In India, the estimated number of people in sex work is high - figures show an appraisal of three million female sex workers. Most women who enter sex work tend to be very young and do so due to severe economic circumstances. The situation is considered especially severe in some parts of India due to a combination of poverty and the low status of females, which contribute to their exploitation in the sex industry. This vulnerability often leads to women being marginalized and stigmatized from society.   The aim with this thesis is to investigate how social workers, at an organization in Pune, India, work with women in sex work and their children. What motivates the social workers to pursue work with this group? How do they feel about their work and their clients? Further questions we wanted to answer were how the organization worked to secure good and sufficient living conditions for the children. Our initial goal for this study was to examine how the staff members at Saheli Sangh work to prevent the children from entering sex work. While doing so, we gained knowledge about the social worker’s own thoughts, values and experiences of doing social work with this group. Hence, this newfound knowledge became our main focus throughout our study.   The results showed that education and safe housing were the primary interventions offered to prevent children from entering sex work. It also showed that the staff in the organization forms a special bond with the children and women with whom they work. To provide the needed interventions, the organization needs more resources and more support to combat negative perceptions and stigma from the society of women who do sex work and the social workers who help them address their needs. / I Indien är det uppskattade antalet personer i sexarbete högt - siffror visar en uppskattning på tre miljoner kvinnliga sexarbetare. De flesta kvinnor som börjar med sexarbete tenderar att vara väldigt unga och gör det på grund av svåra ekonomiska omständigheter. Situationen anses särskilt svår i vissa delar av Indien. Detta på grund av en kombination av fattigdom och kvinnornas låga ställning i samhället, vilket bidrar till deras utnyttjande i sexindustrin. Denna utsatthet leder ofta till att kvinnor marginaliseras och stigmatiseras.   Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur socialarbetare, i en organisation i Pune, Indien, arbetar med kvinnor i sexarbete och deras barn. Vad motiverar socialarbetarna att arbeta med denna grupp? Hur upplever de sitt arbete och sina klienter? Ytterligare frågor vi ville ha svar på var hur organisationen arbetade för att säkerställa goda och tillräckliga levnadsvillkor för barnen. Vårt ursprungliga syfte med denna studie var att undersöka hur socialarbetarna i organisationen arbetar för att förhindra barnen från att börja med sexarbete. Under processens gång fick även kunskap om socialarbetarens egna tankar, värderingar och erfarenheter av att arbeta med denna grupp. Därigenom blev denna nyfunna kunskap vårt huvudfokus under resten av vår studie.   Resultaten visade att utbildning och tryggt boende var de primära insatserna som erbjuds för att förhindra att barn börjar med sexarbete. De visade även på ett starkt band mellan personalen och de kvinnor och barn som de arbetar med. För att kunna erbjuda nödvändiga insatser behöver organisationen mer resurser samt stöd från samhället för att bekämpa den rådande negativa uppfattningen som finns om kvinnor i sexarbete.

The reasons why African women become engaged in sex work have received little attention in academic research. While it is largely acknowledged that there exists a connection between entering the sex trade and poverty, not all women who are poor enter sex work. Through the use of life histories with 21 women between the ages of 18 and 42, this thesis explores the combination of factors that lead women and girls to become commercial sex workers in Nairobi, Kenya. This method provides a detailed look at initiation into sex work as it occurs over the life course for women and girls in this context. Additionally, this thesis examines how structural violence impinges on their lives, thereby increasing vulnerability to engagement in sex work. Examining the larger socio-political and economic contexts illustrates how issues such as HIV/AIDS, migrant labour, changing gender roles, the erosion of existing familial structures and gender inequities structure risk for suffering for women. These issues result in many girls losing caregiver support by being orphaned, while additionally, women are burdened with providing total economic and social support for the family in a society that has gendered economic opportunities. Both girls and women are left with few options other than the sex trade to survive.

The reasons why African women become engaged in sex work have received little attention in academic research. While it is largely acknowledged that there exists a connection between entering the sex trade and poverty, not all women who are poor enter sex work. Through the use of life histories with 21 women between the ages of 18 and 42, this thesis explores the combination of factors that lead women and girls to become commercial sex workers in Nairobi, Kenya. This method provides a detailed look at initiation into sex work as it occurs over the life course for women and girls in this context. Additionally, this thesis examines how structural violence impinges on their lives, thereby increasing vulnerability to engagement in sex work. Examining the larger socio-political and economic contexts illustrates how issues such as HIV/AIDS, migrant labour, changing gender roles, the erosion of existing familial structures and gender inequities structure risk for suffering for women. These issues result in many girls losing caregiver support by being orphaned, while additionally, women are burdened with providing total economic and social support for the family in a society that has gendered economic opportunities. Both girls and women are left with few options other than the sex trade to survive.

