Under US immigration law, sex workers—including anyone who “has engaged in prostitution within 10 years of the date of application”—are “inadmissible aliens.” In practice, this law seems to be directed at women, with women applicants for visas, residency, and, especially, citizenship continuing to be asked by US immigration officials whether they have ever worked as a prostitute. “US Federal and State Prostitution Laws and Related Punishments,” ProCon.org, https://prostitution.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000119.
The United States has a long history, dating back to the late eighteenth century, of incarcerating and persecuting sex workers and other women judged to be “immoral” or “promiscuous”—especially women of color—through “social hygiene” and “moral purity” efforts as well as through repressive approaches to contraception and abortion. A common thread in these efforts is their championing by white, middle-class, and elite reformers, including women. Geoffrey R. Stone, Sex and the Constitution: Sex, Religion, and Law from America’s Origins to the Twenty-First Century (New York: Liveright, 2017); Scott W. Stern, The Trials of Nina McCall: Sex, Surveillance, and the Decades-Long Government Plan to Imprison “Promiscuous” Women (Boston: Beacon Press, 2018).
Brazil’s government had recently refused: Peter Gill, Body Count: How They Turned AIDS into a Catastrophe (London: Profile, 2006).
crime-beset Mumbai: For documentation of the massive scale of sex trafficking into Mumbai in the 1990s, see Human Rights Watch, Rape for Profit: Trafficking of Nepali Girls and Women to India’s Brothels (New York: 1995), www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1995/India.htm; Robert I Friedman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to an AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, April 8, 1996, www.questia.com/magazine/1G1-18163075/india-s-shame-sexual-slavery-and-political-corruption.
Meena Seshu: Human Rights Watch, “Human Rights Watch to Honor Leading Indian AIDS Advocate,” November 7, 2002, www.hrw.org/news/2002/11/07/human-rights-watch-honor-leading-indian-aids-advocate; Priya Shetty, “Meena Saraswathi Seshu: Tackling HIV for India’s Sex Workers,” The Lancet 376, no. 9734 (July 3, 2010): 17, www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)61044-6/fulltext?elsca1=TL-020710&elsca2=email&elsca3=segment.
a Hindustan Times headline: Rema Nagarajan, “US accuses NGO of trafficking,” Hindustan Times, September 29, 2005.
“compassionate response”: Andrew Jack, “US Aids Chief Denies Morality Comes Before Life,” Financial Times, August 17, 2006, https://www.ft.com/content/19b85c64-2d45-11db-851d-0000779e2340.
CHAPTER 20: UNIVERSAL RIGHTS AND SCANDALOUS WRONGS
a second legal suit: Because most antisodomy laws derived from British colonial law make no distinction between homosexual acts committed with or without consent or between homosexual acts committed by adults as opposed to adults’ abuse of children, the Naz petition asked to “read down” rather than strike down Section 377, so that consensual homosexual acts between adults would no longer be criminal under the provision, while leaving intact Section 377’s application to nonconsensual acts and to children. See Human Rights Watch, This Alien Legacy: The Origins of “Sodomy” Laws in British Colonialism, 2008; “Gay Activists Get Court to Examine Article 377,” Hindustan Times, December 7, 2001; and Petition from Naz Foundation (New Delhi) to the High Court of Delhi at New Delhi (Extraordinary Original Writ Jurisdiction), Writ Petition (case) no. 7455/2001, December 2001. For the history of the litigation process as well as comprehensive links to all the relevant legal documents and media coverage, see http://orinam.net/377/, an invaluable website maintained by Orinam, an all-volunteer collective, as well as www.lawyerscollective.org/vulnerable-communities/lgbt/section-377.html.
Naz Foundation (India) Trust: http://nazindia.org/.
our open letter: The text of both letters is available at http://orinam.net/377/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/377_OpenLetter_AmartyaSen.pdf; see also, Amelia Gentleman, “India’s Anti-gay Law Faces Challenge,” International Herald Tribune, September 15, 2006, https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/15/world/asia/15iht-india.2827849.html; Somini Sengupta, “Notables Urge India to End 145-Year Ban on Gay Sex,” New York Times, September 16, 2006, https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/16/world/asia/16india.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FSen%2C%20Amartya&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=9&pgtype=collection.
Wolfowitz was eventually forced to resign: Steven R. Weisman, “Second Chance at Career Goes Sour for Wolfowitz,” New York Times, May 18, 2007, https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/18/washington/18worldbank.html.
