Gender, Technology and

Development
http://gtd.sagepub.com

Gender, Exploitative Migration, and the Sex Industry: A

European Perspective
Thanh-Dam Truong
Gender Technology and Development 2003; 7; 31
DOI: 10.1177/097185240300700102

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 Gender, Exploitative Migration,
and the Sex Industry:
A European Perspective

THANH-DAM TRUONG

This article weaves together three dimensions of sex trafficking, notably commercial sex
as violence against women, as a livelihood option, and as part of the social formation of
an inter-state system of transaction of sex as a commodity. Based on data from Europe,

the article shows how analysis of violence against women in commercial sex must be
taken beyond the workplace and located in social processes that precede it—economic
policy of transition and intra-state violence that undermine women’s human insecurity in
their daily lives. Diverse forms of violence at the workplace are outcomes of the treatment
of women as a commodity on the labor market through unethical self-regulating recruitment
systems, as well as an ineffective regulation of migration and commercial sex. Responses
to this problem at EU level could benefit from a human security framework sensitive to
existing sex/gender systems and their dynamics.

Introduction

Current trends in international female migration in the context of

commercial sex work are complex, and pose a considerable challenge to

policymakers, human rights advocates and women’s organizations. Given

the employment options for women in the present structures of global
political economy, supporters of women’s economic independence con-
sider migration for sex work as a way to expand life choices and livelihood
strategies. Purportedly, women in prostitution should be seen as working
people to whom social rights and labor standards should be expanded to
ensure the protection of their interests at the workplace (Kempadoo and

Thanh-Dam Truong, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, the Netherlands.

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32

Doezema, 1998). However, concerned with the growing evidence of

sexual brutality and exploitation in commercial sex, as well as the fact
that cross-border migration of women is ridden with diverse forms of
human rights abuse,’ opponents argue that commercial sex reflects the
culture of violence against women and should be challenged. The
recognition of commercial sex as work may serve to re-enforce this
culture (Hughes and Roche, 1999). While consensus has been reached
on the need to protect human rights abuses in cross-border migration
and in prostitution, controversy remains with the recognition of migration
for sex work as a livelihood option for women.
Uncertain of the feasibility of an effective regime of prohibition, ana-
lysts of the spread of the sex sector as a component in the illegal econ-
omy show how the functioning of this sector, involving billions of dollars
annually, has been enabled by corrupt elements in law enforcement
agencies, making it virtually impossible to distinguish between coerced
and voluntary commercial sex (Lim, 1998; Phongpaichit and Baker,
1998). There appears to be an ongoing formation of an inter-state system
of transaction over commercial sexual services as a commodity. Although
they operate under localized rules, these types of economy of sex are
linked by vast networks of labor supply and financial transfers which,
so far, are poorly understood (Truong, 2001 ).
This article seeks to weave together the three dimensions of sex traf-
ficking in the era of globalization based on data from Europe. Given the
heterogeneity of women’s positions in migratory processes and in the
sex industry, the article argues that responses to the problem must be
based on a combination of approaches that recognizes the gender-based
dimensions of human insecurities triggered by conflict and violence, as
well as economic policy. Working towards the enhancement of human
security in everyday life requires serious commitment to gender equality
as a principle. This principle should cover an improvement of women’s s

position in the social and political order, as well as a transformation of

the masculine characteristics of this order. Masculine characteristics of
governance rules at global and national levels have yet to give due
recognition to the significance of women’s work relative to men’s work,
and women’s security needs relative to men’s security needs. Such rules
of governance have veiled a deeper gender-based value problem, which
is revealed through the experiences of migrant women in the global sex
trade. Whereas care for the old, the sick, and the young-socially defined
as women’s work-tends to meet with less supportive responses from

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 33

state-based and community-based entitlement systems, care for men’s

sexual needs is highly responsive to market forces. An uncontrolled
market system of sexual services at the global level eventually leads to
new structures of inter-state relations, whereby destabilized and poor
areas are supplying sexual labor under conditions of high risks to

consumption chains in relatively stable and affluent areas, which operate

under low-risk conditions.