While there is a considerable body of academic literature on prostitution and sex work, there is relatively little research exploring the working conditions and occupational structures for men and women working in the indoor sex industry. There is a continuing tension between the theoretical position that considers prostitution as gendered exploitation and that which views commercial sex as work, although more recent studies have begun to explore different labour practices in some types of sex work. This thesis moves beyond previous analyses through framing the research theoretically as an occupational study, encompassing the experiences and transitions of female and male sex workers, as well as a small number of transgender participants, and setting these in the context of broader labour market theories and research. Using a qualitative approach, the study considers diverse labour processes and structures in indoor markets and adult sex workers perceptions of the terms and conditions of their work. The research develops an understanding of sex workers agency in relation to state structures, policy frameworks and varied working circumstances. It theorises the relationship of human agency to social stigma and recognition or denial of rights. It extends on existing classifications of pathways into and from sex work and develops typologies incorporating transitions between sub-sectors in the indoor sex industry, as well as temporary and longer-term sex working careers related to varied settings and individual aspirations. While the research identified gendered structures in indoor markets, which reflect those in the broader economy, the findings also contest gender-specific constructions of exploitation and agency through emphasising the diverse experiences of both male and female sex workers. I argue for development of a continuum of agency, which incorporates interlinking concepts such as respect, recognition and economic status and includes both commercial and private intimate relations. I contend that acknowledgement of sexual labour as work is a necessary precondition for recognising sex workers rights and reducing instances of physical and social disrespect. Nonetheless, this is not sufficient to counter social stigma, which is perpetuated by state discourses and policy campaigns which fail to recognise sex workers voices and, in doing so, create new forms of social injustice.

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: One of the characteristics of discourses about people who are marginalised such as sex workers, in many societies, is the way they are rendered through these very discourses as "Other‟ through, for example, forms of generalisation and homogenisation, attributions of immorality and infantilisation, which construct sex workers as bad or as helpless victims with little or no agency. In opposition to these discourses, my research is primarily concerned with advancing the voices of sex workers engaged in particular contemporary forms of sex work made possible by the access to the internet, and exploring with them how they construct and experience sex work: how they present and identify themselves. A qualitative, netnographic methodology influenced by grounded theory was employed, drawing extensively on semi-structured interviews with 15 independent escorts who advertise on a South African escorting website, referred to as Redlace.com. Content analysis of this website provided an additional source of data. The construction of the sex worker as someone who is simply controlled and exploited by others and who has no mind of her or his own, I found, was very much at odds with the manner through which the independent escorts in my study presented themselves. As I started conducting the interviews, I discovered that even the term "sex worker‟, which I had always understood as non-judgmental, was considered inappropriate and pejorative by most of the women in my study. In my discussion, I illustrate how, by soliciting clients via the internet, escorts are able to gain control over their working conditions allowing them to work independently and anonymously, which in turn renders them less publicly visible compared to other sex workers who solicit clients form the street. While I identify various continuities and discontinuities between independent escorting and other forms of sex work, the most profound and unanticipated difference was how some independent escorts whose independence and dissociation from organised forms of sex work in institutions such as brothels or escorts, placed them in a position where they were able to, and wanted to, present the "girlfriend experience‟. Herein the independent escorts performed and/or became like girlfriends offering sex, but sex mediated by "dating‟, and expressions of care and warmth symbolically associated with developing girlfriend/boyfriend relations.

In this research I examine the complexity of male sexuality and masculinity among male sex workers in New Orleans. Despite danger to their health and social standing, men engage in risky sexual behavior with other men for both business and pleasure. These behaviors may stem from the thrill of risk itself, or from other causes such as unexplored sexual inhibitions on the part of the male sex workers or their clients. Focusing on male sex workers, this ethnographic study explores why male sex workers engage in work that is high risk and potentially very dangerous. It examines the world of male sex work as one of the few places where men who adopt homosexual identity and those who refuse it are in intimate contact with one another. It offers us the opportunity to address questions about male sexual identity and homosexual desire, while attempting to understand the commodified spatial practices of a sexual culture in New Orleans.

