Jenny’s Pennies

(My post for Bloggers Unite for Human Rights)

Today, bloggers all over the world are joining together to blog for human rights. And there is certainly no shortage of subjects to chose from when it comes to this issue - there are huge human rights problems in the world today. But today I’ve decided to keep blogging about an issue closer to (my) home: the treatment of undocumented migrants in Sweden when it comes to health care. For background information, you should read this post from a few days ago.

PICUM, the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, wrote in their report “Access to health care for undocumented migrants in Europe” (2007):

The absolute lack of entitlements as well as the inexistence of any publicly funded reimbursement scheme to cover expenses incurred by hospitals for providing health care to undocumented migrants has led to numerous and serious consequences for undocumented migrants’ health. Similarly, it has put enormous pressure on health care providers and civil society organizations. Undocumented migrants constitute one of the most vulnerable groups in Sweden and failure by the Swedish government to recognize their presence and their very basic health needs contributes largely to their stigmatization and discrimination. Very few undocumented migrants attempt to approach health services in Sweden and most of them find numerous barriers against accessing appropriate health care. In the framework of a survey conducted by Médecins Sans Frontières in Stockholm from July to September 2005, 82% of undocumented migrants who had sought health care reported to have encountered barriers against access. They reported barriers such as being turned away by administrative staff at health care centers as well as indirect obstacles like the high costs of consultations and medication, the feeling that they were not entitled to access health care and the fear of approaching the services and being reported to the authorities.

The whole report in pdf-format is available at PICUM’s website.

According to Tobias Billström, Sweden’s minister for migration, the proposed new legislation seeks to address the issue of lack of regulation of health care rights for asylums seekers. In a reply to Maceij Zaremba’s article (referenced in the post a few days ago), he writes that the new legislation won’t limit the rights to health care to undocumented or “hidden” migrants and refugees any more than it does today: they will still be able to receive immediate and emergency care. (What he fails to mention is that they have to pay full price for that care.)

To formalize and regulate what rights asylum seekers have is all fine and well, but after that Billström’s reasoning starts to get really shady. It becomes all too clear that the government really wants to send a signal, and that being refused health care is seen as a proper punishment for being in the country without the correct papers. He writes (my translation):

It is not so easy as to say that everyone, no matter if they have the right to be in Sweden or not, should have the same rights. The person who comes here as an asylum seeker but is denied asylum after a due process shall return to their home country. The person who has never been interested in applying for asylum but comes to work illegally, hasn’t followed the laws and rules which applies to everyone else in Sweden. Should they then have the same rights as those who follows laws and rules and pays taxes?

Maceij Zaremba puts is perfectly in his reply, where he writes:

I don’t know if it is populism or ingenuousness that guides his pencil when he asks why those who doesn’t obey the law should have the same rights as the law-abiding. Doesn’t he know that in two areas (health care and judicature), blind equal treatment is necessary for our view of humans not to go rotten. Or does he mean that those who cheat on their taxes forfeit their right to a fair trial?

The example isn’t mine, but UN special rapporteur Paul Hunt’s, who tried to teach the government the principal difference between the right to housing allowance and the right to health and justice. If the latter are conditional, then democracy is corrupted.

(emphasis mine)

That my government wants to sort people at the hospital entrance is shameful. Even more shameful is that they expect the doctors and nurses to stand there at the door and send those not worthy away. When someone without the correct paperwork comes in to a health care clinic, my government expects the doctors and nurses to betray their profession and the medical ethics, and show them the door. Luckily, the medical community is fighting back. In the face of a law which expects them to break UN conventions and their medical oaths, medical personnel and health care civil servants are coming up with new and creative ways to ensure that undocumented migrants and hidden refugees are given access to a most basic human right: the right to life and health. And that right, Tobias Billström, cannot be forfeited by being here without the correct papers.

More information in Swedish:
Rätt till vård-initiativet
Vård för alla
The Facebook group Rätt till vård had about 30 members when I joined after reading Zaremba’s article May 11th. Now there are more than 2000 members! On Sunday May 18th at 2pm there is a protest outside the parliament building in Stockholm in support of equal right to health care. Read more here.

