| Sense and Sensuality - Survival Sex - Fall 09 |
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| Written by Sarah Stefanson | |||||||
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For some women, sex is a matter of survival. From Northern B.C.'s "Highway of Tears" to the streets of Baghdad, prostitution is a last resort for many women who feel they have no other options. Whether it is a Canadian runaway turning tricks for drugs or an Iraqi widow forced into the world's oldest profession to prevent her children from starving, the sex they offer is about one thing: survival. Survival sex is a term used to describe the kind of prostitution that a person enters into in order to live. It is not a voluntary choice, as it is for other sex workers. Those who engage in survival sex truly feel that they have no other choice because of circumstances including poverty, addiction, and exploitation. In Canada and the United States, survival sex is most common among young runaways and street kids. A study published in the American Journal of Public Health in 1999 studied street and shelter youths across the United States and found that approximately 28 percent of street youths and 10 percent of youths staying in shelters had engaged in survival sex. Many of these runaways are addicted to drugs, which makes the need for quick cash all the more desperate, making trading sex for money an appealing concept. The risks involved in survival sex are many, including contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs), unwanted pregnancy, emotional trauma, rape, physical abuse, and murder. In Canada, sex workers have a variety of resources and organizations on which they can call for help (including PEERS or Prostitutes Empowerment Education and Resource Society in Victoria, which Cahoots profiled in our Spring 06 issue). Many of these organizations are staffed by "experiential" workers, women who have had direct experience with the sex industry and can empathize with individuals who feel they have nowhere else to turn. They offer support to survival sex workers in the form of education, outreach, counseling, safety training, and supplies. Though they are faced with dire circumstances, North American women who are forced into the sex trade do have resources and support available to them. This is not the case for women in the Middle East who are sold and traded into prostitution rings, or begin selling their bodies in order to feed their children. Survival sex takes on a whole new meaning for these women who are literally faced with death as their only alternative. Many are widows of the Iraq war, unable to obtain employment in a society that places little value on women. Employers are unwilling to hire them for fear or reprisals from militants. In this part of the world, women selling their bodies face not only the same risks as those in North America, but they are also in danger of being discovered as "dishonoured" or "unclean" and subjected to beatings, stoning, and possibly death (referred to as "honour killing") in accordance with Muslim belief. Yet many women are willing to endure these risks in order to put food on their tables. Thousands of the eight million widows in Iraq have disappeared since the war began in 2003, believed to have been sold into the sex trade in surrounding countries. Families facing starvation sometimes sell their daughters to sex traffickers for as little as $500. While women who resort to survival sex lose all honour in these countries, men are allowed to engage them in muta'a, temporary "pleasure marriages," which may last as little as a day. These short-lived arrangements allow men to enjoy the services of sex workers without the stigma, since they are often legitimized by Islamic law. While there are organizations that seek to alleviate the necessity of survival sex for Middle Eastern women, such as Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) and Baghdad's Women's Rights Association (WRA), there is much work to be done in an area of the world where women's rights are severely behind the times. In the face of such gender inequality and hopeless circumstances, it is indubitable that women will continue to choose sex work as a means of supporting their families. Sex trafficking rings will also persist as long as families are desperate enough to sell their own children into them. It may seem like Canadian sex workers have it easy compared to those in the Middle East, but while they do have more rights and greater access to assistance, there are many women in our home country who begin to sell sex under desperate conditions and then find themselves unable to stop. Public awareness of these issues is the first step to eradicating the problem. Some people believe that prostitution is simply wrong, no matter if a woman is forced into it or chooses it willingly. Others believe that there can be a positive side to the sex industry. For many women around the world, however, it's just a matter of survival. Comments (0)
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