Submitted by Silvana Teresinha Dornelles Studzinski (sstudzinski) on 2016-02-19T11:52:12Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Natália Ledur Alles_.pdf: 1618961 bytes, checksum: 9bbed6191e7f0836d04c6a3f0077dfb4 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-02-19T11:52:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Natália Ledur Alles_.pdf: 1618961 bytes, checksum: 9bbed6191e7f0836d04c6a3f0077dfb4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-12-21 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / A pesquisa busca compreender como a prostituição e as mulheres prostitutas são visibilizadas em espaços comunicacionais digitais brasileiros, relacionando essas percepções às narrativas elaboradas por prostitutas sobre si mesmas e sobre suas experiências. Partindo da proposta do projeto de lei 4.211/2012, que propõe a regulamentação da prostituição como profissão, pretendemos identificar os enquadramentos comunicacionais existentes nas notícias e discussões que enfocam a questão na internet, bem como observar os espaços destinados às experiências e opiniões das pessoas que vivenciam o fenômeno. Pensando que interagir com integrantes deste grupo estigmatizado pode suscitar compreensões para além das representações hegemônicas e dos estereótipos que definem o que é a prostituição, a pesquisa procura privilegiar as vozes das prostitutas e relacioná-las aos conteúdos comunicacionais selecionados. Teoricamente, buscamos articular estudos sobre prostituição, gênero e sexualidade aos conceitos de narrativa e enquadramentos comunicacionais. Para a pesquisa empírica, estabeleceu-se um percurso metodológico dividido em diferentes fases. Em um primeiro momento, efetuou-se uma investigação de inspiração etnográfica junto ao Núcleo de Estudos da Prostituição, entidade que congrega trabalhadoras do sexo em Porto Alegre, onde foi possível acompanhar o cotidiano de militantes e conhecer trajetórias e histórias de mulheres prostitutas. Durante esse período, foram realizadas entrevistas com oito profissionais do sexo que frequentam o NEP. Em outra etapa, objetivando identificar os enquadramentos comunicacionais presentes nos debates sobre o tema circulantes na internet, analisamos 65 textos de distintos autores publicados em portais de notícias, sites feministas, portais religiosos, blogs de temática variada, sites de ONGs e partidos políticos e sites governamentais. A partir das entrevistas e da convivência com as prostitutas, destaca-se a percepção da necessidade de refletir sobre o fenômeno sem partir de explicações fixas sobre seu significado na vida dessas pessoas. A análise nos permitiu traçar aproximações e distanciamentos entre as narrativas das prostitutas e os entendimentos sobre a prostituição divulgados nos espaços comunicacionais, assim como visualizar a existência de uma disputa sobre os sentidos da prostituição em nossa sociedade. / This work aims to understand Brazilian digital media visualization of prostitution and female sex workers, relating these perceptions to women’s narratives about themselves and their experiences. Focusing on 4.211/2012 Law Project, which proposes sex work regulation as a profession, we intend to identify internet media frames about this discussion as well as the existence of some space for sex workers experiences and opinions expressions. Considering that interaction with these stigmatized group members may give rise to sex work understanding beyond hegemonic representations and stereotypes, sex workers’ voices are privileged in this work, attempting to relate them to the valuated communicational content. Theoretically, sex work, gender and sexuality studies are articulated to narrative and media framing concepts. Empirical research methodology was divided in three phases. First, we did an ethnographically inspired survey on Porto Alegre’s Núcleo de Estudos da Prostituição (Sex Work Studies Centre), a NGO supporting and congregating prostitutes, where collection of several sex workers stories and trajectories was possible. This first-part work also consisted of interviewing in a deeper way eight sex workers. Aiming to identify internet media frames about prostitution’s regulation, second-part work consisted of 65 media texts analysis, written by different authors and publicized on news’, feminists’, religious’, blogs’, NGO’, political parties’ and governmental websites. Interviews and social interaction with sex workers lead us to highlight the urgency of thinking this phenomenon without tracing steady explanations about its meaning in these people lives. Analysis allowed us to draw similarities and divergences between sex workers’ narratives and communicational understandings about prostitution, as well as visualizing our society dispute regarding sex work meanings.