Sex Trafficking in the European Union:

Trends and Issues

Europe’s experience in the trafficking of women and young girls for the
purpose of exploitation is not new. Historical records show that sex traf-
ficking as a form of trade was found in Western Europe as early as the
14th century. With colonial expansion, some countries in Western Europe
also had the experience of ’exporting’ young women to the Americas,
Middle East and Pacific Asia (Commission of Inquiry, 1933). In con-
temporary history, Western Europe has become a well-known ’importing’
avenue in the services of commercial sex workers and professional
housewives through commercial arrangements such as mail-order-brides,
and other forms of market-based matchmaking.
Three main waves in the contemporary history of sex trafficking in
Europe may be identified. The first wave was from 1978 through the
1980s, and involved adult women from Asia, Latin America, the Carib-
bean, and West Africa, destined for the Netherlands, Germany, Italy,
and Spain. In the 1990s, a second wave involving women from China,
the Baltic States, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Common-
wealth of Independent States (CIS) became visible, involving younger
women, sometimes under-aged (Europol, 2000a; IOM, 2001 a; Brussa,
1999). In this wave, new destinations such as the Scandinavian countries
have also been added. In the late 1990s and early 2000, women from the
Balkans have also emerged as victims as well as agents in sex trafficking
activities, and a number of countries in CEE and the Balkans have
assumed the role of transit points’ (IOM, 2000, 2001 b, 2001 c; UNMIBH,
2000).
It is, therefore, important to identify and locate the causes, conse-
quences, and structural variations of sex trafficking, which seems to be
integral to the of
history global capitalism but still remained under-
researched until recently.

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34

For a variety of reasons, statisticson current trends in sex trafficking

are either not representative, or are unable to adequately show its mag-
nitude.’ Nevertheless, some dimensions of the magnitude of sex traf-
ficking may be comprehended through an estimate of the percentage of
migrant workers in the sex industry. A 1999 survey conducted by
TAMPEP (Transnational AIDS/STD Prevention among Migrant Prosti-
tutes in Europe Project) shows that the percentage of migrant women in
the commercial sexual service sector has increased despite repressive
measures introduced between 1997 and 1999 (Brussa, 1999: pp. 25-

26). In so far as countries of origin are concerned, Brussa’s survey also

shows that the geographical origins commonly known in the 1980s, i.e.,
Africa, Latin America, and Asia remain unchanged. In addition, new
countries of origin such as the CEE and CIS countries have also emerged,
contributing to an increase in the number of nationalities of women and
men in the sex trade. In the European Union (EU) today there are 25 to
27 nationalities in the sex trade, reflecting an increase from 10 to 12
compared to surveys of 1993-94 (ibid.: p. 39). Brussa’s findings also
reveal an important feature regarding the effectiveness of government
measures, or lack thereof. Legalization or abolition of prostitution seems
to have affected only the locations where the sex trade takes place (i.e.
street or brothel), and not necessarily the flow or safety of migrant women
in the trade.
For example, the Netherlands and Germany have adopted a regulatory
approach to prostitution. These countries are known as the traditional
receivers of trafficked women, who may be deployed elsewhere there-
after. Greece and Austria, which also have a regulatory system, now
receive a high percentage of migrant sex workers, mainly from neigh-
boring CEE and CIS countries (Brussa, 1999). In contrast, Italy has the
highest percentage of migrant sex workers in all the EU countries, yet it
follows an abolitionist system which includes provision for the prohib-
ition of recruitment as well as employment of persons in the sex trade.
Indeed, the most widespread form of prostitution in Italy is street pros-
titution (ibid.: p. 37). Survey results on the population of migrant women
in prostitution are also reflected in Europol findings on human trafficking
(Europol, 2000a). Although Europol data does not differentiate between
human trafficking for sexual and non-sexual purposes, the data shows
an increased national diversity of victims of trafficking, notably from
CEE and CIS countries. Among 15 EU member states, Belgium, France,

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 35

Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom have shown
more national diversity than others.
It is not known a priori why some countries serve as attraction poles
for migration. Europol (2000a, 2000b) suggests that strategies of organ-
ized crime may be an explanatory factor. Such strategies tend to target
countries with easy entry regulations, flexible and/or weak laws on
prostitution and sex trafficking, which are then turned into transit points
for further distribution in the EU. Moreover, the lack of uniformity in
legal regulatory system within the EU as a community has created the
conditions for ’forum shopping’ by criminal gangs, who evaluate the
market situation by looking at the situation of law enforcement as well
as the supply and demand sides. These gangs exploit the differences in

legislation to minimize risks, assess supply on the basis of the vulner-

ability of potential victims, and allocate the supply of recruited laborers
to the demand sites.
In this regard, a serious conflict between the legislative and capitalist
domains of EU regulation may be noted. It is not possible to recognize
enterprises providing sexual services with diversified market structures
as legal entities, and at the same time deny the existence of illegal workers

who sustain that system. Current legislation that targets illegal migrant
women in the sex sector as violators of immigration law indirectly but-
tresses the power of sex-capitalists,4 and turns sex trafficking into a crime
of low risks and high profits. Over time, activities in the sex sector affect
patterns of consumption and investment that sexualize leisure activity
more broadly, creating a proliferation of sex-related conspicuous con-

sumer services for which a regular supply of fresh labor must be ensured.

