Marxist Feminism theory
A contemporary theory that can be applied to sex trafficking and prostitution is Marxist Feminism. Marxist Feminism is a sociology theory that follows the beliefs of Karl Marx. The theory can be applied to prostitution in a useful way by exposing the power structures that support sex work.
Marxist feminists claim the source of the oppression of women is capitalism (Tong, 1998). Capitalism is, “an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state” (Capitalism, n.d.). This means that people control the trade and industry aspect of a country and there is little state involvement in regulating those sectors. Karl Marx was one of the
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The notion that capitalism exploits women explains the motivation of women who migrate into sex work. Migration into sex work because of poverty is a class issue. Marxist feminist theory also supports the notion that the bodies of sex workers are commodities because as sex workers bodies are for sale (Tong, 1998). Prostitution is based on the sale and purchase of a commodity contingent with the ideal of supply and demand.
Commodities have both a use value and an exchange value. Although some sex workers receive some type of cash value during such exchange, more cases involve sex workers who perform in conditions of slavery, where they are sold and bought as commodities themselves, and then put to work for the pimps (Eglitis, 2005). Furthermore exploitation results from the fact that the sex worker does not own the product of their labor but merely their capacity to labor. Even when the wage is paid at the full value of the labor power, a fair exchange in capitalist terms, the sex worker is still exploited.
Capitalism And
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The supply side in most cases involves the movement or migration of people from their countries or places of origin often plagued with several social, economic, political as well as cultural factors that make the victims to the advanced countries vulnerable.
Generally economic factors are the most relevant factor that fosters human trafficking. In fact the economic drive of human trafficking is double edged and plays out in both the demand and supply side of human trafficking. From the supply side in which victims are uprooted to participate in human trafficking are usually from countries where poverty is wide-spread. If people are not vulnerable to be lured, then trafficking would decrease substantially.
The legal avoidance by traffickers also makes the smuggling of natives from underdeveloped to advanced countries more accessible. Corrupt governments in developing countries sometimes aid traffickers which make them harder to detect. Many times victims are given false identities which add to the difficulty in
Marx states that the bourgeoisie not only took advantage of the proletariat through a horrible ratio of wages to labor, but also through other atrocities; he claims that it was common pract...
As victim count continues to rise, its difficult to see how such great numbers of men, women and children are bought and sold every year. Trafficking can be found in many forms, including: prostitution, slavery, or forced labor (Harf and Lombardi, 2014). It wasn’t until the 1980’s that international human trafficking became globally noticed. With the lack of government intervention and control in several nations, and the free trade market, slavery once again became a profitable industry (Harf and Lombardi, 2014). As previously mentioned, easier movement across nations borders is one of the outcomes of globalization. It is also what makes human trafficking so easy today. It is estimated that about 20.9 million people are victims across the entire globe (United Nations Publications, 2012); trafficking accounts for 32 billion dollars in generated profit globally (Brewer, n.d). 58 percent of all human trafficking was for the purpose of sexual exploitation, and of this 55-60 percent are women (United Nations Publications,
In the modern age, “one of the biggest impediments to anti-trafficking efforts is a lack of understanding of the issue“(Jesionka). People need to work together just like they did to end slavery, when everyone sees this as wrong there is nothing that can stop the demise of sex trafficking. In many communities “[people] can turn on the TV now and see pimps glamorized in TV shows, music videos, and movies”(Frundt). In the communities, people see the aspects of sexual trafficking as glamorous and they don’t realise that it is a type of slavery and the girls are miserable. If communities can work together to eliminate this issue, this modern slavery can be eliminated altogether because people won’t allow it to continue in their communities.
At this point, the difference perspective in ideology and political action has divided the women movement into some feminism types; socialist, Marxist, radical, liberal and many others. While liberal feminist focus their struggle for equality on civil, economic, and political rights, and education, the feminist socialist and Marxist believe women 's oppression is “the product of the political, social and economic structure within which individuals live.” (Tong, 1998: pp.94). Although some other people suppose that the feminist Marxist and socialist is quiet different, but both of them believe the source of women oppression are capitalism and patriarchy. The Marxist feminism is rooted in 19th century thinker such as Marx and Engels, whether
International human rights lawyer Dianne Post has described the institution of prostitution as founded on the principle of “structural inequality by gender, class and race”, in essence painting sex work as the exploitation women of low economic standing merely because they are desperate enough to perform it (Datta & Post 3). Admittedly, sex work is a primarily female profession, though the Internet has lead to growing populations of transgender and male sex workers from the most liberal areas, such as California, to the most restrictive, like South Africa (Minichiello, Victor, Scott, and Callander), but there is simply to little data discussing these population groups to draw any definite conclusions. Where Post loses sight of her larger argument, that women should be treated as equals, is when she decidedly paints women as the victims of prostitution. This argument has blatant hypocrisy in that it ignores the fact that the majority of women participating in sex work are not trafficked sex slaves, but women willingly exchanging money for sexual acts, who are capable of facing the consequences of these actions. In fact, it is an extension of this argument that assumes that women cannot be held responsible for their actions that constitutes one of the primary failings of the Nordic
There are many believed reasons for the increase in trafficking in the last decade. In general, the criminal business feeds on poverty, despair, war, crisis, and ignorance. The globalization of the world economy has increased the migration of people across borders, both legally and illegally, mostly from lower class to high class countries. International planned crimes taken full advantage of the more independent flow of people, money, goods and services to extend its own goal internationally (CRS, 2008). Many abusers are being put into jail for rape and abuse to minors and adults. As a community, it is needed to do more interdisciplinary interventions, just to care for the victims of trafficking, but also to help prevent the cause of it. Popular Defenders, an organization that trains local citizens to interact with victims of gender violence, started a task about female human rights. A way that communities are helping th...
