Page 95 - Chinese Woman Living and Working

82 ELAINE JEFFREYS
to revise its policy of banning prostitution in two conflicting directions. On the one hand,
certain international human rights organisations have drawn on extant United Nations
(UN) frameworks to criticise the Chinese government for failing to place the prostitution
transaction under the jurisdiction of commercial and labour laws, thereby denying women
in prostitution the right to control their own bodies and lives (Human Rights in China
et al. 1998). Although central government guidelines in the PRC proscribe public
arguments in favour of legalising prostitution, a pro-sex-work position is also variously
promoted by members of China’s public health, public security, taxation and other
governmental authorities, on the grounds that recognising prostitution as work will
facilitate the implementation of HIV/AIDS prevention programmes, allow the police to
concentrate on the more serious problems of crime and corruption, generate additional
funds for local government via the extension of the tax net, and promote the development
of China’s burgeoning tourism and leisure industry (Aizibing 1996; Kwan 1995:6). In short,
while operating on the basis of different rationales—concerns about the lack of individual
rights for ‘Chinese sex workers’ vis-à-vis concerns about the more effective management of
prostitution businesses and practices—international and domestic interest groups are
variously pushing the Chinese government to recognise prostitution as a legitimate form of
employment.
On the other hand, if the Chinese government were to abandon its policy of banning
prostitution, it would no doubt be taken to task by the All China Women’s Federation
(ACWF), and potentially by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) associated with the
feminist anti-prostitution lobby, for condoning sexual exploitation, and thereby
contravening the PRC’s laws and extant UN frameworks concerning the human rights of
women to physical and mental integrity. Certainly, members of the ACWF have played an
instrumental role in formulating the PRC’s prostitution laws and laws pertaining to the
promotion of women’s rights and interests, all of which construct the existence of
prostitution as harmful to the rights of ‘woman-as-person’ (Quanguo renda changweihui
1991; Zhonghua renmin gongheguo hunyinfa 1994). As a result, the ACWF is currently
pushing the Chinese government to affirm its historical commitment to eradicating the
institution of prostitution, by introducing new supportive measures for women and
directing the punitive emphasis of China’s prostitution controls more strictly towards
those who profit from and demand the services of women in prostitution (Ding Juan
1996:9–10).
In sum, there is something akin to an international and domestic consensus that the
Chinese government has to revise its official ban on prostitution, but there is considerable
disagreement over how that policy should be altered. Some NGOs and an assorted group
of domestic commentators maintain that prostitution in China should be reconfigured as
work in order to protect the individual rights of sex workers, facilitate HIV/AIDS
prevention strategies, and enable the more effective management of prostitution practices
and businesses. However, representatives of the ACWF and other domestic
commentators dismiss the views of pro-sex work advocates as ‘male’ and contend instead
that the goal of eradicating prostitution in China should be retained in order to protect
and promote the position of Chinese women as a whole (Ding Juan 1996: 9–10). The
Chinese government is thus being pressured to address the subject of prostitution in terms