Opinion: Pity, Punishment, and the Moralizing of Anti Sex-Work Activism in the Global South

In 2014 a CNN report titled “The Women who Sold their Daughters Into the Sex Trade” portrayed the Cambodian sex industry with a heavy emphasis on the insidious role families play within it. Soraya Chemaly, a feminist activist, commented that the film failed to portray why sex trafficking was a problem in Cambodia. Rather than pitting mothers against their daughters—as the title of the report does—CNN should have addressed the systemic issues that led to the prominence of sex trafficking: women’s economic insecurity and the exploitation of women’s sexuality (Chemaly). Another commentator, Annie Elizabeth Moore, added that the sex industry in Cambodia is heavily tied to western presence in the country as well as the economic pressure on young Cambodians to find sources of income that will adequately support their families. Wages are low and prostitution is a better alternative income-wise to many other jobs (Moore). Some anti-trafficking activists rely on a binary idea of consent to ground their activism in human rights ideals. In reality, the situation is more complicated than that. There are some cases in which women and children are blatantly forced to join the sex work industry. There are other cases in which they “traffic themselves” to support their families (Moore). Many drift through the spectrum of consent through their time in the industry. I believe that, though anti-trafficking activists are right in attempting to curb violent and non-consensual practices in the sex industry, much of their activism does not adequately take into account its nuanced racial and economic context. This calls into question the framework of consent through which they view their actions and thus the efficacy of their work. 

Charles Mills’ racial contract is an addendum to the tradition of social contract theory which posits that the social contract rests upon a racial contract which divides people into categories of “white” and “non-white” and subjugates the latter. The initial concept of a social contract—developed as signed by all those in society—is an ideal. Mills follows in the footsteps of Rousseau by providing a positive (as opposed to normative) description of the social contract. He says that those who were signing the contract made a series of “meta-agreements [...] to categorize the remaining subset of humans as ‘non-white’” (Mills, 11). Whiteness was created as the “standard” while non-whiteness was a deviation from the ideal citizen of the social contract. Mills emphasizes that while not all white people signed this social contract (presumably he is talking about groups like white women and groups who have “become white”) they have benefitted from being included in the contract through the dimension of whiteness (Mills, 11). The creation of whiteness allowed the signees of the contract to assign non-white people “inferior moral status” (Mills, 11) in order to politically subordinate them “within white or white ruled polities [...] or in transactions as aliens with these polities” (Mills, 11). The State of Nature—the “pre-political” state in which the social contract is entered into—assumes a different, more insidious role. Because the individuals who are a part of the initial social contract are white men, and the creation of the social contract (and thus, society) was done by white men, their intervention is required to create society (Mills, 13). Whiteness is associated with one’s status as a sociopolitical being, and that one is non-white means that one’s morality, political culture, and status as a sociopolitical being is called into question. This allows white people and societies to justify infringing on those who they have designated as “non-white” (Mills, 13). The racial contract adds to the tradition of social contract theory a pre-existing racial agreement which allowed the original (white) signers of the contract to subjugate those they deemed non-white.

Walter Johnson’s article To Remake the World extends Mills’ critique. He argues that a human-rights centered approach to justice does not account for the history of slavery and racial capitalism, and allows for decolonisation over countries that were former colonies of Europe and America. A human-rights centered approach to justice requires valorizing what it is to be human. Calling slavery dehumanizing to enslaved people suggests that it is impossible for people to be human and to experience the kinds of things that enslaved people experienced at the hands of other humans. Humanity attains a normative status, which also allows us to “separate [it] from the ‘inhuman’ actions of so many humans'' (Johnson). Our ideas of justice should place heavier weight on the intertwined histories of racism and capitalism. The idea of exploitation and domination are tied to the “discovery of personal whiteness” (recalling Mills’ racial contract) and European imperialism. Capitalism has been indelibly augmented to rest on the perpetuation and exploitation of racial differences (Johnson). The end of slavery in America marked a re-emphasis on the European and American imposition on “non-white” people through the offshoring of labour to what is now referred to as “the global south”. This reconfiguration came with an emphasis on class relationships based on  “ideas of freedom and entitlement that emerged from imperialism and slavery” (Johnson). However, this emphasis on humanity and human rights being an end in itself allows us to shift our focus away from the systems through which people are exploited. Johnson references Marx’s differentiation between political and human emancipation: the idea of liberal human emancipation—being able to make the choices you want to—ignores the very human power structures which shape people’s oppression. Rather, Marx says, we should focus on political emancipation which takes into account these human political and material structures when considering true emancipation (Johnson). Walter Johnson calls for a greater focus on the ways in which our human rights goals are formed by western perspectives and shaped by political structures, with a special focus on the impacts of racial capitalism. 

The racial contract’s use of “whiteness” to establish a sense of moral superiority and enact political domination upon polities created as “non-white” relates to how western influences at once fuel and decry the sex work industry in developing nations. Especially in the sex work industry, because of their relative economic wealth, patrons from the western hold strong influence. The arrival of UNTAC (The United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia)—an initiative focused on introducing order and protecting human rights within Cambodia—spurred a rise in prostitution and rape (Phnom Penh Post Staff). Viewed through the framework of Mills’ racial contract, this is an example of western nations acting upon their perceived moral superiority to impose upon nations that they have designated non-white (Mills, 13). What is particularly ironic is that the rise of prostitution due to UNTAC is part of a wider pattern which dictates that western sex tourism is a large driver of the sex work industry. At the same time, western feminist anti-trafficking groups decry local Cambodians for participating in this industry (Chenaya). This puts Cambodian sex workers, especially women, in a dilemma: at once they are in an economic relationship with the west that subordinates them economically and sexually, and they are decried for being morally corrupt on the basis of human rights for engaging in the very relationship that they are forced to engage in. This brings up questions about the nature of consent, non-consent, and how useful these concepts are for analyzing the situation of sex work in developing countries, as well as the role of western influence in acting on these issues. The racial contract ensures people from western polities drive the sex industry in developing countries while at the same time enabling them to claim moral superiority and decry local people when they engage with it. 