Increasingly, young transvestite men are also found in the sex industry,
particularly in England and Spain (Brussa, 1999). The combination of
dynamics on the demand side with those on the supply side has created
an economy of sex based on predatory principles, violence, and primitive

accumulation.
Based on available evidence, Figure 1 distills the essential features of
organized crime in sex trafficking. Despite the diversity of practices and
actors involved, it is clear that sex trafficking constitutes an interface
between two types of services provided on a semi-legal and illegal basis.
One is the provision of information and arrangement of facilities for
would-be migrants as part of recruitment. The second is the allocation
of migrants as laborers to commercial institutions providing asexual

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 36

.
Source: Compiled from various IOM reports and Amy O’Neill Richard (1999).

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 37

services according to market structures and prices. The accumulation of

profits is primarily based on the violation of the human rights of trafficked
persons at every stage of the process, and the creation of a dependent
relationship between the trafficked persons and an underground system
of governance.
According to Europol (2000a), migrants from countries in Asia, Africa
and Latin America rely more on the information networks of affiliated
ethnic communities. Hence, they are subject to more informal than formal
governing. The case of trafficked women from Nigeria being made sub-
ject to voodoo (magic) to force them to accept the oath of secrecy is a
case in point (ibid.). The oath of secrecy is used to silence the victims by

instilling the fear that if they denounced the perpetrators, they and their
family would be destroyed by that magic. In contrast, citizens of countries
which have a formal economic association with EU, or are in the process
of applying for membership, benefit from bilateral agreements with re-
gard to ease of entry and work permit. They can enjoy ease of entry for
non-sexual purposes, and can be deployed thereafter to work for sexual
purposes and claim their rights. However, this does not imply that citi-
zens from countries with formal economic associations with EU are less

exploited than citizens from other countries. What is clear is that the
legal space for them to maneuver is greater than for others without such
rights.
An illustrative example is the case of a Czech woman who challenged
the Netherlands state for refusing to grant her a residence permit to work
as a self-employed sex worker. According to an association treaty be-
tween Poland, the Czech and Slovak Republics, and the European Union,
citizens from these transition countries may enjoy the right to self-
employed labor in the European Union. The Czech woman, whose means
of entry to the Netherlands is not known, applied for a residence permit
to work in prostitution in the Netherlands. The Ministry of Justice denied
this application on the grounds that prostitution could not be seen as
labor in the sense of the treaty. The woman took the Dutch state to court,
and on 18 July 1997 the court in The Hague overruled the decision of
the immigration office, making it clear that prostitution is labor in its
full juridical meaning. It concluded that if citizens from countries under
the association treaty could prove to the Dutch administration that they
could support their own living costs by working in the sex trade as self-
employed rather than under wage-labor conditions, then they must be
given a residence permit (Visser, 1997).

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38

A Regulatory Framework
This case raises the controversial issues as to whether a regulatory frame-
work that recognizes commercial sexual services as work enhances the
protection of commercial sex workers or promotes the integration of
the sex trade in the world economy. The new Dutch law that recognizes
prostitution as labor seeks to protect women in the sex trade by creating
an opportunity for them to be separated from the control of organized

crime through the provision of incentives for self-employment. In this

sense, the law can potentially dismantle the hegemony of criminal
networks in the sex trade, but cannot prevent the re-clustering of self-
employed sex entrepreneurs under a constitution similar to organized
crime. The law gives protection to some women, but continues to sustain
the functioning of the sex trade based on a segregated labor market.
The main flaws in legislation that recognizes sex work only in the
context of self-employment may be located in two key assumptions.
One is the assumption that there is no competition between the legal and
underground dimensions of the sex trade that affect the prices and be-
havior of sex entrepreneurs (self-employed or otherwise). A second is
the assumption that practices of the sex trade among the self-employed
are embedded in norms of self-exploitation only, and are not capable of

encroaching on the dignity of others. In reality, price competition between

the legal and the illegal sex trade often arises around the issue of safe
sex (with or without condoms), duration of service and a range of other
factors. In reality, self-employed women in the sex trade can be squeezed
and constrained by price pressures from the underground. As self-
employed sex workers rarely operate autonomously and are often linked
to a chain of activities, their risk-reducing and profit-enhancing strategies
can make them capable of assuming the role of pimps, i.e., rendering
services to the illegal sex trade through labor recruitment rather than
through sexual services to clients.
A regulatory approach that only guarantees the safety of legal persons
and is not concerned with the safety of non-legal persons or undocu-
mented workers in the sex trade can turn legal persons (women or men)
into exploiters of non-legal persons. Most women migrants are undocu-
mented persons, while the mediators and clients are legal ones. A balanced
regulatory system would require governments to grant a legal status to
all undocumented workers found in the sex industry, and not just to
those who benefit from bilateral agreements between states. However,
such an option is currently not favored for reasons related to the cor.trol

