Tag Archives working conditions

Human Trafficking | Overregulated, but unprotected? Human trafficking governance is not protecting sex workers in the Netherlands

Posted on 0 min read

Furthering the discussion on the negative consequences for sex workers[1] of the regulatory conflation of sex work and human trafficking, this post reflects on how regulation focused on identifying cases of human trafficking in the Dutch sex industry has failed to protect sex workers, whose primary concerns remain an unsafe working environment and a lack of job security. Government surveillance of the sex industry does not produce better working conditions – what is needed is increased dialogue for evidence-based policy-making that ensures that immediate needs of sex workers are met without further ado.

Photo: Gio Mikava (Unsplash)

“I don’t want security – I want that window to be changed. It’s unsanitary, it’s dirty,” says Vanessa[2], a transgender sex worker from Ecuador who has been working in the sex industry for 30 years, when I ask her what would make her feel safer at work. After reflecting a bit about what safety means and how we understand it, we start to talk about working conditions. What ‘good conditions’ means in the practice of sex work does not seem to be a priority for the authorities in charge of supervising this industry in the Netherlands, Vanessa and other sex workers tell me. Their objective is mainly to identify cases of human trafficking and illegal forms of sex work.

According to the sex workers I interviewed and observations in both window-based sectors in The Hague that I carried out for my master’s thesis, the working conditions vary from place to place. One afternoon, in the internal windows of one of the Doubletstraat passages, I could feel the dense, heavy, and hot air that many sex workers live with during the summer, as well as the dust that accumulates. Martha, who has been in the industry for 10 years, says: “Of course, there is no air here, here you are like a fish out of water”. For others, bad working conditions are also related to:

  • The lack of access to a clean bathroom with a shower;
  • The lack of access to clean changes of bedding;
  • The lack of a clean and sanitary work environment;
  • The lack of separate spaces for eating and resting;
  • High rental amounts;
  • The precarity of the business;
  • The possibility of being left without a workplace, as the number of licenses issued for sex work are still decreasing; and
  • The (im)possibility of working from home in cities where home-based sex work is illegal.

From bad to worse…

Sex workers’ insecurities were exacerbated by COVID-19-related government measures, which due to the extended lockdown and limitation of face-to-face contact left a big group of sex workers, especially immigrants, without work for longer periods than any other worker, and without financial help. Yet resisting the difficult working conditions is not straightforward. The fear of the consequences of their airing grievances is preventing sex workers from doing so. Vanessa tells me: “I have talked to the others about it, but they tell me not to mess with it because I am going to have problems”. Like her, several sex workers tell me that they would not be taken seriously if they complained about their working conditions, or that they could be retaliated against by the operators, who would no longer rent the site to a ‘troublemaker’. A member of the support organisation Spot 46 says that sex workers can go to the municipality to complain, but nobody really hears them.[3] Thus, the path to changing their precarious working conditions is unclear to window-based sex workers in The Hague.

Focused on legality, not on working conditions

“If you have your papers in order, there is no problem” – Martha (name changed)

Matters of legality seem to take precedence over the wellbeing of sex workers. When I talked to the sex workers I interviewed for my study, inevitably, the discussion turned to the controls and supervision of this industry that are carried out by municipalities. In The Hague, a team called HEIT (The Hague Economic Intervention Team), made up of members of the police and the municipality, oversees the sex industry. Interestingly, this team only focuses on identifying cases of human trafficking and eradicating criminality (City Council 2019:10). When I asked about their perception of government supervision, the first response of all sex workers was that the government was worried about ensuring their legality through document control: by checking their immigration status, work permit, and registration at the Chamber of Commerce. In addition, municipal health service GGD also monitors the industry, but its focus is on public health and therefore is directed at the sexual practices of sex workers, who are considered a risk group (City Council 2019: 10).

Overregulated, but unprotected

From sex workers’ experiences with the controls and from what is stipulated in public policy, it can be argued that government surveillance of the sex industry does not produce better working conditions. Although there are specific and very strict regulations for sex workers, and although multiple institutions are involved in their enforcement, sex workers’ own concerns, and hence their protection as workers, are not a priority. Experiences on the ground reveal that what sex workers need is not more repressive surveillance that frames them as powerless victims of trafficking, but regulation that takes their demands for decent working conditions seriously.

References

[1] See: Heumann et al. (2017); Heumann et al. (2016); Hubbard et al. (2008); Outshoorn (2012); Pitcher and Wijers (2014) Verhoeven (2017).

City Council (2019) ‘Algemene Plaatselijke Verordening Voor De Gemeente Den Haag (APV) [General Local Regulation for the Municipality of the Hague]’. Local Regulation – Public order and safety, Municipality of The Hague.

Heumann, S., Coumans, SV., Shiboleth, T., Ridder-Wiskerke, M. (2017) ‘The Netherlands: Analysing Shifts and Continuities in the Governing of Sexual Labour’, in Ward, E., Wylie, G. (ed.) Feminism, Prostitution and the State, pp. 46-65. New York: Routledge Studies in Gender and Global Politics.

[2] Pseudonyms were used to protect sex workers’ identities.

[3] Interview, member of Spot 46, 2019.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author

María Inés Cubides Kovacsics is Professional in Development Studies with an ISS major in human rights, gender, and conflict studies. I have a particular interest in gender and sexuality, labour rights, sex workers’ rights, youth, security, and restorative justice. I have worked for identifying and fighting discrimination, exclusion and rights violations suffered by historically marginalized people and communities, alongside LGBTQ communities, imprisoned transgender women, homeless people, sex workers, drug users, street vendors, teenagers and young people with deprivation of liberty sanction.