The structural arguments of racial capitalism and the racial contract call into question the consensual nature of sex work in developing countries. Both the racial contract and racial capitalism are essential to understanding the context which complicates the nature of western human rights binaries when addressing sex-trafficking in this situation. Cambodia is a country in the global south which, through the framework of racial capitalism, is the new frontier of capitalist exploitation by western societies. This account is corroborated by Naomi Klein’s coverage of the global “race to the bottom” in her book No Logo: No Space, No Choice, No Jobs. Western multinational corporations increase their investment in branding and corporate profits, and divest from labor and manufacturing costs (Klein, 140). This means that as liberal values are championed in Western countries, their economic well being relies on the exploitation of overseas workers. This is where the choice to traffic others—or to traffic oneself—into the sex work industry comes in. In 2014, when Moore wrote her critique of the CNN report, workers at garment factories earned about 100 dollars per month, teachers around 65 to100 dollars. Sex workers could make 60 to 100 dollars per month catering to local men, and 20 dollars per night catering to westerners (Moore). Once factors such as education and opportunity are factored into the equation, it is easy to understand why the sex work and sex-trafficking industries hold such appeal. Structurally, the power relations between the west and the global south have made it such that economic forces, combined with women’s systemic oppression has led to the funnelling of many women to engaging with sex work and sex trafficking. Though there is an important distinction between engaging in sex work and sex trafficking—namely, that sex work is consensual in the liberal sense and sex trafficking is not—the prominence of both are perpetuated by this structural racism. The framework of racial capitalism reveals how both sex work and sex trafficking arise from the same economic stressors, and call into question the extent to which decisions made by sex workers comes from a place of emancipation. 

Though the prominence sex work and especially the sex trafficking industry are based on structures that do not align with the more strict sense of emancipation that Walter Johnson and Marx follow, attempts to categorize the sex industry as thorougly nonconsensual is harmful to sex workers. The nature of consent in sex work is complicated, especially when sex workers move through phases of consensual and nonconsensual sex work. When western influence seeks to topple these industries without consideration for the structural reasons for its existence: focusing on the (correct) assumption that human trafficking is anti-human rights, or the more controversial idea that sex work is inherently degrading for women, this nuance is lost. Our focus shifts to the individuals engaging within the industry (hence the focus on the relationships between mothers and daughters in the opening paragraph). As a result, those in the sex work industry often end up being both pitied and blamed for their participation in the industries of sex work and sex trafficking (Doezema, 28-29). They are at once victims of a dehumanizing practice and perpetrators of their own oppression. This is a manifestation of the racial contract’s idea of citizens of “white” polities being inherently morally superior to those of non-white polities. Thus, while it is fair to say that, due to the workings of racial capitalism and the racial contract, sex workers are not behaving fully freely, to say that they have no agency ironically accomplishes what western activists are trying to prevent: it dehumanizes sex workers. By focusing on destroying the sex work industry, western activists remove important streams of income for many people. By obscuring the nuanced experiences of consent that sex workers have, western activists shift focus away from systemic issues caused by the countries they come from and begin blaming and pitying those in the sex industry for how they deal with economic insecurity. The binary notions of consent that western activist organizations adopt end up harming sex workers and perpetuating the idea of a “morally superior” white, western polity.

Anti-trafficking activists’ binary notions of consent and its relation to human rights obscures the phenomena which perpetuate the non-consensual aspects of the sex industry in developing countries. Cambodia is just one instance of this dynamic, and there are nuances of each situation’s context which further complicate this issue. Western attempts at activism are not unilaterally good or bad. However, their motivations and effectiveness are shaped by frameworks which should be questioned. Fundamentally those who are impacted most by this discussion are those who have the fewest seats at the table. Perhaps, if we want to get a more nuanced and accurate understanding of their lives, we should begin by listening to them.

The header image of hands in chains by sammisreachers is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Works Cited

Barry, Kathleen. “Human Rights and Global Feminist Action.” The Prostitution of Sexuality, NYU Press, 1995, pp. 276–322. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qg779.13. Accessed 8 Dec. 2022.

Chemaly, Soraya. “How Not to Report on Sex Trafficking.” Rewire News Group, 21 Jan. 2014, rewirenewsgroup.com/2014/01/21/report-sex-trafficking/. 

Doezema, Jo. “Ouch!: Western Feminists’ ‘Wounded Attachment’ to the ‘Third World Prostitute.’” Feminist Review, no. 67, 2001, pp. 16–38. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1395529. Accessed 4 Dec. 2022.

Johnson, Walter. “To Remake the World: Slavery, Racial Capitalism, and Justice.” The Boston Review, 10 Feb. 2018, www.bostonreview.net/forum/walter-johnson-to-remake-the-world/. Accessed 4 Dec. 2022. 

Klein, Naomi. No Logo : No Space, No Choice, No Jobs. 10th anniversay ed., 3rd ed., Picador, 2010.

Mills, Charles W., and Tommie Shelby. The Racial Contract. Cornell University Press, 2022.

Moore, Annie E. Rewire News Group, 13 May 2014, rewirenewsgroup.com/2014/05/13/race-imperialism-cnn/. 


Phnom Penh Post Staff. “An Open Letter to Yasushi Akashi.” The Phnom Penh Post, 11 Oct. 1994, www.phnompenhpost.com/national/open-letter-yasushi-akashi.

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