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 39

of immigration. Furthermore, the sex trade has a tripartite system involv-

ing the consumer, the provider of services, and the mediator. A fair regu-
latory approach would need to create mechanisms of control directed at
all three agents to create a balance of power between them. This option
is ridden with difficulties due to consumers’ resistance and public avoid-
ance to protect their privacy.’ Without this balance, a legal framework,
whether based on a regulatory or an abolitionist approach, remains defect-
ive, and as such it may continue to serve as an attraction point for the
sex trade without being able to protect women listed as undocumented

persons.
Unable to resolve these differences, many countries now turn to the
protection of the human rights of victims as an area where consensus
has been achieved. In several countries, notably the Netherlands, Belgium,
and Italy, civic groups have lobbied and succeeded in reforming legis-
lation that permits a temporary stay for a victim of trafficking while she/
he decides whether or not to participate as a witness in criminal proceed-
ings. During this time she/he is provided the necessary support mediated
through NGOs, and in some cases may be allowed to study or work and
regain her/his autonomy. Cooperation with the law enforcement and judi-
cial authorities will provide victims with a residence permit until the
criminal proceedings are completed. Other EU governments may ’infor-
mally tolerate’ trafficked persons for a period of time as long as they
cooperate with law enforcement (OSCE, 1999). For example, one condi-
tion is that victims of trafficking who come forward must leave the coun-
try after the criminal investigation and prosecution are completed.
Legal and social protection of victims seems to have worked. Belgium,
the Netherlands and Italy all report a significant increase in witness testi-
mony and successful prosecution of traffickers, although restitution or
civil remedy to and protection of the victims after repatriation remain a
weak area (ibid.). The problem is that there is no mechanism to monitor
returnees or provide additional support so far. Therefore, the vulnerabil-
ity of returnees to re-trafficking remains open to inquiry. As pointed
out, in countries where trust does not characterize the relation between
law enforcers and the victims, even NGOs who are on the side of the
victims are reluctant to cooperate with law enforcement agencies (ibid.).
Victims are seen primarily as instruments for criminal investigation, hence
their role as witnesses is more emphasized. Obliterated are their real
needs such as psychological security (regaining self-respect and auton-
omy), and financial security. Thus, in the absence of a legislative frame-
work and procedural mechanism to ensure the safety and fair treatment

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40

of trafficked victims, few have come forward. EU action programs with

clear mandates to benefit victims of sex trafficking tend to target enhance-
ment of the capacity of institutions to deal with the problem of sex traf-
ficking (i.e., monitoring and control) rather than enhancing the capacity
of victims of sex trafficking to develop other options.
To recapitulate, the long history of sex trafficking in Europe suggests
that there is no easy solution to counter an institution caught between
the dynamics of male sexual dominance on the one hand, and market-
driven forces on the other. Institutionalized commercial sex supported
by transnational trafficking of persons for sexual exploitation manifests
an exacerbation of a male-centered sex/gender system which, despite
two centuries of the women’s liberation movement and nearly one century
of social engineering for gender equality in CEE and CIS countries, re-
mains resilient. Strategies for change cannot ignore this systemic dimen-
sion that underlies the institution of commercialized sex. Answers must
be found to questions regarding what makes sex/affective relations con-
ventionally bound by kinship relations and the private domain vulnerable
to encroachment by market forces; how sex trafficking emerges as a
transfer of sex/affective labor across national borders historically, and
what the implications of this transfer on women and gender relations are
in society.
Currently, it appears that the burdens of this transfer are mediated
through an unhealthy system of inter-state relations, by which women
from low-income countries shoulder the risks of exploitation to ensure
an enlargement of sexual choices for men in high-income countries.

