Switzerland have all been described as multicultural societies and advised to pay attention to this “fact.” This has been combined with the view that even if there was no road to multiculturalism without social conflicts, there was also no viable alternative to tolerance as a device for the interaction of cultures (Leggewie, 1990).

The sociology of childhood is fraught with problems, not least those centred on the idea, notion or concept of ‘childhood’, and in particular, the issue of how to define, distinguish and identify ‘childhood’ for sociological purposes. The study, analysis and understanding of childhood hinge upon how ‘childhood’ is defined, either explicitly or implicitly, one problem being the plethora of quite diverse approaches in both popular and sociological discourses. While there cannot be a correct definition of ‘childhood’, there can be a best definition, such as for sociological purposes, those of making sense of ‘childhood’ in particular and of social life, relationships and experience in general.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the barriers preventing women in prostitution from accessing co-ordinated health services in the Republic of Ireland. By examining the experiences of migrant women engaged in prostitution, the research contributes to knowledge pertaining to the psychosocial experiences of female sex workers’ access to healthcare.

The study interviewed migrant women across Ireland, using a biographical narrative approach and an adapted voice-centred relational model of analysis to determine the necessity for a health promotion strategy for this demographic.

The findings indicate migrant women work primarily indoors, hold precarious legal status and are in Ireland due to processes of globalisation, migration and economic necessity. The women discussed their entry into prostitution and their experiences within prostitution in the context of their psychosocial experiences.

While the findings are from a small qualitative sample confined to the Republic of Ireland, it is the first study to prioritise migrant sex workers’ psychosocial experiences in Ireland.

The research concludes education and service development that respects the various social determinants impacting women in prostitution is missing but remains necessary in Ireland. It finds a gendered reform of policies using an ecological framework for health that can address issues of poverty, migration and the global trends of the sex industry.

This means a national review of current services in health, social work and community development fields is timely.

This paper gives insight into the lives of migrant women involved in the sex industry and can make an important contribution to future research directions and practice in Irish and European prostitution contexts.

This chapter develops analytical and comparative approaches on the advance of the sexual exploitation industry in Eurozone countries, addressing specific regulations and norms on what is called sex work (when regulated by the state) or prostitution (countries with abolitionist normative frameworks). Indeed, in scenarios of economic and health recession due to Covid-19, this issue is controversial and of urgency in the public agenda due to the scarcity of statistical records that can account for the impact of the sexual exploitation market on women and feminized bodies and in relation to gender equality and equity indexes, as well as public policies. As a working assumption, it is proposed that there is a “sociological erasure” on the impact of the sexual exploitation industry on populations of high social vulnerability. Methodologically, on the one hand, a comparative analysis of indicators relevant to gender equality and human rights is developed, using second-order data to compare European countries with antagonistic legal regulations on the sex market. On the other hand, the perceptions, discourses and representations of experts in the field and key informants related to the sex market are analyzed. Finally, it is concluded that coercive prostitution affects feminized corporalities, especially migrant and poor women. Therefore, prostitution should be considered a violation of human rights and should be evidenced as an emergent of gender violence. Information and analysis regarding this industry are required to know how to intervene and contribute to reach new levels of gender equality, and to provide timely assistance to those who need it, according to the objectives for the Eurozone established in agreement with UNICEF’s global Goal 5.