People who say that if we outlaw abortion, it just goes away and a lot of lives are saved, should really, really read this:

Figures show that 10,000 women die every year in Nigeria from unsafe abortions, carried out by untrained people in unsanitary conditions.

That is 27 deaths every day.

According to the US-based Guttmacher Institute, that is one sixth of the total number of women who die worldwide from such procedures.

In Nigeria abortion is illegal unless the life of the woman would be at risk if she were to give birth.

But the Guttmacher Institute estimates that more than 456,000 unsafe abortions are done in Nigeria every year.

Some women go to traditional healers to terminate their pregnancies.

Methods include trying to break the amniotic sack inside the womb with a sharp stick. This causes infection and in extreme cases the tissue inside the body can start to die.

“They’re pulling out intestines,” says gynaecologist Dr Ejike Oji, of Ipas, an international organisation working to secure reproductive rights for women.

Another method is to pump a toxic mixture of fiercely hot Alligator chilli peppers and chemicals like alum into their bodies.

“The women go into toxic shock and die,” Dr Oji said.

Pro-life my ass.

Via Feministe.

Landskrona in southern Sweden will be the the first municipality to randomly drug test 8th and 9th graders. 20 percent of the students will be randomly selected for the testing. The tests will be administered by the school nurse, and the student’s parents or guardian has too consent as well before the test is administered. The student is allowed to say no, but then a letter will be sent home to the parents. That’s how “voluntary” this is. Of course students who say no will be pointed out as potential drug users and/or troublemakers, disrespectful of authority and refusing to buy the “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to be afraid of”-rhetoric.

Many people are critical, including the Swedish National Agency for Education. Although they are saying that the tests are not against the law, one of their lawyers asks whether it is really the school who should administer these kinds of tests, and also questions how the tests results will be handled with regards to confidentiality.

You know, drugs are definitely a societal problem which should be taken seriously. But blanket testing, disguised under some false voluntariness, is not the solution. I don’t think treating everyone as potential drug users, cheaters (not the sexual kind), criminals etc. are the way of creating a just, equal and thriving society. But what do I know, I’m just a bleeding-heart, terrorist-loving, Sweden-hating, tree-hugging communist.

Due to budgetary cuts, many schools nowadays do not have school nurses or counselors, or only have them very few hours weekly. In total, the number of adults in schools per student has gone down. And now the school nurse’s time will be clogged up from administering and following up and and filing drug tests. Is this wise use of seriously constrained budgets? I ask, wouldn’t it be better to spend the money on real preventive measures instead? (And by that I don’t mean the ridiculous scare-mongering propaganda that I was subjected to in school, the “if you smoke pot once you will end up a heroin-injecting homeless criminal”-kind, which was so easily debunked.)

I haven’t heard a single word about what kind of support would be given to the student who have given a positive drug test - it’s like this that I wrote about screening for partner violence among pregnant women: when you get the results, exactly what are you going to do with it? Report the student to the police? Kick them out of school? Offer them counseling? Enforce mandatory counseling? No-one has said anything about that. Probably they don’t know.

This is another of those measures which sounds good (making sure kids don’t get caught up in drugs, I’m all for that), but which merely paints over the real problems and doesn’t solve anything in the long run. It seems the preferred way of conducting politics nowadays, and I guess anything else would require quite a revolutionary remake of society. And we can’t have that. But now at least the politicians can pat each others backs and say that they are “tough on drugs”.

(Read more in Swedish: SvD; HD)

In the arts section of yesterday’s Dagens Nyheter, there is an article called “The glamorous prostitution” (Den glamorösa prostitutionen). It starts: “They say sex sells. And the luxurious and happy whore sells even better. Now the Swedish books are here. But why is everyone so happy?”

Well, after reading that intro, I just knew what was coming.
The article then talks about pseudonymous London call girl Belle de Jour and Tracy Quan’s “Diary of a Manhattan call girl”. Now, a former Swedish stripper, Caroline L Jensen, is telling her story in “Champagneflickan. En svensk strippa berättar” (The champagne girl. The story of a Swedish stripper).