Gender Aspects of Human Security and

their Relationship with Sex Trafficking:
Evidence from CEE and CIS Countries
The emergence of women from CEE and CIS countries in the sex industry
in the EU since the 1990s expresses the two major dimensions of human
insecurity, i.e., forms of human insecurity resulting from conflict and
violence, and those that are linked with economic policy. Military con-
flicts in many parts of the world have had a history of posing serious
threats to women and young girls who become the targets of sexual vio-
lence and abuse by military men. The Balkan region is not an exception.
Initially, women and girls in the Balkan region experienced sexual

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 41

violence during the militarized ethnic conflicts, both by the military and
armed rebels (Bellamy, 1997). In the post-conflict era, the tacit tolerance
of such violence by power structures and communities has led to organ-
ized prostitution catering to the UN Peace-keeping forces (MacKinnon,
1994), showing how women and children in conflict zones are sexually
vulnerable and insecure-even from their own ’protectors’. Prolonged
post-conflict economic and social destabilization of the region has
induced massive population movements and facilitated the formation of
trafficking networks, targeting refugee populations who are uninformed
and eager to search for a secure life space (IOM, 200 lc).~
With regard to the forms of human insecurity that are linked with eco-
nomic policy, a comparison between the gender effects of different types
of economic and social crisis and their recovery strategies is useful in
the search for common grounds for an explanation of processes that in-
duce women’s international migration for employment. Despite their
different nature and structural determinants, Structural Adjustment Pol-
icies (SAPs) in developing countries and the transition from communism
to market-led societies share similar gender dimensions. SAPs introduced
in the 1980s in most developing countries is essentially a process of
market-oriented economic reforms that aim at restoring the balance of
payments, reducing inflation, and creating conditions for economic
growth. However, as pointed by a feminist economist Elson (1995), SAPs
constitute a switch of gears in the economy through a change in resource
allocation that uses price mechanisms rather than direct controls.
The gender effects of SAPs have been documented by many studies
(Rowbotham and Mitter, 1993; Elson 1995). Most notable is the in-
tensification of women’s labor time in non-tradable activities of care-
providing, as well as in the production of specific export-oriented goods
and services. Suffice to say here that despite policy packages to help
cushion social effects at a later stage of SAPs, some key consequences
on gender may be found in the market economy and the sex/affective
and care-giving economy. While the market economy has offered more
employment for women, the labor market has also become de-regulated
and feminized from the standpoint of labor rights. The informalization
of production relations in industrial work has been accompanied by a
semi-formalization of work in the sex/affective and care-giving economy
which, traditionally, was governed by non-monetary and gender-based
norms rather than the market. In many countries in East and South-East

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42

Asia, the sex sector emerges next to other industrial activities including
tourism, leisure-related services, textiles, and electronics as an engine
of growth (Lim, 1998). Rampant sex tourism gradually shaped and di-
versified the demands for commercial sexual services; and sex trafficking
became another way to bring such services to the consumers in their
country of origin.
Two features of SAPs make it possible to consider this reform process
as masculine, i.e., predominantly serving male interests. These include
the neglect of the care-giving economy, the burden of which is carried
by middle-aged women, and the emergence of a sexualized service sector
benefiting mainly young and middle-aged men as consumers. A shift of
incentives in resources allocation based on price, without paying due
attention to the ways in which care relations and sexual relations are
organized, has led to a serious structural distortion of values, i.e., pro-
duction in the sex sector yields higher returns than the care sector. As no
control is placed on the market for sexual services, employment oppor-
tunities for the economy of sex become widened, whereas options for
the care economy narrow. In other words, care systems based on trad-
itional norms of kinship, or friendship and neighborhood, have come
under threat while commercial sex systems based on market norms have
been strengthened. The combination of government neglect of the care
domain and market interests in the sex domain has led to what may be
regarded as a gross exacerbation of existing imbalances in the gender
order of societies. Notably, to continue to care for their families, many
women must consider the sex trade as a means of livelihood.
Similar trends may be observed in the CEE and CIS countries. Al-
though the outcomes of the ’Big Bang’ market-oriented reforms have
been more dramatic than SAPs, the gender dimensions may be observed
in many areas. The transition under the ’Big Bang’ has brought an abrupt
shift from a model of gender equality based on sameness derived from a
communist ideology, to a new bipolar sex/gender system characterized
by difference (Holzner and Truong, 1997). In this shift, women’s identity
as relentless workers in the construction of communism along with men
became diversified into mothers, wives, mistresses, escorts, models, and
objects of male desire. As pointed out by Vaknin (2001 ), women in the
European transition countries experienced a shift from ’equal’ labor par-
ticipation secured by a quota system, to a new system that was restructured
on the basis of old principles which were patriarchal, discriminatory,
and iniquitous. The female labor market has been restructured from many

