The Many Faces of Care: A Comparative Analysis of Anti-trafficking Approaches to Domestic Work and Sex Work in the Philippines

Parmanand, Sharmila

doi:10.1080/17496535.2022.2070234

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 12 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In a 2016 interview, Tex explained that several individual members of these organisations privately support decriminalising sex work yet "have indicated to the Collective that it would be politically costly for their organisations to publicly back sex worker rights." Many otherwise progressive organisations in the Philippines maintain an anti-sex work position or at least choose not to support the rights of sex workers publicly (Parmanand 2021). The proponents of a proposed anti-discrimination law refused to include 'work' under their definition of protected categories, despite the Collective's multiple requests, and the Philippine chapter of Amnesty International voted against Amnesty International's institutional stance in favour of decriminalising sex work (Electronic correspondence with Tex 2018).…”

Section: Philippine Sex Workers Collective: Trial and Error Social Me...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The availability of international aid across most of the global south has implications ranging from allowing activists some independence from the state to entrenching donor-driven agendas (Banks et al 2015). In the context of competition for resources and influence amongst civil society organisations in the Philippines (Roldan 2013: 23), there is little political space for risky advocacies, such as rights for sex workers (Parmanand 2021). This paper shows that the Singaporean government's aversion to foreign funding for CSOs and to foreign influence in general (Singapore Ministry of Home Affairs 2016) has paradoxically reduced obstacles to sex work activism, while these obstacles have been entrenched in the Philippines, which relies heavily on United States (US) government funding tied to an anti-prostitution framework (Khan and Iyer 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Shape-shifting and Strategic In/visibility: Comparing Sex Work Activism in Singapore and the Philippines

Parmanand

2024

TRaNS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Research on public health, crime, and policing regularly discusses sex workers in Southeast Asia but rarely recognises them as agents of social and political activism. This paper shows that sex workers and their allies in Singapore and the Philippines have long and rich histories of challenging their criminalisation and stigmatisation through cultural activism, political advocacy, consciousness-raising, and the provision of direct services to fellow sex workers. Using feminist ethnography, including interviews and participant observation with Project X in Singapore and the Philippine Sex Workers Collective, this paper explores how sex work activists have strategically adapted to their political environments. In Singapore, they maintain resistance through ‘shape-shifting,’ working within state-sanctioned mechanisms, positioning themselves as public health service providers, and creating spaces for radical political advocacy. In the Philippines, where an anti-sex work position is more deeply entrenched within dominant social blocs, sex work activists aggressively criticise state policies on social media and in carefully vetted forums but remain strategically invisible to avoid exposure, harassment, misrepresentation, and prosecution. This paper looks at how sex work activists engage in claims-making — underscoring the differences in the political resonance of human rights in both countries — and interrogates how sex work activism challenges social hierarchies, especially concerning migrants and trans individuals. Overall, it contributes to a richer understanding of non-traditional forms of political activism in Southeast Asia and makes visible sex workers’ contributions to feminism and labour movements in the global south and non-Western contexts.

show abstract

Section: Philippine Sex Workers Collective: Trial and Error Social Me...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shape-shifting and Strategic In/visibility: Comparing Sex Work Activism in Singapore and the Philippines

Parmanand

2024

TRaNS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…They also tend to polarize into "abolitionist" and "pro-sex" camps and although a growing number of contemporary feminist researchers (e.g., Showden, 2011) provide a more nuanced and grounded perspective, polarization persists in current policy and advocacy debates around sex work. The framing of people charged with prostitution as victims is also influenced by narratives of sex trafficking, which pervade U.S. and global discussion about all forms of sexual labor (e.g., O'Brien, 2021;Parmanand, 2022). Sex workers navigate a continuum of consent or agency and coercion in their daily interactions, often making choices within a changing landscape of legal, financial, and relational constraints (Dewey & St. Germain, 2016;Shdaimah et al, 2023;Showden, 2011).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Who Do We Call “Creepy?”: Sex Workers’ Relationships as Targets of Intimate Intervention

Shdaimah,

Becker,

Franke

et al. 2023

Affilia

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Like other forms of problem-solving justice, prostitution diversion programs (PDPs) are designed to (re)shape thinking and behaviors. The authority to surveil and punish stems from criminalization of sex work, itself an act of control over women and their bodies. The court cues normative behaviors through rewards and punishments based on information gleaned through ongoing surveillance in and out of court. Using a critical feminist lens, we draw on ethnographic and interview data from studies of two court-affiliated PDPs to examine the regulation of women's bodies and intimate relationships. We found that criminal justice professionals explicitly viewed constant discussion and surveillance of all facets of PDP participants’ lives as a tool to cause participants to internalize particular understandings of normative relationships. Such normative understandings involve assumptions about which men are “creepy” that do not always reflect women's lived experiences and decontextualize relationships in ways that are incompatible with women's own assessments of these relationships. This analysis contributes to feminist social work by revealing the social control functions of such programs, which employ “creepy” intrusion to police the boundaries between unacceptable and normative behavior while simultaneously disregarding the systemic forces that shape women's choices and constructions of normativity.

show abstract

The Many Faces of Care: A Comparative Analysis of Anti-trafficking Approaches to Domestic Work and Sex Work in the Philippines

Cited by 2 publications

References 12 publications

Shape-shifting and Strategic In/visibility: Comparing Sex Work Activism in Singapore and the Philippines

Shape-shifting and Strategic In/visibility: Comparing Sex Work Activism in Singapore and the Philippines

Who Do We Call “Creepy?”: Sex Workers’ Relationships as Targets of Intimate Intervention

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About