The author is (predictably) critical of the subject. In the end, the not so objective article reads (my translation):

Publishers are thus putting out books that portray prostitution and stripping as exotic occupations - but without caring about what signals they are sending out. A lot of the themes addressed in the books (buying sex, exploitation, the “happy whore”, free choice and so on) are of course pure mine fields. Behind the tough girls in luxurious packaging lays a lot of unanswered questions. As a reader you have to be careful not to be tricked by the glamour and the shiny covers.

You know, I have nothing against critical examination of the sex industry (or the publishing industry). I have read neither of the books, but I can buy that they might have been published more for cheap thrills and money than for their actual literary qualities. But then, isn’t that true of a lot of books?

To me it seems as if the article writer, Matilde Sköld, doesn’t want voices like those of Belle de Jour or Tracy Quan and Caroline L Jensen to be heard. Should the books include a mandatory chapter about the downsides of the sex industry? Advisory stickers on the covers? Or should they not have been published at all, because they don’t fit Sköld’s understandings of how sex workers are supposed to behave and feel?

And since then does publishing houses have to care about what “signals they are sending out” by publishing one book or another? You know, there are a lot of books out there which in detail describes sadistic murders and torture. In which sick and twisted individuals are portrayed without much, if any, criticism. In which the bad guy is getting away. And people that have done pretty awful stuff have published memoirs and biographies. Should books like those also be questioned on what “signals they are sending out”?

Belle and Tracy and Caroline have the right to tell their stories and to own their experiences and feelings (just as those who have terrible experiences of being sex workers have the right to their feelings and experiences). If they say they are happy, who are you to question them?

Apparently nipple piercings are the latest weapon al-Qaida. So thinks the American Transportation Security Administration (TSA) anyway.

Hamlin, 37, said she was trying to board a flight from Lubbock to Dallas on Feb. 24 when she was scanned by a Transportation Security Administration agent after passing through a larger metal detector without problems.

The female TSA agent used a handheld detector that beeped when it passed in front of Hamlin’s chest, the Dallas-area resident said.

Hamlin said she told the woman she was wearing nipple piercings. The agent then called over her male colleagues, one of whom said she would have to remove the jewelry, Hamlin said.

Hamlin said she could not remove them and asked whether she could instead display her pierced breasts in private to the female agent. But several other male officers told her she could not board her flight until the jewelry was out, she said.

She was taken behind a curtain and managed to remove one bar-shaped piercing but had trouble with the second, a ring.

“Still crying, she informed the TSA officer that she could not remove it without the help of pliers, and the officer gave a pair to her,” said Hamlin’s attorney, Gloria Allred, reading from a letter she sent Thursday to the director of the TSA’s Office of Civil Rights and Liberties. Allred is a well-known Los Angeles lawyer who often represents high-profile claims.

Applying pliers to the torso of a mannequin that had a peach-colored bra with the rings on it, Hamlin showed reporters at the news conference how she took off the second ring.

She said she heard male TSA agents snickering as she took out the ring. She was scanned again and was allowed to board even though she still was wearing a belly button ring.

It’s clear that the male TSA agents, on a stupid power trip, used Hamlin for their own entertainment: A chance to ogle her breasts and snicker at her pain and humiliation. You know, setting off the metal detector should be the cause of a more thorough inspection. As in 1) a hand-held detector (that wand thing they run over your body), 2) a same-sex pat down and finally 3) same sex visual inspection. Once it was clear that the “threat” in this case was nipple piercings, the TSA agents should have apologized for the inconvenience and wished Hamlin a safe journey.

This story begs a lot of questions:
Why did they all have to be there to observe the piercing removal - to defend each other if she were to use her pierced nipple super powers and blow up the airport? Why did they only force her to remove her nipple piercings and not the belly-button ring? Is it a more dangerous threat to air travel safety to have metal in one part of your body than in another? If the nipple piercings were so dangerous, then why was Hamlin allowed to keep the jewelry and carry it on board the plane?

