Each year, more than 800,000 women and children are lured, tricked, or
forced into prostitution to meet an apparently insatiable demand,
joining an estimated 10 million women already ensnared in the $20
billion worldwide sex trade. To date, most research on the subject has
focused on the various issues that propel these women into the trade,
but little has been investigated, or written, about those who trigger
the demand—the “Johns.” In this hard- hitting expose´, Victor Malarek
ranges worldwide, unmasking the kind of men—and organizations—that
foster and drive the sex trade, from America to Europe, Brazil to
Thailand, Phnom Penh to St. Petersburg and Costa Rica.
From
socioeconomic background to emotional stability, Malarek investigates
the root of the cause and attacks the idea that prostitution is a
victimless crime. He explores the efficacy of Sweden’s outlawing the
buying—rather than the selling—of sex, and its dramatic impact on the
country’s prostitution rates. The Johns is a chilling look into a dark corner of the world that these men have created at the expense of countless women and children.
This book examines one of the most contested issues facing
feminists, human rights activists and governments around the globe – the
international sex trade. For decades, the liberal left has been
conflicted as to whether pro-prostitution activists or abolitionists
hold the correct view, and debates are ongoing as to who holds the key
to the solutions facing the women and girls involved.
Over
the course of two years, Bindel conducted 250 interviews in almost 40
countries, cities and states, traveling around Europe, Asia, North
America, Australia, New Zealand, and East and South Africa. Visiting
legal brothels all around the world, Bindel got to know pimps,
pornographers, survivors of the sex trade, and the women being sold by
men classed as ‘business entrepreneurs’. Whilst meeting feminist
abolitionists, pro-prostitution campaigners, police and government
officials, and the men who drive the demand, Bindel uncovered the lies,
mythology and criminal activity that shroud this global trade, and
suggests here a way forward for the women seeking to abolish the oldest
oppression. Informed by the lived human experience of those interviewed,
this book will be of great interest to feminists, students, criminal
justice advocates, criminologists and human rights activists.
This research explores the experiences and perspectives of women
providing front-line service in organizations and agencies, both
feminist and mainstream, whose mandate includes support for women
experiencing violence, particularly women in prostitution. There is
significant research into the experiences of women in prostitution,
however, little is known about the experiences and perspectives of
front-line workers employed in paid and unpaid positions in the social
service industry who are providing support to women in prostitution.
Their views of prostitution and the policy frameworks that inform their
work are the focus of this inquiry drawing attention, in particular, to
how policies framed as harm reduction shape what kinds of support women
in prostitution are offered. Harm reduction is an approach initially
used to reduce morbidity and mortality associated with the use of
illicit drugs. Since the 2003 opening of Insite, North America’s first
supervised injection facility (SIF), tactics called harm reduction have
been applied to other social problems, including street-level
prostitution.
This study argues for an approach that goes beyond mere
reduction of harm, and explicates and extends a feminist response to
male violence in pursuit of good old-fashioned women’s liberation.
Data for this inquiry included in-depth interviews with 16 women
providing front line services. This study also examined key governmental
reports on prostitution and recent court challenges regarding the
legality of prostitution, including the 1985 Fraser Report on
Pornography and Prostitution in Canada, the 2006 Federal report called
The Challenge of Change: A Study of Canada’s Criminal Prostitution Laws,
and affidavits gathered by Pivot Legal Society in 2003 from women
engaged in prostitution in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver.
Using a methodology informed by Dorothy Smith’s sociology for women and
critical discourse analysis, the contemporary and historical contexts of
Vancouver’s response to social inequality as it is expressed in public
discourse about prostitution and harm reduction was examined. Smith’s
approach also informs analysis of the study participants’ perspectives.
This work challenges the de-politicizing and pathologizing discourses of
harm reduction ideology in Vancouver, and provides a forum for women on
the front-lines to offer alternatives that may move us to harm
elimination.