Excesses and double standards: migrant prostitutes, sovereignty and exceptions in contemporary Italy

Abstract

In this paper, the author proposes an analysis of the apparently contradictory attitudes towards transactional sexual exchanges, as they have emerged in public debate and informed legislation and policies in Italy over the past few years. The ambiguity towards commercial sex is linked to a specific dynamic of power, which denies sexual labour the status of work and makes it the object of repressive and criminalising policies, whilst at the same time habitually demanding sexual services in exchange for money, gifts or favours. The article shows how criminalisation functions as a prominent form for the control of subjects, related to the workings of sovereignty. In particular, the author considers the ways in which the criminalisation of prostitution and of undocumented migration, which compound in the figure of the migrant prostitute, represents a means for the exertion of sovereignty and relates to the centrality of desire, transgression and their disciplining in the contemporary context. However, closer examination of the subjective experiences of those who are supposedly excluded and criminalised, such as undocumented migrant sex workers in detention centres, reveals the incompleteness of disciplinary mechanisms.

Gender, Vulnerability and Everyday Resistance in Immigration Detention: Women’s Experiences of Confinement in a Portuguese Detention Facility

“…Our protagonists' accounts confirm this evidence, highlighting the particular value of migrant women's bodies in the Portuguese sex and marriage markets (Piscitelli 2008a(Piscitelli , 2008b. As well, they highlight the effect of their criminalisation (as undocumented migrants) in making them productive as vulnerable gendered and racialised subjects (Peano 2012). This vulnerability, structurally imposed and differently distributed across lines of nationality, class and sexuality (among others), obfuscates women's agency, while increasing their exposure to arbitrary and state-sponsored (i.e., arrests, detentions and deportations) violence.…”

“…Indeed, even when women actually fall under this last 'category' (i.e., victims of trafficking), 17 similar mechanisms of abjection and dispossession are deployed. State authorities often display a stereotyped vision of these women, trapped between a moralising and victimising view of their past and a pervasive control and disciplining of their present (Esposito, Murtaza, Peano et al 2020;Peano 2012;Rigo 2019;Taliani 2012). To be entitled to protection, these women must demonstrate they are at risk of danger and persecution, while complying with a narrow understanding of what counts as a victim with a 'credible' story.…”

“…Relying on women's own accounts of their experiences in detention helps to illustrate how the immigration system maintains a racialised and gendered social order in Western societies. It also highlights the centrality of the figure of the migrant prostitute/victim of trafficking in this process (Gomes 2018;Peano 2012). The criminalisation of transborder migration, through a progressive securitisation of borders, and the failure of Portuguese law (similarly to other EU countries) to recognise sex labour with the status of work, ultimately foster a racialised and gendered underclass.…”

Fragmented citizenship: contemporary infrastructures of mobility containment along two migratory routes

“…At the same time, a humanitarian apparatus (made of NGOs and other international and state bodies) represents the other side of criminalisation, offering mostly a paternalistic and victimising 'way out' of the contracts of bondage and sex work per se (Crowhurst 2012;Giordano 2014;Peano 2012). In order to hope for regularisation as recognised victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation, since the first implementation in 1998 of anti-trafficking measures in Italy, women are forced to undergo an assessment procedure at the hands of the police, with the aid of ad-hoc non-governmental agencies licensed by the state.…”

“…As we will point out in the following sections, troublesome journeys characterised by exclusion, confinement and exploitation may result not only from the refusal of a demand for a visa or international protection, but also from the process of hierarchical inclusion on which these latter are based (Vacchiano 2018). However, people who are targeted by mobility control also display an extraordinary ability to resist containment and its multiple infrastructures (Bosworth 2014;Esposito et al 2019bEsposito et al , 2019aMatos and Esposito 2019;Peano 2012). Indeed, as evidenced by our protagonists' stories, they struggle to contrast criminalisation and to (re)enact autonomous strategies of movement and existence (see Scheel 2019).…”