A presente tese explora as formas, naturezas e transformações da “relação prostituição”, em específico, daquilo que temos chamado como “políticas da prostituição feminina de rua”, tendo como foco a região central da cidade de Porto Alegre - RS, no percurso das últimas três décadas. A perspectiva narrativa e analítica desta pesquisa é construída a partir do encontro etnográfico com quatro mulheres militantes do movimento organizado de prostitutas em Porto Alegre, nascidas entre 1955 e 1965, que ainda hoje, como nos últimos 25 ou 30 anos, encontram na prostituição seus principais ganhos financeiros e simbólicos. Metodologicamente, trata-se de uma “etnografia da experiência interpessoal” realizada entre agosto de 2006 e janeiro de 2009, principalmente na cidade de Porto Alegre. Como resultados, destacam-se importantes transformações na organização e nas políticas da prostituição de rua, que implicam diferenças importantes entre gerações e ciclos de vida; a persistência da violência estatal e social; a “privatização” da prostituição; e a configuração de “zonas de tolerância simbólica”. Sugere-se a existência de uma bio-política da decência, do trabalho, da família e da cidadania, que, no caso brasileiro, se materializa numa política de eterna “estimulação/punição” (tolerância) sobre a prostituição/trabalho. Por outro lado, é evidente a complexidade, hibridez e importância das movimentações políticas, organizadas ou não, que reivindicam os direitos das prostitutas e simetrizam as relações. / This thesis explores forms, natures and transformations of “prostitution” as a relationship, more specifically of what has been called the “politics of female street prostitution” in Porto Alegre, in the last three decades. The analytical and narrative perspectives have been built through the ethnographic encounter with four women militant of the prostitute movement in Porto Alegre, born between 1955 and 1965 who, in the last 25-30 years, have found in prostitution their main economic and symbolic gains. Based on the methodological approach of ethnography of interpersonal experience this research has been carried out between 2006 and 2009. The results show the important transformations in the organization and the politics of street prostitution, that imply (a) important differences in generations and life cycles; (b) the persistence of state and social violence; (c) the privatization of prostitution; and (d) the constitution of symbolic tolerance zones. We suggest there is a biopolitics of decency, of work, of family, and of citizen rights that, in the Brazilian case, materializes itself into politics of permanent stimulation/punishment (tolerance) over prostitution/work. On the other hand, it becomes clear the complexity, the hybridism and the importance of organized or non-organized political movements, that claim rights and produce more symmetric relationships.

Artwork / Streetlives is a community-based, arts-informed, research project which addresses harm reduction amongst street youth in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Nine street-involved participant researchers (supported by a team of researchers and community organizations) used art making and storytelling as ways of understanding the risks specific to street-involved youth in Thunder Bay. Due to the heterogeneous nature of the participant researcher group and a majority of Aboriginal research participants, a novel approach was used to create principles of research collaboration, in pursuit of the principles of ownership, control, access and possession for ethical research with Aboriginal peoples. The participant researchers found that their most common experience was their vulnerability to governmental social services and law enforcement personnel and policies. They further agreed that the risk of losing their children to child protection services is a source of increased vulnerability and a barrier to accessing treatment. They all agreed that the process of art making was fruitful and were surprised by the clarity and evocative nature of their artwork, finding that meeting weekly to do art is gratifying and therapeutic. They were interested to discover that the art they created, just by telling their stories, contained strong prevention messages they would have been influenced by as younger people. As such the participants want to continue making art, and showing their work, particularly to young people, social service providers, and law enforcement officers, who they think are in the best position to learn from it. This project is building capacity in the community (by teaching artmaking, group work, organizing, critical thinking, and presentation skills), is contributing to scholarship, and significantly and positively impacting the lives of the participant researchers. This work is represented in traditional academic prose and as collaborative fiction.

Artwork / Streetlives is a community-based, arts-informed, research project which addresses harm reduction amongst street youth in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Nine street-involved participant researchers (supported by a team of researchers and community organizations) used art making and storytelling as ways of understanding the risks specific to street-involved youth in Thunder Bay. Due to the heterogeneous nature of the participant researcher group and a majority of Aboriginal research participants, a novel approach was used to create principles of research collaboration, in pursuit of the principles of ownership, control, access and possession for ethical research with Aboriginal peoples. The participant researchers found that their most common experience was their vulnerability to governmental social services and law enforcement personnel and policies. They further agreed that the risk of losing their children to child protection services is a source of increased vulnerability and a barrier to accessing treatment. They all agreed that the process of art making was fruitful and were surprised by the clarity and evocative nature of their artwork, finding that meeting weekly to do art is gratifying and therapeutic. They were interested to discover that the art they created, just by telling their stories, contained strong prevention messages they would have been influenced by as younger people. As such the participants want to continue making art, and showing their work, particularly to young people, social service providers, and law enforcement officers, who they think are in the best position to learn from it. This project is building capacity in the community (by teaching artmaking, group work, organizing, critical thinking, and presentation skills), is contributing to scholarship, and significantly and positively impacting the lives of the participant researchers. This work is represented in traditional academic prose and as collaborative fiction.