Page 100 - Chinese Woman Living and Working

FEMINIST PROSTITUTION DEBATES 87
detaining participants in the prostitution transaction according to the Chinese system of
administrative sanctions. Domestic commentators are also divided on the question of
whether it would be more appropriate to legalise the ‘sex sector’ and thus ‘sex workers’,
or whether China’s existing prostitution controls should be strengthened in order to halt
the exploitation of women in prostitution (Aizibing 1996).
Given the general consensus that China’s prostitution controls are in need of revision,
the pertinent issue at stake is surely which proposed international strategy is most likely to
realise immediate improvements in the situation of Chinese women in prostitution.
Viewed from this perspective, NGO efforts to see prostitution reconfigured as work in
China are potentially misdirected. One way of illustrating this contention is to note that
the NGO report itself points to the multiple problems associated with female
employment, the lack of independent trade unions, and the limited access of individuals to
civil redress vis-à-vis occupational health and safety issues, in China. Given these structural
and legal limitations, it is difficult to see how legally recognising prostitution as work is
supposed to empower Chinese women in the immediate future. In fact, if the arguments
of the ACWF are given any credence, it could well lead to the creation of another female
job ghetto, whilst simultaneously generating more profits for the predominantly male-run
hospitality and tourist industries, as well as generating funds for local governments
through the extension of the tax net (Ding Juan 1996:9–10).
The work of mainland scholars such as Pan Suiming further suggests that the act of
recognising prostitution as work may not function to guarantee the rights and interests of
Chinese women in prostitution, or even to enable the more effective administration of
‘the sex sector’ (cited in Zhang Zhiping 2000:32–3). This is because, as with many other
countries, prevailing social mores will continue to militate against sellers of sex being
treated as equivalent to any other wage-labourer. For example, surveys conducted in
China suggest that clandestine forms of prostitution will continue to proliferate alongside
the establishment of legal prostitution businesses, since survey responses indicated that
‘virtually no one would like to openly work in a red-light district’, and virtually no one
would have the temerity to patronise a ‘red-light district’ (Pan Suiming cited in Zhang
Zhiping 2000:32–3). Bearing these comments in mind, and given the virtual if not total
absence of sophisticated and recognised prostitute unions in developed first-world
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countries, metropolitan human rights activists might be better advised to focus on the
kinds of changes that can be rendered both ‘thinkable’ and ‘operable’ in China for
improving the situation of women in prostitution, rather than attempting to turn the PRC
into a replica of our own ‘idealised self’.
At any rate, it is somewhat curious that the NGO report draws on the work of
mainland Chinese professionals to indict the Chinese government for failing to protect the
rights of female ‘sex workers’, whilst never acknowledging that these same professionals
outline a provisional response to prostitution that could garner considerable support both
in China and abroad. This response was articulated in the ‘Consensus and
Recommendations on HIV and Prostitution’ (Aizibing 1996:104–6), the outcome of a
conference held in Beijing. The ‘Consensus Recommendations’ veer between implicitly
calling for the legalisation of prostitution, in order to facilitate the introduction of
improved STD/HIV prevention strategies, and explicitly calling for the continued