The TSA has said that the agents followed the policy (yeah, right), but that the policy regarding body piercings will now change.

You know, when this type of stuff happens, many people say that the victim should just suck it up and deal. That she or he is making too big a deal out of it. That it probably wasn’t too bad. That we need to accept things like this in order to be Safe^TM. I’ve traveled quite a bit, and have experienced power abuse and violations, although nothing as bad as what Hamlin went through, from security personnel and border agents. Most of the time, we just bow our heads and hold back our anger, relieved to be let into the country or onto the plane. Kudos to Hamlin for standing up for her rights and speaking out!

More about the story from Cara here and here, and at Shakesville here.

Intimate partner violence and violence against women is an area where crimes are underreported. Shame, guilt and societal responses (shaming, trivializing, blaming) makes it hard for women to speak out about being abused by their partners.

Research from year 2000 found that about 2000 women each year in Sweden are subjected to violence by their partners during pregnancy and the first year thereafter. This is of course 2000 too many. Many antenatal clinics have therefore made the habit of routinely asking pregnant women if they have been abused by their partner, even when there are no indications of abuse. But is routine screening really a good way to address the problem?

Hanne Kjöller, editorial writer for Dagens Nyheter, Sweden’s largest newspaper, thinks that routine screening isn’t a good idea. For once, I am agreeing with her.

Three researchers have written a letter to the editor in Läkartidningen, newspaper for the Medical Association of Sweden, regarding the screening for partner violence. They are critical of the process and calls for an ethical analysis of the practice, which takes into account both positive and negative aspects, for women who are subjected to violence as well as for those who aren’t.

Studies have shown that many women find it uncomfortable to be asked about partner violence. I understand them. I was asked the question, seemingly out of the blue, during a visit to get my prescription for the pill refilled, and my reaction was like “what? no!”. The doctor simply looked at me, ticked the box in her questionnaire and got to the next question. I often wondered what her reaction would have been if I had answered yes (I have never been a victim of intimate partner violence, but let’s say that I was). Should she have taken time out of her busy schedule to have that long and hard conversation? Simply ticked “yes” in her questionnaire and moved on? Handed me some brochures and the phone number of a women’s shelter and thought that was it?

That’s my second objection to this routine screening thing. What should be the ob/gyn’s response? If the woman answers yes and explains that the father of her child is abusing her, what should the ob/gyn do? It places them in a very difficult situation. As expressed by a midwife in a survey on the subject by the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen): “It takes too long time to ask. You need time to listen to their response. You find those who have already gotten out of the relationship. It’s hard to catch those who are in it right now”. If the woman answers yes and then comes to the next visit with her partner with her, what does the doctor do? Legally they are obliged to report the abuse to the police, but it may put the abused woman in a much more dangerous situation. Without clear policies on how to handle “yes”-answers, it is quite contra productive to have ob/gyns and midwives ask the question.

The article in Läkartidningen also raises the issue that routine screenings for partner violence can make women skip their appointments at the antenatal clinic. There is a risk that women who are subjected to violence will face even more violence if their partner finds out that they have told someone about it, or that they have even been asked.

Obviously the ob/gyns and midwives try to ask the question on a visit when the partner is not present (in Sweden it is increasingly normal for the father to be present during the antenatal clinic visits). In the article, a midwife explains her strategy for keeping the partner away for one or more visits (apparently if a woman answers “no” to the question the first time, she is to be asked again), like saying that “he is not needed”. That just seems really dishonest to me.

And after hearing a radio program yesterday about the heteronormativity within our health care system, I can’t imagine what the response would be if a woman confessed to having been abused by her same sex partner.

As Hanne Kjöller points out, you’re always in a subordinate position when you seek health care and therefore it is the moral obligation of your caregiver to explain to you why they are doing or asking one thing or another and what relevance it has. If the reason for routine screenings of pregnant women regarding partner violence is to get statistics (which aren’t very reliable - reliability would increase somewhat if the woman was given a totally anonymous questionnaire), then I think that is a quite cynical way to treat these women - ask them about something so personal and then really offer nothing in return (e.g. counseling and legal advice). If the reason is to truly help women to get out of abusive relationships, then the state should instead put money into shelters, counseling, legal advice, education and so on, instead of, as it is today, rely on volunteers, charities and idealistic forces to provide those services.

