Providing a detailed international comparison of the laws, policies and interventions relating to prostitution in eight countries across Europe and Asia, this title includes case studies that are brought to life by giving voice to the experiences of prostitutes themselves.

What is to be done about prostitution? Is it work or is it violence? Are women involved in prostitution offenders or victims? Is prostitution a private or a political issue? The answers to these questions vary depending on many factors, including where in the world you live. This book provides a valuable, detailed international comparison of the laws, policies and interventions in eight countries across Europe (England and Wales, France, Sweden and Moldova) and Asia (India, Pakistan, Thailand and Taiwan). The countries were chosen because of their contrasting social policy and legislative frameworks. Specific topics covered include national social and historical contexts in relation to prostitution; legal frameworks - with discussion of existing laws and policies and debates around legislation and decriminalisation; key issues faced - particularly relating to reasons for entering prostitution and analysis of policies and interventions. The case studies are brought to life by giving voice to the experiences of women involved in prostitution themselves together with the personal reflections of the authors. Aimed at a wide audience of students, academics, policy makers and practitioners, this book makes an important contribution to academic and policy debates in the fields of criminology, law, social policy, women's studies, sociology, politics and international relations.

International Approaches to Rape gives an overview of rape law and policy in nine different countries, including the United States and Canada. Many governments have begun to take rape more seriously than in the past and have started to implement wide-ranging reforms; this book describes those reforms and assesses the degree to which they have been successful. Introducing readers to various national perspectives on rape, the contributors outline a comparative approach that highlights the similarities and differences between countries, contexts, laws, issues, policies, and interventions.

This volume is the result of the many years the authors have spent conducting ethnographic field research with sex workers, conversing with other researchers, and, perhaps most importantly, developing a deep sense of empathy for the sex worker participants in the research as well as the colleagues who carry out this work with the goal of advancing social justice. They have a combined total of twenty-five years’ experience carrying out research with sex workers, and this extensive period of time has given them ample opportunity to reflect upon the topic of ethics. Sex work, defined as the exchange of sexual or sexualized intimacy for money or something of value, encompasses a wide range of legal and illegal behaviors that present researchers with key ethical challenges explored in the volume. These ethical challenges include: · Research methodology · Distinguishing research from activism · Navigating the politically and ideologically charged environments in which researchers must remain constantly attuned to the legal and public policy implications of their work · Possibilities for participatory sex work research processes · Strategies for incorporating participants in a variety of collaborative ways Sex work presents a unique set of challenges that are not always well understood by those working outside of anthropology and disciplines closely related to it. This book serves an important function by honestly and openly reviewing strategies for overcoming these ethical challenges with the end goal of producing path-breaking research that actively incorporates the perspectives of research participants on their own terms. Ever attuned to the reality that research on sex work remains a deeply political act, Ethical Research with Sex Workers: Anthropological Approaches aspires to begin a dialogue about the meanings and practices ascribed to ethics in a fraught environment. Drawing upon a review of published scholarly and activist work on the subject, as well as on interviews with researchers, social service providers, and sex workers themselves, this volume is an unprecedented contribution to the literature that will engage researchers across a variety of disciplines, such as academics and researchers in anthropology, sociology, criminal justice, and public health, as well as activists and policymakers.

While sex work has long been controversial, it has become even more contested over the past decade as laws, policies, and enforcement practices have become more repressive in many nations, partly as a result of the ascendancy of interest groups committed to the total abolition of the sex industry. At the same time, however, several other nations have recently decriminalized prostitution. Legalizing Prostitution maps out the current terrain. Using America as a backdrop, Weitzer draws on extensive field research in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany to illustrate alternatives to American-style criminalization of sex workers. These cases are then used to develop a roster of “best practices” that can serve as a model for other nations considering legalization. Legalizing Prostitution provides a theoretically grounded comparative analysis of political dynamics, policy outcomes, and red-light landscapes in nations where prostitution has been legalized and regulated by the government, presenting a rich and novel portrait of the multifaceted world of legal sex for sale.

Barry (sociology, Pennsylvania State U.) considers sexual exploitation a political condition and thus the foundation of women's subordination and the base from which discrimination against women is constructed. She argues for the need to integrate the struggle against sexual exploitation in prostitution into broader feminist struggles and to place it, as one of several connected issues, in the forefront of the feminist agenda. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

"A study of the economics of sex work"--

This book is part of a two-volume set that examines prostitution and sex trafficking on a global scale, with each chapter devoted to a particular country in one of seven "geo-cultural" areas of the world. The 18 chapters in this volume (Volume I) are devoted to examination of the commercial sex industry (CSI) in countries within Africa, Asia, Middle East, and Oceania, while the 16 chapters that comprise Volume II focus exclusively on Europe, Latin America, and North America. Volume II also includes a 'global' section, which includes chapters that are globally relevant — rather than those devoted to a particular country or geographic location. The content of each volume, as well as each chapter, reflects great diversity — diversity in focus, writing style, and personal position regarding the commercial sex industry. Diversity extends to the contributors, who are comprised of international scholars, service providers, and policy advocates representing a variety of fields and disciplines, with distinct and varied frames of reference and theoretical underpinnings with regard to the commercial sex industry. In addition to addressing aspects of the CSI across the globe, as impacted by geography and culture, authors have also provided a spectrum of implications of their work — implications ranging from continued scholarship and research, to legislative maneuvers and policy change, to suggestions for collaboration across NGOS, fieldworkers, clinicians, and service providers. Together, the 34 expertly-crafted chapters provide a wealth of knowledge from which to more deeply appreciate and contemplate the global commercial sex industry. By uniting contributors from around the world, this book aims to build a relatively common knowledge base on global prostitution and sex trafficking. Viewed from a unified, global perspective, it is hoped that this common understanding will lead to a grounded theory and integrated view with applicable suggestions for international efforts aimed at intervention, service, education, and continued scholarship.

Global Women, Colonial Ports is a transnational history of state-regulated prostitution in the Middle East and North Africa between the two world wars. Beginning with international efforts to eradicate traffic in women and children, Liat Kozma examines French and British policies regarding local and foreign prostitutes in the region and shows how these policies affected and interacted with global migration routes of prostitutes and procurers. In so doing, she reveals how colonial domination mediated global mobility of people, practices, and ideas. Kozma weaves together the perspectives of colonial and local feminists with those of medical doctors, demonstrating that debates on prostitution were globalized and that transnational networks of knowledge and activism existed. She also explores the League of Nations' involvement in this social issue. As a history of the Middle East, the book joins recent scholarship on modern globalization and the integration of the region in global economic, activist, social, and religious interconnectedness.

This book includes case studies from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand, showing prostitution's well organized and highly diversified economic bases, and explaining why it is difficult for policymakers and legislators to define a clear legal stance on adult prostitution, or to implement effective social programs.