“Injuries of human dignity and Human rights of a globalized society. Nobody may be held in slavery or peonage; Slavery and slave trade are in all forms forbidden”. These are the words of the Universal declaration of human rights (United Nations, 1948).Human trafficking is just another name for modern-day slavery, where the victims involved are forced and deceived into labor and sexual exploitation. Exploitation referring to using others for prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery, or the removal of organs. The numbers are scary. Almost 600,000 to 800,000 women and children are annually trafficked across national borders. This does not count for the numbers that are trafficked within their own countries. Human trafficking is very much hidden and accurate data and the extent of nature of human trafficking are hard to calculate. Trafficked victims are often in dangerous positions and may be unwilling and too scared to jeopardize their lives to report or seek help from authorities. Victims live daily with emotional and physical abuse, inhumane treatment, and threats to their families, like they are going to torture...
In his Manifesto of the Communist Party Karl Marx created a radical theory revolving not around the man made institution of government itself, but around the ever present guiding vice of man that is materialism and the economic classes that stemmed from it. By unfolding the relat...
Sex trafficking is a form of contemporary slavery that induces and forces people into a commercial sex trade against their will. Many factors contribute to the sex trade and the exploitation occurs mostly to women and children. Through the age, gender, class, and race many are trapped in a never-ending cycle of coercion and abuse in order to survive in the corrupt society around them.
There is an extensive variety of crimes occurring internationally, and human trafficking is one of many severe crimes that cannot be stopped. Human trafficking is the form of modern day slavery, and is one of the largest and most crucial crimes on the globe. Without having an actual date of when it started, human trafficking has been going on for centuries. This crime involves sex exploitation, which exposes the victim to diseases such as HIV or STD’s, and in some cases unwanted pregnancies. Human trafficking also entails forced labor such as work in factories, agriculture, and at restaurants. The forced labor that is being involved in this crime is one of the main concept that ties in with slavery. Human trafficking also includes the
Since human trafficking is a lucrative business there is big money to be made. The women victims are not making the money, it is the pimps and the prostitution industries that are seeing high profits. According to Sexual Trafficking, it is a different type of profit than the profit a drug seller would see because that profit is dependent on the drugs which are sold and used once. The women become dependent on their source to provide for them food, clothing and shelter on a continuous basis. Human traffickers seek out the most vulnerable individuals. They look for the women who are in poverty, socially deprived, illiterate and even with physical disabilities (Hodge, 2008). The lure is that they are providing for them a better life. Many women are coerce by employment opportunities, modeling and marriage agencies and once in they accumulate debt by being passed from organization to organization. This is termed “debt bondage”, they have to repay debt accumulated out of future earnings because traffickers paid for them transportation and other fees necessary to get them established (Hodge,
The first reason is that women are notorious for having a more difficult time finding a unchanging and well-paying occupation. The lack of employment opportunities for women in poorer countries causes some women to be more desperate for financial improvement and stability (Farr 72). Secondly, women are emotional creatures. Traffickers use women’s emotions against them in order to lure them into their trap. An example of this is how traffickers will use a women’s poor self-esteem and insatiable desire to be loved as a way into their life (Kara 9). The final reason traffickers target women is that women are high in demand. Individuals who purchase services from trafficked women desire new, fresh, exotic women, so traffickers have to meet these demands (Farr
Little do most know, but on “[a]verage [prostitution] arrest[s], court and incarceration costs amount to nearly $2,000 per arrest. Cities spend an average of 7.5 million dollars on prostitution control every year, ranging from 1 million dollars to 23 million dollars.” Prostitution is the oldest known profession. Currently in 49 countries and counting prostitution is legal. Here in America there is a stigma following the label prostitute. We would rather resort to underground markets of sex labor. Endangering health, rights, and economics. Legalizing prostitution can reduce health hazards by giving heath care, also by giving rights to those that choose prostitution as their profession. In the long term this
Prostitution is one of the root causes of human trafficking, especially sex traffic. Human trafficking is the illegal movement of people (such as: kidnapping), typically for the purposes of forced labor, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act. Human trafficking is one of the most barbaric crimes in society, because it is importantly violated to human rights. Human could not become a product to sell. In order to supply the labor for the prostitution industry, human trafficking becomes worse when it focus on women, and children. It transfers to sex trafficking. Many women are victims of human trafficking work in brothels, a part of them work as Streetwalker. Some countries give the idea that prostitution should be legalized to reduce the rate of human trafficking and sex trafficking, but they are wrong. Because, if we pass the law for prostitution, human trafficking and sex trafficking will increase in order to supply prostitutes for prostitution industry. Legalizing prostitution is a gift to pimps, traffickers because they will rely on a legal framework to bring
Those who have truly experienced human trafficking are the ones who most cope within the majority of society. Socially, human trafficking affect’s the victim’s. “With sex trafficking, victim’s face threats of violence from many sources, including customers, pimps, brothel owners, madams, and corrupt law officials and with labor trafficking” (George, 2012). Victim’s face threats from business owners, and sad to say, modern day, “Slave Owners or Masters”. Trafficking victims are also exposed to different psychological stresses. “Victims suffer short-term psychological impact like social alienation, stigmatizing, social exclusion, and tolerance” (TRCTP, 2011). Some victim’s suffers from long term psychological like Stockholm syndrome and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. “Stockholm syndrome is capture-bonding, is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying with the captors” (TRCTP, 2011). Some other long term psychological impact is HIV/AIDS and STDS. “Although 98% of the sex trade is composed of woman and girls there is an effort to gather empirical evidence about the psychological impact on abuse common in sex trafficking upon young boys” (McCarthy, 2010). Being a female, “the susceptibility of a trafficking woman to HIV/AIDS is higher than that of a person who engages in sex workout of