scholarly journals Over My Dead Body! Media Constructions of Forced Prostitution in the People's Republic of China

Author(s):  
Elaine Jeffreys

This paper examines some of the tensions surrounding the PRC’s official policy of banning prostitution by focusing on two highly publicized cases of deceptive recruiting for sexual services—the ‘Tang Shengli Incident’ and the ‘Liu Yanhua Incident’. Both cases involve young rural women who had migrated from their native homes to other more economically developed parts of China to look for work. Both were forced to sell sex and both resisted. However, whereas Tang Shengli jumped from a building rather than be forced into prostitution, Liu Yanhua escaped from conditions akin to sexual servitude by stabbing her ‘employer’. An examination of these cases highlights some of the problems associated with efforts by the Chinese women’s media to promote and protect women’s rights in a country marked by rapid, yet unequal, economic growth and an expanding, albeit banned, sex industry.

1996 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 261-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleanor Cheung

The People's Republic of China (PRC) announced its ‘Open Door’ in 1980. Foreign investors have started up their enterprises in China largely with the help of imported expertise — top executives, management personnel, and even technicians in these companies are, with the exception of a few senior managers assigned by Chinese partners, very predominantly expatriates. In addition, educational institutions in the PRC have long been criticized for their failure to provide expertise for economic growth. Reforms in higher vocational education are needed in order for China to cope with her economic growth beyond 2000.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-79
Author(s):  
Samantha Sommer Miller ◽  
Glenn Miles ◽  
James Havey

Research on prostitution and trafficking has largely focused on the exploitation of girls and young women. This research comes out of the “Listening to the Demand” two-part study by an independent research team on the sex industry in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. “Listening to the Demand” is a series of research exploring often over-looked populations in the anti-trafficking conversation, including men and transgender people. The first of the studies was completed in 2013 and focuses on men who purchased sex with female sex workers. Interviews of 50 Cambodian and 50 foreign heterosexual and bisexual males explored the respondents’ views and use of prostituted women in Southeast Asia’s sex industry. The second part of the research was completed in 2014 and focuses on men who purchase sex with men. In this second part of the project, 51 Cambodian and 23 foreign men who have sex with men were interviewed about their views of prostitution, the individual sex worker, and their experiences of Cambodia’s sex industry. Due to its comparative nature, the research seeks to deliver information on the differences in culture between the foreign and Cambodian men who seek to pay for sexual services. Results point to the need for proper sex and gender education as well as different approaches when planning projects to reach out to men purchasing sex. In gaining a deeper knowledge of the beliefs and behaviours among the demand population, the findings suggest more holistic approaches are needed to combat the exploitation of sexual services in Cambodia.



Author(s):  
Oleg Gribunov ◽  
Gennady Nebratenko ◽  
Evgeny Bezruchko ◽  
Elena Millerova

The authors examine the specific features of criminal law assessment of involvement in prostitution and the organization of this activity through the use or the threat of violence. At the beginning, they stress the urgency of counteracting the social phenomenon of prostitution, analyze the very concept of «prostitution», its debatable and problematic aspects, because it is impossible to offer a correct qualification of criminal actions connected with prostitution (crimes under Art. 240 and 241 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) without determining the boundaries of providing sexual services specifically referring to the term «prostitution». It is concluded that the key problem for determining the scope of sexual actions described by the term «prostitution» is the lack of an official definition of this term in Russian legislation as well as a wide variety of services in the modern sex industry. The authors state that the understanding of prostitution as a historical social phenomenon as a situation when a woman provides sexual services to different men by performing sexual acts with them for previously discussed material compensation is outdated and does not reflect the multiple dimensions of modern prostitution. While researching the issues of qualifying criminal acts connected with prostitution and involving the use or the threat of violence within the framework of this article, the authors have analyzed the work of both Russian and foreign scholars and studied examples of investigation and court practice. They examine the problems of legal assessment of criminal law categories «violence» and «the threat of using violence» regarding publically dangerous actions connected with the involvement in prostitution and the organization of this activity. The authors present the criteria of differentiating between corpus delicti where such actions are criminally punishable and other corpus delicti, as well as the cases that require qualification for multiple crimes. The results of this research allowed the authors to work out and present recommendations on qualifying criminal actions connected with prostitution and involving the use of the threat of violence.