“Ex-AIDS Chief in Escort Flap”: John Donnelly, “Ex-AIDS Chief in Escort Flap Called Hypocritical: Backed US Policy That Forbids Aid to Help Prostitutes,” Boston Globe, April 29, 2007, www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/04/29/ex_aids_chief_in_escort_flap_called_hypocritical/; Laurie Garrett, “Sex and Foreign Aid,” Los Angeles Times, May 2, 2007, https://www.commondreams.org/views/2007/05/02/sex-and-foreign-aid; Eric Lipton, “Defense in prostitution case makes the powerful in Washington uneasy,” New York Times, April 29, 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/world/americas/29iht-escort.4.5493202.html?.
the rigged standard of justice: I was particularly struck that Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times did not urge that they be punished according to the letter of the law, let alone be held up to high-profile prosecution to serve as a deterrent to others, as would be expected given Kristof’s prohibitionist views. See Nicholas Kristof, “Do as He Said,” New York Times, March 13, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/opinion/13kristof.html. In telling contrast, see “The Hypocrites’ Club,” The Economist, March 13, 2008, www.economist.com/topics/eliot-spitzer. On Vitter’s escape from prosecution, see Paul Kane, “Panel Clears La. Senator in Call-Girl Complaint,” Washington Post, May 9, 2008.
the women who catered: Maddy Sauer, “Madams Fall While Their Johns Prosper,” ABC News, May 2, 2008, http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4765743&page=1.
UNAIDS was embattled: Pam Das and Udani Samarasekera, “What Next for UNAIDS?,” The Lancet 372, no. 9656 (December 20, 2008): 2099–2012, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(08)61908-X/abstract?code=lancet-site; Roger England, “The Writing Is on the Wall for UNAIDS,” The British Medical Journal 336 (May 10, 2008): 1072, https://www.bmj.com/content/336/7652/1072.
it had consciously exaggerated: James Chin, The AIDS Pandemic: The Collision of Epidemiology with Political Correctness (New York: CRC Press, 2007); James Chin, “The Myth of a General AIDS Pandemic: How Billions Are Wasted on Unnecessary AIDS Prevention Programmes,” Campaign for Fighting Diseases, January 2008, https://healthalert.net/pdf/Chin_The_Myth_of_a_General_AIDS_Pandemic.pdf; “Expert Doubts Widespread HIV Risk,” BBC News, February 3, 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6321683.stm.
For India alone: Lalit Dandona and Rakhi Dandona, “Drop of HIV Estimate for India to Less than Half,” The Lancet 370, no. 9602 (2007): 1811–12, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)61756-5/references?code=lancet-site.
Another storm was triggered: Joanne Csete, A Human Rights–Based Commentary on UNAIDS Guidance Note: HIV and Sex Work (Toronto: Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, 2007); Siddharth Dube, “Bringing UNAIDS to Book,” The Guardian, December 17, 2007, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/dec/17/bringingunaidstobook; Siddharth Dube and Joanne Csete, “A Chance to Fix the Fight Against Aids,” The Guardian, August 3, 2008, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/03/aids.unitednations.
“forces that drive people”: Sex Work and HIV/AIDS: Technical Update (Geneva: UNAIDS, June 2002), http://data.unaids.org/publications/irc-pub02/jc705-sexwork-tu_en.pdf.
Whereas UNAIDS: International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights, 2006 Consolidated Version (Geneva: OHCHR/UNAIDS, 2006), http://data.unaids.org/Publications/IRC-pub07/jc1252-internguidelines_en.pdf; Handbook for Legislators on HIV/AIDS, Law and Human Rights (Geneva: UNAIDS/IPU, 1999), http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/documents/1999/1999111
8_jc259-ipu_en.pdf.
CHAPTER 22: THE MOST DANGEROUS OF TIMES
a draconian law: Law on Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation, The Kingdom of Cambodia, No. 140 c.l., February 15, 2008.
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch: The UN report was never made public. Human Rights Watch, Off the Streets: Arbitrary Detention and Other Abuses against Sex Workers in Cambodia, New York, 2010, https://www.hrw.org/report/2010/07/19/streets/arbitrary-detention-and-other-abuses-against-sex-workers-cambodia.