Outsourcing is normal in today’s globalized economy. But now the global south are not only offering services such as customer support and low skilled assembly work to their wealthier counterparts. From the New York Times:

An enterprise known as reproductive outsourcing is a new but rapidly expanding business in India. Clinics that provide surrogate mothers for foreigners say they have recently been inundated with requests from the United States and Europe, as word spreads of India’s mix of skilled medical professionals, relatively liberal laws and low prices.

Yes, it’s wombs for rent. For about 25.000 US dollars, you get payments for the surrogate mother, medical procedures, plus plane tickets and hotel nights for two trips to India, one for the fertilization and one for collecting the baby. The egg donor and the surrogate are different women, as it is said to be less likely for the surrogate to bond with the baby if there is no genetic connection.

The surrogacy business in India has made a sharp upturn in the last years, and people in the business are afraid that less scrupulous providers will smell the money and leave ethics aside.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development said in February that it was weighing recommending legislation to govern surrogacy, but it is not imminent.

An article published in The Times of India in February questioned how such a law would be enforced: “In a country crippled by abject poverty,” it asked, “how will the government body guarantee that women will not agree to surrogacy just to be able to eat two square meals a day?”

Some people might argue that we should view this as any business transaction, but I’m not at all comfortable with the idea of viewing reproduction as a commodity, especially when there is such huge power differentials in play.

“Surrogates do it to give their children a better education, to buy a home, to start up a small business, a shop,” Dr. Kadam said. “This is as much money as they could earn in maybe three years. I really don’t think that this is exploiting the women. I feel it is two people who are helping out each other.”

Mr. Gher agreed. “You cannot ignore the discrepancies between Indian poverty and Western wealth,” he said. “We try our best not to abuse this power. Part of our choice to come here was the idea that there was an opportunity to help someone in India.”

In the Mumbai clinic, it is clear that an exchange between rich and poor is under way. On some contracts, the thumbprint of an illiterate surrogate stands out against the clients’ signature.

This kind of globalization makes me very uncomfortable, and I think the practice should be examined with a critical eye. That does not mean that we should pass judgment on the persons on either side of the transaction - the couple who can’t conceive for whatever reason (Mr. Gher and his partner who are featured in the article are gay), and the woman who by carrying someone else’s baby can make a lot more money than she would on a normal job.

But there are so many issues here: what if the surrogate changes her mind? What if the couple changes their mind? What if the surrogate mother wants out? In India, this is regulated with contracts, but once again we have to look at the wealth and power differential here. As far as I can tell from quickly researching the subject, in the US, while surrogacy may not be illegal, contracts relating to it have been declared unenforceable. In Sweden, surrogacy is illegal, while in neighboring Finland, it’s legal. However, no money is allowed - the surrogate is doing it for altruistic reasons.

One thing which also makes me uncomfortable about the whole thing is that one reason why Indian surrogates are increasingly popular (besides the relatively cheap costs, good medical professionals and favorable legislation) is that Indian women are easier to “police”. As it says in the article:

Dr. Naina Patel, who runs the Anand clinic, said that even Americans who could afford to hire surrogates at home were coming to her for women “free of vices like alcohol, smoking and drugs.” She said she gets about 10 e-mailed inquiries a day from couples abroad.

Just how much say should the couple using the surrogate have to say over what the surrogate mother does to her body? You’re using her womb, yes, but the whole body is affected by the pregnancy, and so is the mind. No drinking, smoking or drugs during pregnancy - perfectly fine and reasonable of course, but what else can you compel the surrogate to do? I think with this international reproductive outsourcing there is more potential for abuse and for using the power/money leverage to make unreasonable demands.