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 43

options in and administrative categories down

professional, technical,
to informal work, which may have included sexual and domestic services.
At the same time, the costs of public goods such as health and education
have been transferred from the state to the household through the com-
mercialization of services.
Data collected by UNIFEM (2001: p. 73) shows that the proportion of
adult women who are members of the labor force was lower in 1997
than in 1985 in all transition countries in Europe. In this period, the rate
of women’s participation in the labor force fell by 40 percent in Hungary,
31 percent in Estonia, 33 percent in Latvia and 24 percent in Lithuania,
21 percent in the Russian Federation, 16 percent in Slovenia, 12 percent
in the Czech Republic, and 13 percent in Poland. Women’s paid em-
ployment in industry and services also experienced different patterns of
change. As pointed out by UNIFEM (ibid.), in services ’women lost
jobs in the expanding and remunerative sectors of banking and real es-
tates, and are more concentrated in low-paid public services such as
education and health’. Unemployment is high in most CEE and CIS
countries, as shown by data for 1999.
Figure 2 shows that unemployment rates are highest in Slovakia,
followed by the Baltic states, the Russian Federation, the Ukraine, and
Croatia. In the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia’s unemployment
rates are between 7 and 9 percent. Women’s unemployment is higher
than that of men in Croatia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Slovenia.
There are, however, variations within countries based on factors that are

Figure 2
Unemployment in European Transition Countries in 1999

Source: United Nations Statistical Yearbook, 2000.

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44

regionally specific as well as sector specific. For example, in the Russian

Federation, although the difference between women’s and men’s un-
employment appears marginal at the macro-level, the liquidation and re-
structuring of enterprises that are gender and sector specific (textiles
and garments) affected women living in regions where these enterprises
are concentrated. The same applies to men, as for example the restruc-

turing of the military-industrial complex (Malysheva, 1998). The neglect

of women-specific sectors in the recovery plan has led to fewer employ-
ment opportunities for women who were retrenched from their jobs.
With their productive role being obliterated, middle-aged working
mothers find themselves disproportionate victims of retrenchment or be-
come deprived pensioners. From families based on a double-income,

many became dependent on a single one. As coined by Russian socio-

logist Marina Malysheva (1998), opportunities for women are nowadays
polarized between being ’peasants’ (i.e., growing food for consumption
in limited living spaces) or’love machines’ (accepting sexual harassment
in exchange for job opportunities, or accepting sexual services for pay).
A divide between generations seems to have emerged based on different
interests, aspirations, and responsibilities. On the one hand young women
have become more driven by Western-style consumerism and influenced
by notions of autonomy based on individual self-advancement; while
on the other hand middle-aged women, who are now free from ’invol-

untary emancipation’, must continue to care for themselves and their fam-
ilies very limited means.
on

Beingless mobile than men, and owing to their double burden, re-
trenched women workers face a more limited range of options in the job
market. Prolonged crisis in daily survival has led to the disintegration of
the family in many areas. Migratory husbands have left women with
children behind in search for work and remittances. Evidence in several
reports suggests that many families in crisis are obliged to leave their
children under institutional care, evidence clearly manifested in the crisis
of orphans in Russia. According to the Human Rights Watch ( 1998),
since the collapse of Soviet rule in 1991 and the subsequent economic
turmoil, the number of abandoned children in Russian society has been
rapidly increasing. According to the Ministry of Labor and Social Devel-
opment, the number of children defined by the state as ’without parental
care’ shot up from 67,286 in 1992 to more than 600,000 in 1997.
There is also evidence of under-aged mothers abandoning their chil-
dren. The social stigma attached to teenage mothers is so acute that many

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 45

of them either abandon their children to state institutions, or are expelled

from homes and often end up joining prostitution-related businesses for
their survival (Brutman, 1996). Given the problem of youth unemploy-
ment, young people with or without families became prey to organized
crime.’ According to a survey conducted by IOM among women traf-
ficked from Eastern European countries, 25.62 percent had no previous
work experience either at home or abroad, and most of them were minors
and single mothers (IOM, 2001c: p. 6). In many post-communist coun-
tries, the image of the West as a model of a liberal society has influenced
young women’s decisions to work abroad. Often this is seen as a way to
break from the authority of the family and old traditions, and as a way of
manifesting one’s own liberty (Foundation of Women’s Forum, 1998).

Women’s Collective Agency: Between Masculine

Authority and Feminine Tradition
On the political front, since the beginning of the ’Big Bang’ reform femi-
nist scholars based in the West have raised concerns about the gender
outcomes of the shift of power in the former communist world (Moly-
neux, 1990; Rai, Pilkington and Phizacklea, 1992; Einhom, 1993). Until
recently, their discourses had little impact for a variety of reasons. In the
initial years of the reform, the withdrawal of women from token pos-
itions in decision-making was remarkable in all countries, as shown in
Figure 3.