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The revival of Brazil’s cacao sector: is anything really changing? by Lee Pegler and Luiza Teixeira

Posted on 5 min read

Bouncing back from a devastating crop disease (vassoura de bruxa), Brazilian cacao producers are showing a different face. Many of the old plantations have been ‘taken over’ by younger family members who seem keen to present more sustainable products and methods. As discussed here, a 2017 visit and forthcoming research seek to evaluate the development significance of these changes.

In a 2017 seminar, the State University of Santa Cruz (UESC) brought together farmers, buyers, technicians, and governmental experts (plus a few academics) in an attempt to discuss challenges and prospects of a sustained revival of Brazilian cacao and chocolate production. UESC and the town of Ilheus are pivotal as they sit at the northern edge of the main cacao-producing region of Brazil[1], an area that still boasts over 40,000 farms/farmers. Brazil itself seems set to move from number 5 to number 4 in the ranking of global producer nations. What difficulties are involved in such a move and, more pointedly, what do the various actors really mean by sustainability?

In fact, this question concerning the (social) sustainability of the Brazilian cacao chain has a very pertinent historical precedent. When we look back to the novels (e.g. Gabriella) of Jorge Amado (a hero of Ilheus himself)[2], with their vivid dramas highlighting powerful farmers (treated as Coronels/coronéis), hierarchical social relations, slave-type conditions and sexual exploitation in the cacao sector, it comes as no surprise that Brazil is the only one of the large cacao producers for whom small-scale farmers have not dominated national production estimates. This concentration of wealth and power also came to be reflected, at a consumption level, in comments about local farmers “travelling to Paris to have a haircut” (during the heyday of local cacao production).

Most importantly, from a global development and social justice perspective, what is important to examine is the likelihood that the sector’s revival will mean real change to both the social mindset and practice of a resurgent farmer class. Has the recent shake-up in the market, production quality/reliability, and a new era of farmers been enough to lead to substantive change in social relations on farms and within the chain? On this, the seminar and field visits canvassed a very practical range of concerns and viewpoints on what was needed for a revived and sustainable sector.

Discussions in the seminar and at technical facilities focused on scientific quality processes in the field, the laboratory, and on production and marketing. The greatest strains appeared evident between established/large producer families and new or smaller facilities, social actors (communities/cooperatives), and the like. Sustainable production and commercial practices remained fundamental to all, but as this moved to questions of collective action, inter-group cooperation, and substantive changes to social relations on the farm, a sense of unanimity became far less clear.

Without doubt, all agreed that they had moved substantially from earlier modes of production and that child labour, bonded conditions, and the like no longer existed. Field visits even gave good impressions that more participative production, land sharing and autonomy had emerged alongside some impressive on-farm ‘tree to bar’ and social cooperative ventures in local communities (assentamentos) and within some large-scale farms.

Yet the extent to which this has changed and implications from a labour security or social justice perspective could not be gleaned from this brief visit. Even from a solely production point of view, the question of sustainable practices is strongly debated, as is evident from issues such as whether random planting, full sun, or shade tree plantation areas (let alone mixed crop/multiple livelihood strategies!) should be promoted. Yet each has quite specific implications for worker/small scale farmers and community development.

Not uncommon questions about the reach and depth of local (e.g. Project Cacao), sectoral (Cacao Connect), company (Body Shop/Tony Chocolonely), and multi-actor/international coalitions (e.g. Coco Action via UTZ, ICCO) to promote ‘best practice’ have also arisen. The community does not appear to be united in terms of what the various forms of multistakeholder alliances might be able to do in terms of representation and ‘teeth’ (to enforce any common agreements).

Further work on this case study (as part of the ISS Brasil Plan/GOLLS project) took place during 2018, involving staff of ISS and UESC. We soon plan to provide a more consistent overview of ownership and production models in the south Bahia/Ilheus region and to set up a series of case studies of: a) local social sustainability, and b) the governance of sustainability processes, for staff and students to pursue during 2019.

The broader question behind this research is whether structural, market, and generational change has allowed a greater link to be made between economic upgrading (of the cacao chain) and the upgrading of social conditions and relations (i.e. greater social justice) in a situation where Brazil is seeking to find a stronger place in the global market (for cacao/chocolate). This requires not only a methodical analysis of chain governance and of production and social relations (at market, community, and family levels), but also further reflections on how we study, interpret, and classify ‘well-being’. How far have we really moved from the vision of Jorge Amado?

[1] And all exports (both raw cacao and more finished goods from the area) move out of the Port of Ilheus.

[2] The well-known Brazilian romantic/historical novelist – see for example Amado, J. (1958 – 1ST ed.) Gabriela, Cravo e Canela, Livaria Martins Editora, Sao Paulo.

About the author:

IMG_0726Lee Pegler spent his early career working as an economist with the Australian Labour Movement. More recent times have seen him researching the labour implications of “new” management strategies of TNCs in Brazil/ Latin America. This interest expanded to a focus on the implications of value chain insertion on labour, both for formal and informal workers. Trained as an economist and sociologist (PhD – LSE), he currently works as Assistant Professor (Work, Organisation and Labour Rights) at the ISS.

Foto_Bliss copy.jpgLuiza Teixeira achieved her PhD in Public Administration and Government, in 2016, and her dissertation theme focused on Public Participation in Municipal Legislative Branches in Brazil. Luiza is a Professor at Santa Cruz State University, in the Administration and Accountancy Department. Recently she has been involved in research projects on the field of Public Administration, especially with the themes of Public Participation, Social Control, Accountability, and Local Development.