Corporate sex

Reviewed by Faiza Rady

The study estimates that revenues from the sex sector in these four countries range anywhere between two and 14 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and account for billions of dollars in annual corporate profits directly derived from the sector itself and from related industries like entertainment and tourism. "The scale of prostitution has grown to an extent where we can justifiably speak of a commercial sex sector that is integrated into the economic, social and political life of these countries," explains the report.

In Thailand, where prostitution is highly visible but illegal, more than 500,000 tourists engage prostitutes annually. Annual income from the sex sector is estimated at between $22.5 and 27 billion, or about 10 and 14 per cent of GDP. In Indonesia, estimated profits range between $1.27 billion and $3.6 billion, or between 0.8 and 2.4 per cent of GDP.

As a result of the rapid development and growth of commercial sex into a sizeable industry in Southeast Asia since the '70s, the livelihood of millions of workers operating on the fringes of the sex sector -- other than the individuals actually engaged in prostitution -- depends on its viability.

The sector uses the entertainment business as a potential customer access channel. As a result, an entire category of managerial service jobs such as those of hotel workers, night club managers, lounge hosts and hostesses and food and beverage caterers relies on the growth of the sex sector. In addition, a number of lower level service jobs such as workers staffing and maintaining apartment complexes used by sex workers directly depend on prostitution. "A January 1997 survey by Thailand's Ministry of Public Health revealed that out of a total of 104,262 workers in 7,759 establishments where sexual services are offered, only 64,886 were prostitutes, the remainder were support staff.

In Malaysia, the ILO report estimates that between 50,000 and 160,000 workers are employed in the sex industry as prostitutes, pimps and women managers or mamasans. "The lower limit of the range is not very different from the number of persons employed in mining and quarrying in the country in 1992, while the upper limit is just slightly less than the total number of administrative and managerial workers," says the report. However, if related industries such as the hotel and entertainment businesses are included to assess relevant related profits and tangential employment opportunities created by the sex industry, the figures become more significant. The number of workers employed in the service sector in Malaysia -- including the hotel and restaurant sectors -- grew from 1.34 million to 1.84 million between 1987 and 1992. In addition, local authorities increased their intake of taxable income considerably as a result of this expansion.

Since the sex sector has become sufficiently profitable to account for a considerable percentage of the GDP of Southeast Asian countries, the booming industry has become deeply entrenched into national economies. "The organisational structures and relations within the sex sector have become very diversified and complex. They involve a growing number of vested and powerful interests and networks of dependencies," explains the report.

A case in point is Indonesia, where the sex sector falls under the jurisdiction of municipal authorities and the police. Official brothel complexes are under the control of local councils which usually include regional administrators, the local prosecutor, the police chief and the military commander. The councils not only control, but also manage prostitution and are frequently accused of collaborating with the sector's mafia. "National case studies all emphasise that the sector flourishes because it is protected and supported by politicians, police, armed forces and civil servants who may be partners or owners of the establishment," says the report.

In addition to establishing business ties with local authorities, the sex mafia has branched out into global sex trade and trafficking, with international sex syndicate routes extending from Latin America to Malaysia and Thailand. In the '80s, a highly profitable joint venture between the international sex mafia and the tourism industry organised a flourishing sex tourism business, with males from countries like Japan and Taiwan visiting the Philippines and Thailand with special sex tour packages. The report states that "such tours were organised as part of a package deal involving interlocking interests between air carriers, tour operators and hotel companies, which led to the formation of a new type of conglomerate specialising in the production of tourism and trade packages." Although such tours are no longer advertised since they have come under fire from the international and local feminist lobby, the conglomerate has continued to prosper underground, branching out and mushrooming into speedy cross-border packages between Malaysia and Thailand.

Recognising the integration of the sex sector in the global economic system and the formidable vested interests at stake, the report acknowledges the difficulty of curtailing the sector's operations. The report also denounces the economic policies of neo-liberalism for creating a space for the growth of the sex sector. Such policies have, in effect, required the dismantling of social security safety nets, while creating vast rural poverty zones through rural disinvestment. "Country studies show that the pattern of [export-oriented] development and the types of macroeconomic policies adopted have reduced agricultural employment opportunities while creating mainly low-wage jobs in manufacturing and services for women," states the report.

The Thai study in particular links the rural poverty in the northeast of Thailand to the growing supply of sex workers from that region. The Indonesian study demonstrates how women labourers in the textile, garment, tobacco and electronics industries -- mostly migrants from the impoverished rural hinterland -- cannot meet their living expenses on their salaries, let alone send remittances back home to their destitute families. Likewise, the Malaysian study focuses on women's substandard industrial wages versus the lure of relatively highly-paid sex work. "In manufacturing, average wages per annum in 1990 were $2,852 for skilled workers, $1,711 for unskilled workers, and $1,038 for part-time general workers. In comparison, the part-time sex worker in the cheapest hotels, who works only once a week for 12 hours, can earn $2,080 per annum, says the report. In the context of spiraling rural unemployment and low-paying substandard jobs in manufacturing, the sex sector provides an employment alternative for unskilled women job seekers.

Beyond the strong survival imperative driving poor women to work in the sex sector, patriarchy has of old established an ideology promoting the basic tenets of prostitution. "Patriarchal society... allows man access to sexual pleasure in varied forms and with several women. Women, on the other hand, are expected by family, religion and school to be dutiful daughters, virgin girlfriends, devoted wives and sacrificing mothers," explains the report. Defining male and female sexuality in terms of freedom for the former and suppression of the latter, patriarchy has established a system where men's alleged unbridled sexual drive has to be satisfied by a multitude of women who are a class apart from their "innocent" wives. Says the report: "Based on these deeply rooted socio-cultural assumptions about the differences in the sexual nature of men and women, prostitution is widely accepted as necessary."