2016 ◽  
Vol Volume 12 ◽  
pp. 3119-3128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Honglei Yin ◽  
Lin Xu ◽  
Yechang Shao ◽  
Liping Li ◽  
Chengsong Wan

Sexualities ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 136346072090464
Author(s):  
Sarah Kingston ◽  
Natalie Hammond ◽  
Scarlett Redman

Previous research on client motivations to purchase sexual services in the UK has predominantly focused on the experiences of men. Women who buy sex have largely been overlooked as it is commonly assumed that women provide, rather than purchase, sexual services. In addressing this empirical absence, this article examines data gained from 49 interviews with women clients and sex workers. It examines the reasons why women decide to purchase sexual services in the UK. We argue that the increasing importance of contemporary capitalism and consumerism has shaped women's engagement in the sex industry as clients. We show how women's sexual agency and assertiveness as clients, inverts the female sex worker/male client binary assumed to characterize commercial sex and illustrates the overlap and convergence of male and female sexuality. Our research thus contributes to an understanding of female sexuality more broadly, as exemplifying the hallmarks of ‘transformational sexualities’ in cosmopolitanism (Plummer, 2015).


Legal Studies ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 438-463
Author(s):  
Tsachi Keren-Paz ◽  
Nomi Levenkron

In this paper, we argue that clients who purchase commercial sex from victims of forced prostitution should be strictly liable in torts towards the victims. Such an approach is both normatively defensible and doctrinally feasible. Fairness and equality demand that clients would compensate victims, even if one refuses to acknowledge that purchasing sex from a prostitute who might be a victim is a faulty behaviour. Clients profit from the activity of purchasing commercial sex, so fairness demands they will bear the costs they impose on victims who are unable to refuse the contact. Strict liability will bring about desirable distributive results along the lines of sex, class and race. Imposing strict liability will ensure consistency of the English law of trespass and it is supported by several instrumental considerations.Such strict liability could be grounded in battery, despite the appearance of apparent consent by the victim to sell sexual services to the client. This is so for two main reasons. First, the extreme coercion operated on the victim renders her consent void so that an innocent third party cannot rely on the appearance of consent. Secondly, the client should be considered as having constructive notice with respect to the trafficker's coercion. Our argument is supported by – but does not hinge upon accepting – the insight that the client's behaviour is ultimately faulty.


2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 42-60
Author(s):  
Edward Keegan ◽  
Nusha Yonkova

The research focuses on the characteristic, knowledge, and experiences of buyers of sex, focusing on human trafficking and exploitation. Recognising that those trafficked for sexual exploitation are often exploited in the commercial sex industry, the research adopts an understanding of ‘demand’ in the context of human trafficking which includes demand for women in prostitution. In order to study buyers, a mixture of quantitative and qualitative research tools was used, including online questionnaires and face-to-face interviews. Through these methods, a total of 763 buyers engaged with the research, across four EU Member States (Ireland, Finland, Bulgaria and Lithuania). A number of important findings emerged in the research. Buyers interviewed were seen to have a complex view of sellers. They overwhelmingly viewed the sale of sex as a transaction between two consenting adults, but also saw sellers as different from other women. At the same time, although up to a third of buyers had witnessed or suspected exploitation, a gap emerged with regard to those who had reported such fears. Finally, irrespective of their knowledge of human trafficking, or measures targeting those who knowingly purchase sex from trafficked victims, buyers rarely considered trafficking when purchasing sex.Keywords: human trafficking; sexual exploitation; prostitution; demand; buyers


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