“Barely legible on”: “Cambodia: The Traffic Police,” The Economist, June 11, 2009, www.economist.com/node/13832459.
the antiprostitution sentiment fueled: The examples and data on violence against sex workers are largely from the XVII International AIDS Conference plenary address by Elena Reynaga and Anna Louise Crago, August 6, 2008. They note that all these examples are known despite the lack of “a consolidated international database of the number of sex workers that have been murdered.” The full text is available at www.bayswan.org/SFInitiative08/SexWorkPlenary-Mexico08.pdf. The paragraph beginning “In Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand” is based on my research in Cambodia and Thailand as well as Amy Kazmin, “Deliver Them from Evil,” Financial Times, July 10, 2004; Matt Steinglass, “The Question of Rescue,” New York Times Magazine, July 20, 2005, https://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/magazine/the-question-of-rescue.html. Other examples are drawn from J. Arnott and A. L. Crago, Rights Not Rescue: A Report on Female, Male, and Trans Sex Workers’ Human Rights in Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa (New York: Open Society Institute, 2009), https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/reports/rights-not-rescue; Sex Workers’ Rights Advocacy Network, Arrest the Violence: Human Right Abuses Against Sex Workers in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (Budapest: Sex Workers’ Rights Advocacy Network, 2009), https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/arrest-violence-20091217.pdf; Aziza Ahmed and Meena Seshu, “We Have the Right Not to Be ‘Rescued’: When Anti-Trafficking Programmes Undermine the Health and Well-Being of Sex Workers,” Anti-Trafficking Review 1 (June 2012): 149–68, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2126796.
The International Justice Mission: For critiques of this group’s strategies and impact, see Kazmin, “Deliver Them from Evil”; Maggie Jones, “Thailand’s Brothel Busters”, Mother Jones, November/December 2003 https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2003/11/thailands-brothel-busters/; Elizabeth Bernstein, “The Sexual Politics of the ‘New Abolitionism,’ ” Differences 18, no. 3, (2007): 128–51, https://glc.yale.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/sexual_politics_of_new_abolitionism_.pdf; Elizabeth Bernstein, “Militarized Humanitarianism Meets Carceral Feminism: The Politics of Sex, Rights, and Freedom in Contemporary Antitrafficking Campaigns,” Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 2010, vol. 36, no. 1, 2010, pages 45–71, https://sph.umich.edu/symposium/2010/pdf/bernstein2.pdf; Jackie Pollock, “Thailand,” in Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW), Collateral Damage: The Impact of Anti-Trafficking Measures on Human Rights around the World (Bangkok: GAATW, 2007), http://www.gaatw.org/resources/publications/908-collateral-damage-the-impact-of-anti-trafficking-measures-on-human-rights-around-the-world.
In the view of the Hindu supremacists: Tanika Sarkar, Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation: Community, Religion, and Cultural Nationalism (Bloomington: Indiana University, 2001); Kalyani Devaki Menon, Everyday Nationalism: Women of the Hindu Right in India (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2009).
years of HIV prevention efforts: Human Rights Watch, “Epidemic of Abuse: Police Harassment of HIV/AIDS Outreach Workers in India,” July 2002, https://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/india2/india0602.pdf.
the Hindu-supremacist forces launched: the examples that follow are largely drawn from Centre for Advocacy on Stigma and Marginalisation, SANGRAM et al., Status of Women in Sex Work in India: Submission to the CEDAW Committee’s 58th Session, June 2014, http://feministlawarchives.pldindia.org/wp-content/uploads/Status-of-sex-workers-in-India.pdf?. See also, Saheli and Peoples Union for Democratic Rights, In the Name of Rescue: Report on the arrests of 75 sex workers in Delhi in January 2008, (New Delhi: PUDR, 2009), http://pudr.org/content/name-%E2%80%98rescue%E2%80%99-report-arrests-75-sex-workers-delhi-january-2008.
“The criminalization of clients”: Patralekha Chatterjee, “Anti-Human-Trafficking Law Sparks Debate in India,” The Lancet 371, no. 9617 (March 22, 2008): 975–76, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673608604365/fulltext.
the powerful Ministry of Home Affairs: Bishaka Datta and Siddharth Dube, “Sex Work Is No Crime,” Times of India, December 12, 2007, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/edit-page/LEADER-ARTICLE-Sex-Work-Is-No-Crime/articleshow/2615557.cms.
Even the first published autobiography: Nalini Jameela, The Autobiography of a Sex Worker (Chennai: Westland, 2007).