Oh sweet Blind Io and all minor deities!
In today’s Dagens Nyheter, there is a letter to the editor signed Jakob E:son Söderbaum. Now for some reason DN doesn’t publish their readers’ letters on their website, but fortunately Jakob E:son Söderbaum has a blog (that I don’t want to link to, but if you read Swedish you can google his name and go on an adventure in a parallel universe). Jakob E:son Söderbaum is a “progress friendly conservative” (by “progress” he means returning to some unknown decade when we honored the king, kept our hands above the covers and our women in the kitchen), in his upper twenties or lower thirties. If you thought that Sweden was free of the “sex is gross, ewww icky icky icky”-crowd, think again.

Some background: a few days ago, Folkpartiet (the Liberal Party of Sweden) suggested repealing the law that makes it legal for parents to take their children out of certain lessons at school, such as sex ed or PE, due to religious or cultural reasons, and to force all children to take all classes. There has been some discussion on whether the Liberal Party’s idea is the best way to address the problem that some children aren’t allowed to learn about their bodies or to be seen in a bathing suit. I’m not sure how I feel about their proposal, but let’s leave that aside and focus on Jakob E:son Söderbaum.

He does not agree with the Liberal Party’s idea. No, he wants to excuse all children from sex ed. And he’s not even in with the abstinence only-crowd. He’s in the no mention of gross icky sex in school ever-crowd. Some of his arguments, put forth in the letter and in the ensuing discussion on his blog, are (with extra-craziness in bold, and my snarky responses in brackets):

- Sex ed teaches girls that they need to spread their legs for anyone, otherwise they are abnormal. (Because telling girls that they are not sluts or hoes if they like sex automatically means that you encourage them to do it anywhere with anyone. There can be no balance.)
- Sex should be taught by parents, only then can the serious nature of sexuality be properly conveyed to the rising generation. (And the parental version of sex ed should go “sex is gross and disgusting so you must save it for someone you love”.)
- Sex is for procreation only and sex ed teaches how to avoid procreation (Yes, let’s conveniently forget about reality: that the majority of adults will have sex a number of times without wanting to get pregnant. And that it could be a good thing to learn how to avoid STDs. And that not all people are heterosexual. But to base education on reality is such a bad idea.)
- Sex ed teachers are raping our children because talking to young girls about sex if you’re not their parent is akin to raping them. (He trivializes rape. What a surprise.)
- Sex ed teachers must be perverts, how else can they stand there talking about the subject day in and day out. (Yes, just like language teachers constantly mumble verb declinations and home ec teachers are unable to have a conversation that doesn’t revolve around pie crusts and cleaning products. Ohmigod, imagine what it must be like for OB/Gyns. They must be the most perverted people out there ever, staring at women’s icky parts all day and talking about stuff related to teh sex!!!!11!!!!eleven!)
- There’s too much sex in today’s society, it was better when it was a shameful secret. (So why are you discussing it? Doesn’t that add to the sexual fixation too?)
- Girls enjoying sex are almost whores. (And there he throws in some slut shaming to. Lovely.)
- Sexual pleasure is the lowest form of human feeling, and to acknowledge and seek sexual pleasure will lead you to become a sex addict who constantly think about and seek sex. (Oh, me thinks someone doth protest too much. Söderbaum says he’s in a “steady relationship”, but he doesn’t say he’s married, so he must be a virgin. For someone who’s not married, he seems awfully focused on sex. Doesn’t he know that subject is reserved for married people? Oh, I see, it’s only unmarried girls who aren’t allowed to think about sex. If you’re an unmarried conservative man - then it’s a-okay!)

Thank heavens that people like Söderbaum are a minority here and that he is sure to get some serious counter-arguments against him - it has already started on his blog. Now I need to go read some deviant and sex positive stuff before my head explodes.

Hoe-looking man writes too, and titles her piece “hardcore porn pussy anus lesbian sex dicks huge cock fuck ass pictures”, so that Söderbaum will find it when he goes on nightly internet adventures. LOL!

(Update: Here you can read more about the proposal from the liberal party, and reactions to it, in English)

Via Feministe, I learned that Monday March 3rd was International Sex Workers’ Rights Day. Sex work/prostitution is one issue where I had a somewhat change of heart, mainly after reading the book “Porr, Horor och Feminister” (Porn, whores and feminists) by Petra Östergren.