Figure 3
Change in Women’s Share of Seats in National Parliament, 1987-2000

Source: UNIFE%L. 2001.

The decline in women’s participation in politics was partly related to

the discrediting of traditional mass organizations affiliated with the

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46

Communist Party (Holzner and Truong, 1997), and the fact that feminism
bears many negative and contradictory meanings in the post-communist
states (Watson 1996; Molyneux, 1996). According to Molyneux (1996),
feminism in the post-communist states bear the usual stereotypes of the
’man-hating lesbian’, the ’foreign’ communist-imposed, and the unnat-
ural world of’forced emancipation’. Anti-feminist sentiments based on
widespread ignorance of the history of feminism, its diversity, and current
concerns expressed in the media certainly had intimidating effects. For

example, a Polish newspaper in an article on contraception stated: ’Half

the feminists want to be raped, but there is no one who wants to do it’
(Molyneux, 1996: pp. 245-46).
This decline turned out to be too costly, as women’s organized agency
has been too weakened to be effective in preventing the silent shift of
gender norms which accompanied the shift in the economic system. Fur-
thermore, given the historical connection between communism and
women’s movements, it is difficult for common people to distinguish
between the communist-led women’s movement, and the autonomous
organizations that have emerged since the 1990s. Without an internal
support base, many women’s non-governmental organizations turned to
external support, and remain essentially philanthropic and independent
of internal power structures. Their attempts to impact policymaking so
as to alter the structures conditioning women’s insecurity have so far
met with limited success.
Future prospects for women are ridden with difficulties (Funk and
Mueller, 1993; Renne, 1997). The gender dynamics internal to CEE and
CIS countries have had consequences on the trajectory of women’s activ-
ism and their outcomes. In Russia, women’s organizations are ‘floating
between pressures from two sides: the masculine authority and the lack
of support from fellow countrywomen who would rather support the
traditional division of labor in the family and society’ (Papkova, 2000).
In the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and Romania, women’s groups are
concentrating on the academic aspects of the movemem, and have limited
experience in reaching women’s everyday concerns. In contrast, the issue
of abortion in Poland and post-conflict reconstruction in former Yugo-
slavia have contributed to bridging the activities of academic and grass-
roots politics to resist male-centered reasoning and practices (Renne,
1997: pp. 4-5). The above reality shows that women’s organized agency
in CEE, CIS and the Balkan countries cannot be expected to make signifi-
cant inroads into the halls of power and decision-making without

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 47

sustained support from international solidarity networks that promote

social justice, and are sensitive to local gender dynamics.
It appear that women’s vulnerability to exploitative migration for
the sex industry is heightened in times of crisis when their citizenship
rights are undermined and their political space for action reduced. Dis-
locations associated with economic transition and the dismantling of
social security systems have left many women without protection.
Furthermore, the evaporation of a socialist ideology of gender equality
has left the social order with a vacuum, which is filled slowly by market
values. The system installed in the communist era based on asexual norms
has been replaced by a bipolar system which sexualizes differences
between women and men. The current system comes close to the male-
centered sex/gender system known in patriarchal cultures, by which
commercial sex affecting women as the providers and men as consumers
became an outcome of natural law. Left unaltered, coping strategies
adopted by women and men involved in transnational sex trafficking as
criminal actors, victims, and survivors further consolidate relations of
power, production, and profits in the sex industry.

Conclusion

This article has discussed the implications of sex trafficking in the EU

for human security and its gender dimensions. Gender-based human
insecurity in the sex trade lies first and foremost with the withdrawal of
women’s social citizenship rights, which undermine the foundation of
their security in everyday life. Their civic rights to articulate the problems
they face are often undermined by formal and informal powers of intimi-
dation. Once engaged in a migratory process, their formal identity repre-
sented in their passports is surrendered to the control of a criminal system
of governance. At their workplace, women’s legal status is also an import-
ant factor determining their position in the diversified market structures
of commercial sexual services. Legal women are less subject to surveil-
lance by the police or criminal networks, and hence can operate more
independently. Illegal women are pushed under criminal surveillance
and become subject to arbitrary treatment and abuse. If they manage to
break out of this system, they face specific state rules of governance
over migrant labor and prostitution. Liberal prostitution laws in some
countries do give some women protection, in so far as they can emerge

