Anurag Dash, Week 10

Forced to Choose: Beyond the Voluntary v. Forced Prostitution Dichotomy 

Joe Doezema 

The author begins by mentioning her contribution to the 1995 "United Nations Fourth Conference on Women" in Beijing in prefacing "prostitution" by the word "forced" as form of violence against women in the final document. An attempt to bring out the current deteriorating living conditions of the sex workers is made and the readers are exposed to the reality of the violence against women. Going back to the history of feminist activism, under the Disease Act of Britain, "common prostitutes" were forced to be examined every two weeks and those who were infected were kept in "specially designated" hospital wards which the author has termed as "pseudo-medical prison for whores". Lately after the 1980s, activists have proved to be successful in categorising the issue of prostitution as a top priority1949 Convention's Agenda. The reading goes on to explain the "neo-abolitionist" theory of categorising all forms of prostitution as violation fo human rights. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Sexual Exploitation of Women , 1999 defines sexual sexual exploitation as, "a practice by which women are sexually subjugated through abuse of women’s sexuality and/or violation of physical integrity as a means of achieving power and domination including gratification, financial gain, advancement". However, certain distinction have been seen to be drawn by certain prostitutes' rights movement between forced and free prostitutions. The author opposes this thought and thinks that promoting such distinctions can lead to trafficking of girls at at early young age and implies poverty is the primary and possibly the sole reason of women choosing prostitution as an occupation.