The Philippine Sex Workers Collective: Struggling to be heard, not saved

Abstract

The Philippine Sex Workers Collective is an organisation of current and former sex workers who reject the criminalisation of sex work and the dominant portrayal of sex workers as victims. Based on my interviews with leaders of the Collective and fifty other sex workers in Metro Manila, I argue in this paper that a range of contextual constraints limits the ability of Filipino sex workers to effectively organise and lobby for their rights. For example, the Collective cannot legally register because of the criminalisation of sex work, and this impacts their ability to access funding and recruit members. The structural configuration of the Philippines’ Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking incentivises civil society organisations to adhere to a unified position on sex work as violence against women. The stigma against sex work in a predominantly Catholic country is another constraint. Recently, President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs has been weaponised by some members of the police to harass sex workers. Finally, I reflect on strategies the Collective could adopt to navigate the limited space they have for representation, such as crucial partnerships, outreach work, and legal remedies.

Digital privacy is a sexual health necessity: a community-engaged qualitative study of virtual sex work and digital autonomy in Senegal

“…VSW in low- and middle-income Countries (LMICs) remains under-researched, though important studies address this topic as part of the broader literature on sex work in LMICs. 3 , 21 , 28 , 29 Similarly, technology-facilitated IPV research, including a seminal study led by sex workers in the European Union, 8 has concentrated on European and US contexts 30 despite calls to “decolonize[e] privacy studies”. 31 Technology-facilitated IPV is a global problem that requires digital privacy and security solutions adapted to local contexts.…”

“…Sutura highlights that (1) protection against non-consensual exposure of intimate life promotes well-being and (2) preventing such exposure is not only a matter of individual responsibility, but a collective responsibility for community support. Sutura resonates with sex workers’ commitment to mutual aid in other contexts, from public expressions of resistance and healing, 19 , 20 to organising amidst state repression, 21 to peer support during pandemics. 22 …”

White Supremacy, Racism and the Coloniality of Anti-Trafficking

“…These arguments have been extensively and effectively countered elsewhere and we will no t rehearse the critique again here. Moreover, even if women and teenagers' consent is theorized as coerced, manipulated or otherwise inauthentic, it remains a real and practical problem for anti-trafficking NGOs in Jamaica, since the people they seek to protect and assist do not necessarily want the type of help that NGOs offer (see Soderlund, 2005;Seshu, 2012, andParmanand, 2019, for example, on this phenomenon elsewhere in the world).…”

Sex Workers’ Everyday Security in the Netherlands and the Impact of COVID-19

“…This is also relevant for critical discussions around sex work as work in contexts outside Europe where this situation of crisis represents ‘normal’ life for many (e.g. Adebisi et al, 2020 ; Cabezas, 2004 ; Parmanand, 2019 ; Ritterbusch, 2016 ; Santos et al, 2021 ). This way, our paper contributes to pressing global debates about inclusion and exclusion in access to social security.…”

“…In contrast, many scholarly contributions document that—for diverse contexts—regulation whose stated aim is to end sex workers’ exploitation, like anti-trafficking interventions, actually trigger and exacerbate financial insecurity, exploitation and unsafe practices among sex workers (e.g. Hoefinger et al, 2020 ; Lam & Lepp, 2019 ; Lutnick, 2019 ; Parmanand, 2019 ; Peterson et al, 2019 ; Villar, 2019 ). In the context of the 2016 sex purchase ban in France, Calderaro and Giametta ( 2019 ) therefore argue that the ‘construction of the “problem of prostitution” should be seen in light of broader political anxieties over sexism in poor neighbourhoods and immigration control, which justify the national priorities of security and public order’ (p. 155) (see also Lerum & Brents, 2016 , p. 20).…”