Sex Work Sociology

As briefly mentioned in the introduction, NGOs are volunteer based, task oriented organizations that form to complete any number of activities at the local, national, or international level. Many NGOs act similarly to a nonprofit organization and seek to provide aid to underprivileged or struggling individuals, groups, and communities. The people who work in an NGO all share a common interest in the subject matter and work towards the same goal. In terms of sex work, some NGOs focus primarily on providing greater access to healthcare and education and work opportunities outside of sex work, among other matters. Other NGOs go into an area with an increased number of sex workers and rescue the individuals on the basis that they must have been

Westernization and imperialism began centuries ago in the form of land conquest and has materialized today in the form of conditional funding and miscellaneous rehabilitation programs. As for sex work, the first rise of aid and “rescuing” began in the early 19th century in London (Veller 2012 pg. 61). London’s upper class women sought to spread their good fortune and high values with those less fortunate than them. Sex workers became the quick and easy target group. For the bourgeoisie women, it was easy to separate themselves from sex workers as, at the time, sex workers were deemed morally deplorable. This separation allowed them to generalize sex workers in broad term ( Veller 2012 pg. 61) They quickly removed any sense of agency these women may have had and told harrowing stories about coercion and violence. Saving these women from being sex workers was, in the eyes of the upper class women, the best avenue they could possibly offer (Veller 2012 pg. 62). Painting sex workers as threats to society made it easy to receive support and accolades for their efforts to abolish sex work completely. And thus began a new age of

The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief was first proposed in 2003, by then U.S. President George W. Bush. It was implemented to address the global HIV/AIDS epidemic at the time, with specific attention being paid to third world countries. Many organizations across the global applied for funding to help provide more extensive healthcare to at risk communities. Some of these organizations included sex worker led and based organizations. There was a condition to the funding provided by PEPFAR, however. Organizations who were granted money had to sign the anti-prostitution pledge that said funds could not be used to promote or advocate for the legalization of prostitution or sex trafficking (“An act” 2003). It also went on to enumerate that organizations that did not expressly oppose prostitution and sex trafficking were barred from utilizing funds (“An Act” 2003). The US thought they were being helpful by providing funds as well as helping to eradicate sex trafficking world wide, but that is not the case. What they did was cause organizations that did not directly oppose prostitution to lose funds that would have helped a vulnerable population. But it did not stop there as many of these organizations were then labeled as trafficking organizations because the US government did not distinguish between trafficking and migrant sex workers (Veller 2012). That is what