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48

as self-employed and satisfy the conditions of migrant labor law

applicable to specified countries. Migrant women whose citizenship does
not come under some kind of bilateral agreement are most vulnerable,
as outside the framework of legislation.
they fall
Second, although the EU has an explicit strategy on gender equality
for CEE and CIS countries, governments have not considered how this
equality may be made an integral part of a human security policy frame-
work. This is regrettable since the EU, unlike other regions in trilateral
countries, has been exposed most closely to human insecurity derived
from transition and post-conflict insecurity. Due to these limitations,
policy instruments have not been able to tackle the issues faced by the
most vulnerable. The relationship between the law and the victims is
still determined by the notion of the individual as a legal person, and
cannot fully address the needs of undocumented persons as social en-
tities, such as women living with sex trafficking and prostitution.
Third, the challenge to the EU is how to move beyond a pragmatic
position directed at protecting the human rights of victims through the
legalization of prostitution, or in using victims to fight organized crime.
EU governments also need to seriously explore the range of policy options
that can control the sex trade at its core.
Finally, cultural means must be found to deal with the forms of ex-
pression of masculinity that are harmful to the integrity of women and
children as social beings, and to help dissolve the sex trade. Current ex-
pressions of masculinity in the sex trade that support the image of the
consumer of sexual services against payment as a representation of virility
need to be countered with images of virility as the ability to care and
take responsibility for the other. Less harmful and more constructive
expressions should be promoted so as to help create a cultural balance
that can eventually promote the value of caring and responsible sex as
distinct from safe sex, irrespective of the social relations that mediate it
(marriage, friendship, or commercial). The notion of caring and respon-
sible sex seeks not only to enhance personal safety, but can also dissolve
the subject-object relationship in sexual relations, and promote a cultural
transformation towards non-violence in sexuality. It is through non-
violence that mutual respect can be built and a gender-based human
security achieved.

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 49

NOTES

Melody Lu and Yu Kojima are warmly acknowledged for their research assistance, facili-
tated by a small grant from the Toyota-funded project on ’Gender and Human Security: A
Trilateral Comparison’, coordinated by Seiko Hanochi and Kinhide Mushakoji. Revision
of the project report into the current article is my own responsibility.

1. These include debt bondage, illegal confinement, slave-like practices, and abuses of a
sexual and physical nature, often with the state as a complicit agent (Human Rights
Watch, 1993, 1995a, 1995b).
2. Bosnia, Albania, and Serbia are often used as transit countries for other destinations in
Western European countries and Scandinavia, and within Balkan countries themselves.
For trafficking routes, see the IOM report (2001c).
3. Most of the statistics are derived from small-scale research. Incomparability and gaps
are found in national data derived from the different definitions and monitoring indi-
cators of ’trafficking’ at national levels. In many CEE and CIS countries, sex trafficking
was an unknown crime while in some EU countries, sex trafficking might have existed
for some time but was not recognized. The current data from the police and border
control on human trafficking does not address sex trafficking in particular. Women
who are trafficked for purposes unrelated to commercial sex may later enter into the
sex industry out of compulsion, manipulated consent, or of their own choice.

4. Owners of enterprises providing sexual services, recruiters, and procurers of migrant

sex workers.

5. For example, Swedish legislation aims at penalizing the buying of sex, and eliminating
the whole sex industry. However, since the law was passed in 1998, Nordic countries
have increasingly become a popular destination of migrants from Baltic states and
Russia (IOM, 2001a, 2001 b; Foundation for Women’s Forum, 1998), and the percentage
of migrant sex workers in prostitution has increased from 5 to 15 percent between
1997 and 1999 (Brussa, 1999: p. 25). A survey conducted in Sweden in 1998 shows
that most people think that such law may effectively end prostitution, but it actually
will be further pushed into the underworld. Indirectly, such a law may make the sex
industry more organized, and enhance the degree of exploitation and dependency of
prostitutes behind closed doors.
6. A report from an IOM counter-trafficking project in Kosovo suggests that 82.25 percent
of the women seeking assistance from the project went abroad to seek jobs; 71.25
percent went with false job promises and 83.13 percent ended up in the sex industry;
50.63 percent did not have any relation with the recruiters; and 45.75 percent left the
countries of origin without an international passport because they were told that they
did not need one (IOM, 2001c: pp. 7-8). Many have been found to return home to re-
cruit new victims, i.e., they have chosen to become pimps as one option to earn money
and avoid the brutality of unwanted sex by multiple men each day (Hughes, 2000).
7. This is confirmed by the findings in Western Europe that the majority of victims from
transition countries are much younger than the ones from Asia, Latin America, and
Africa. Trafficked victims from Asia, Latin America, and Africa tend to have families
and children to support (Europol, 2000a).

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50

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