there was now a wealth: MAP Network, “Sex Work and HIV/AIDS in Asia,” Rakhi Dandona, Lalit Dandona, G. Anil Kumar, et al., “Demography and Sex Work Characteristics of Female Sex Workers in India,” BMC International Health and Human Rights, April 14, 2006, http://bmcinthealthhumrights.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1472-698X-6-5; Ratna Kapur, “India,” in Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, Collateral Damage; Rohini Sahni, V. Kalyan Shankar, and Hemant Apte, eds., Prostitution and Beyond: An Analysis of Sex Work in India (New Delhi: Sage, 2008); R. Buzdugan et al., “The Female sex worker typology in India in the context of HIV/AIDS: Systematic Review,” Tropical Medicine and International Health, vol. 14 no. 6 (June 2009): 673–87, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1365-3156.2009.02278.x; Prabha Kotiswaran, ed., Sex Work (New Delhi: Women Unlimited, 2011); Prabha Kotiswaran, Dangerous Sex, Invisible Labor: Sex Work and the Law in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2011); Rohini Sahni and V. Kalyan Shankar, The First Pan-India Survey of Sex Workers: A summary of preliminary findings, (Sangli: Center for Advocacy on Stigma and Marginalisation, April 2011, https://www.sangram.org/resources/Pan_India_Survey_of_Sex_workers.pdf; Niranjan Saggurti, Shagun Sabarwal, Ravi K. Verma, et al., “Harsh Realities: Reasons for Women’s Involvement in Sex Work in India,” Journal of AIDS and HIV Research 3, no. 9 (September 30, 2013): 172–79, http://www.academicjournals.org/journal/JAHR/article-authors/D88AC4E2930; “India,” in The Global HIV Epidemics Among Sex Workers, ed. Deanna Kerrigan, Andrea Wirtz, Stefan Baral, et al. (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013), http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/682211468331196525/pdf/NonAsciiFileName0.pdf, 78–92; Svati P. Shah, Street Corner Secrets: Sex, Work, and Migration in the City of Mumbai (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014).
a number of US Republican lawmakers: Rick Santorum et al., Letter to President George W. Bush, May 31, 2005; Dana Rohrabacher et al., Letter to Andrew Natsios, USAID Administrator, July 15, 2005.
Republican congressman Chris Smith: “Rep. Chris Smith Addresses 35th Annual March for Life,” excerpts, Priests for Life, www.priestsforlife.org/government/chris-smith5.htm; James Kirchick, “The Stranger,” New Republic, September 11, 2008, https://newrepublic.com/article/63825/the-stranger.
poorly understood realities of human trafficking: Weitzer, “The Social Construction of Sex Trafficking”; Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW), Collateral Damage: The Impact of Anti-Trafficking Measures on Human Rights around the World (Bangkok: GAATW, 2007); David A. Feingold, “Think Again: Human Trafficking,” Foreign Policy, October 20, 2009, http://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/20/think-again-human-trafficking/.
Regarding data on human trafficking within and into India, the sole national study concludes: “One of the major gaps is the lack of studies on trafficking in India based on primary data. The data collected over the past decades is woefully inadequate. . . . In the absence of an in-depth analysis of the issues and aspects involved, they have failed to arrive on a realistic picture of the scope of the trafficking problem, what sustains it, and why it occurs.” National Human Rights Commission et al., A Report on Trafficking in Women and Children
in India 2002–2003, Volumes I and II (New Delhi: NHRC/UNIFEM/ISS, 2004).
The persisting lack of empirical, fact-based analysis has allowed sensationalistic, speculative, unsubstantiated, and anecdotal claims about the extent and nature of human trafficking, forced labor, and “modern-day slavery” in India to proliferate. See, for instance, the questionable data sources for the US State Department’s 2018 Trafficking in Persons Report, www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/, and the Global Slavery Index, www.globalslaveryindex.org/. For critiques, see Glenn Kessler, “Why You Should Be Wary of Statistics on ‘Modern Slavery’ and ‘Trafficking,’ ” Washington Post, April 24, 2015, www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/04/24/why-you-should-be-wary-of-statistics-on-modern-slavery-and-trafficking/?utm_term=.fa8faea72930; Anne Gallagher, “The Global Slavery Index Is Based on Flawed Data—Why Does No One Say So?,” The Guardian, November 28, 2014, www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2014/nov/28/global-slavery-index-walk-free-human-trafficking-anne-gallagher; Andrew Guth et al., “Proper Methodology and Methods of Collecting and Analyzing Slavery Data: An Examination of the Global Slavery Index,” Social Inclusion 2, no. 4 (2014): 14–22, www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/195/pdf_11; Ronald Weitzer, “New Directions in Research on Human Trafficking,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 653, no. 1 (May 1, 2014): 6–24, https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716214521562; Neil Howard, “Keeping Count: The Trouble with the Global Slavery Index,” The Guardian, January 13, 2014, www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2014/jan/13/slavery-global-index-reports. Neil Howard comments, “The data on which these tables rely is usually second-hand and often of seriously poor quality. This means that the picture they create is frequently inaccurate, and often leads to severely problematic unintended consequences.”
In one of the goriest: Nicholas Kristof, “If This Isn’t Slavery, What Is?,” New York Times, January 3, 2009, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/opinion/04kristof.html.
An Indefinite Sentence Page 41