As Jill of Feministe said, sex work is one of those issues, much like bikini waxes and porn, where any discussion always seem to divert into ugly fighting. But:

That’s not a great reason to avoid talking about it, but it probably is a good reason for me to defer to those who know more about the subject than I do. So I’ll just point out that sex work is as diverse as any other type of labor, and there is no singular sex worker narrative — not all sex workers are exploited girls from developing nations, any more than all sex workers are high-paid call-girls living fabulous and fun urban lives.

A while ago I found Renegade Evolution, a fierce in-your-face sex worker who has a lot to say about the anti-porn/anti-sex work feminist side. This is long, but worth reading. I also direct you to this post, called “Sometimes it’s the little things“. She has a lot of good stuff actually.

If you read Swedish, there’s Isabella Lund. She hasn’t written about the International Sex Workers Rights Day, but it’s interesting nevertheless.

I’m quite busy today, so I use this post from Cara of the Curvature to explain why sex workers’ rights are an important issue (links go to the same place as in her original post):

So. Why sex workers’ rights? Well, it’s pretty simple. Even those sex workers who enjoy their jobs get a hell of a raw deal. All around the world, sex workers are: investigated and arrested for making a living, deported even when there is evidence of non-consent, left without any form of job security, gang-raped and abused by their bosses but left without recourse for fear that they themselves will be arrested, and arrested for mere suspicion of prostitution, including carrying condoms (which only discourages safer sex).

We know that bad things happen to sex workers, that they are very often raped, abused, robbed, kidnapped or even murdered. But that isn’t even the worst of it — sex workers have horrible crimes committed against them but fear arrest to much report, or do report and end up being mocked or further-victimized. Sex workers are raped by police officers. Sex workers are tortured and killed in cold blood, but their murderers may only be sentenced to 9 years in jail. Sex workers are murdered and then have their entire humanity reduced to their profession.

In the off chance that a case involving a crime against a sex worker actually makes it to court, we can expect that their profession will be trotted out and used against them at every possible chance. When there is little or no evidence that a woman is a sex worker, she’ll often be called one anyway (particularly if she’s a woman of color, trans* or low-income) — as an insult, as a way to call victims liars or suggest that they deserved the rape, or as a way to call victims liars and imply that they just might have deserved that attempted murder. In cases where the victim openly says that yes, she sells sex for a living, the gang rape she suffered at gunpoint by five men will be labeled “theft of services.” Not a suggestion that she’s lying — only a flat-out proclamation that a woman who works in the sex industry has given up any and all claims to personal bodily autonomy and the right to live safely and free of violence. Judges declare in courtrooms that sex workers cannot be raped, and then they are allowed to stay on the bench.

And in Canada, a man accused of murdering two prostitutes says:

“Think of it as stolen property,” Svekla told his sister of the body left in her truck in May 2006.
“If you’re caught with stolen property, it doesn’t mean you stole it.

Cara again:

Yup — a dead sex worker’s body is akin to stolen property. This is precisely what I’ve been getting at. The stigma against sex workers not only puts them in danger, forces them to live below the radar and makes reporting a crime next to impossible. The stigma against sex workers causes them to no longer be seen as human. Clearly, this guy is a murderer and a twisted fuck. I can’t say that the words that come out of his mouth are ones I would normally use to make a point about our society. But read the stories above, and then tell me that this is not only a more frank expression of those same attitudes. Because it is.

Sorry about not having anything original to say about this. I hope to compose my thoughts and offer something on the subject soon (with a discussion about the “Swedish model” included, of course), but for now, go read the links!

Added: There is nothing wrong with a little shameless self-promotion, so here you can read a report I did for Amnesty on a debate about Petra Östergren’s book (in Swedish).

In the last Friday Food for Thought, I directed you to a post on Big Fat Deal where a 14 year old girl asked how to love what you see when you look in the mirror.

Now, the 14 year old has written back. And it put a smile on my face and tears in my eyes. Go read! Now!