The purpose of this study is to reconsider women's movement against prostitution which has led to campaigns to prohibit prostitution, and to rewrite discourses against prostitution where sex workers are regarded as passive victims by examining movemen...
The purpose of this study is to reconsider women's movement against prostitution which has led to campaigns to prohibit prostitution, and to rewrite discourses against prostitution where sex workers are regarded as passive victims by examining movement of sex workers who are independently demanding their own rights not as victims of sex trafficking but as voluntary sex workers. This movement cannot be explained in frames of existing movement against prostitution. For this purpose, in-depth interviews were conducted with activists involved in the sex workers' movement to collect data. The collected data were analyzed qualitatively to examine the process of starting, forming and specializing sex workers' movement focusing on composition, activities, and ideologies of an organization for the movement. In addition, relationships surrounding the sex workers' movement were considered so as to investigate who the movement was associated with and opposed to, and for what. This paper also examined its 'contradictive' relationship with 'women's circles' and 'whore-masters' with whom the sex workers' movement is allied and confronted at the same time. This examination sought to investigate what effects their relationships had on the movement. Moreover, discourses of pro-sexwork from the sex workers' movement were analyzed focusing on a public statement of the movement. The discourses were a resistance to discourses of anti-sexwork from existing movement against prostitution. By raising the above-stated problems, this paper considered a possibility of the first sex workers' movement. Based on the consideration, this paper aimed at investigating what the movement would imply for sexual politics of feminism about existing prostitution and anti-sexwork movement.
The major findings of this study were as the following:
First, the sex worker's movement started as an autonomous organization composed by female sex-workers in brothels, formed as a national organization for sex workers, and then specialized as an association of sex workers in brothels in Pyeongtaek. The movement was began with a demonstration of sex workers in brothels around the country demanding abolition of a Special Act on Prevention of Prostitution and the right to live. Through the demonstration, they faced a social stigma of 'dirty prostitutes' and resisted it in silence. In the process of the demonstration, they identified themselves as sex workers, and the organization of 'women involved in prostitution' was changed to a national association of 'sex workers', Hanyeoyeon. This association demanded not only the right to live but also the right to work so that they could do sexwork. However, sex workers centering around brothels in Pyeongtaek felt skeptical of 'national' activities and had troubles in a group agreement. Finally, they formed a new organization called Democratic Association of Sex Workers, and concluded a group agreement with a Pyeongtaek association for employers in the sex industry. They have participated in activities for the rights of sex workers in Pyeongtaek. The fact that sex workers organized an autonomous group by themselves and moved systematically for their 'rights' showed their empowerment as activists expressing their subject opinions and as resistants against the social stigma, not as victims any more.
Second, aiming at abolition of the Special Act on Prevention of Prostitution and approval of sexwork, the sex workers' movement identified itself as a campaign for women, workers, sexual minority, residents in areas to be demolished, and the poor in association with several social groups. They also established a strong organization for sex workers through solidarity relationship with other associations and solidified their will to resist. According to the result, the sex workers' movement was associated with the association for employers in the sex industry for abolition of the Special Act on Prevention of Prostitution, but it was opposed to them in terms of redevelopment of brothels. The movement showed 'contradictive relationship' with women's circles: it was opposed to them, on one hand, as for their views that 'whore-masters would incite the sex workers to demonstrate'; on the other hand, it revealed a possibility of association with them in that they could protect the sex workers. This contradiction resulted from contradiction of sex workers' unstable positions and their real conditions.
Third, as discourses against discourses of anti-prostitution, the sex workers' movement claimed their work is sextrade as sexwork, not prostitution as sex trafficking. Identifying themselves as independent sex workers not as passive victims of prostitution, the sex workers made an attempt to criticise the Special Act on Prevention of Prostitution, which aims at eradicating prostitution and escaping them from prostitution considering they are victims. Therefore, prior movement related to prostitution identified with anti-prostitution campaigns in Korea has to be changed based on the sex workers' own voices.
The implication of this study which analyzed the first Korean sex workers' movement are as the following:
First, unlike existing approaches that regarded sex workers as passive victims, this study revealed their voices as independent activists. This approach can criticise the discourses where the sex workers' voices against the Special Act on Prevention of Prostitution are considered as 'instigation of whore-masters', and dismantle discourses of victims which approach the movement for the purpose of escaping them from prostitution.
Second, this study attempted to expand the discourses of prostitution in Korean society and groped for a possibility of new discourses of sexwork. Previous studies approached prostitution focusing on individual sex workers' morality and poor victims of prostitution. However, this study expanded this approach and suggested to analyze it from various perspectives from labor, sexuality, classes, politics, and so on. Through this process, this paper attempted to produce and expand new discourses of prostitution.
Third, this study examined the process of sex workers' overcoming the social stigma and empowering themselves by identifying themselves as sex workers and talking to the outside through the demonstration. Based on the examination, this study approached their human rights in a new way. Unlike previous studies focusing on victims resulting from sweating system of the sex industry, this study focused on their social stigma and proposed to remove it as priority assignment for their human rights.
Finally, if sex workers' complicated and various experiences by legislation and execution of anti-prostitution law can be explained, a new discourse can stand against legal discourses where they are protected only if they are poor victims. To fight the legal discourses demanding only experience of damages including sweating by the sex industry, diverse sex workers' experiences and stories have to be presented. However, can sex workers regarded as either victims or criminals talk about their new stories, not facts about their damages, with their independent voice? In order to enable them to do so, more studies have to approach them from a new perspective, which will make it possible to establish a new law on prostitution not letting them be criminals.