Talk:Migrant sex work

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 September 2019 and 9 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): DiaEdie.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 01:00, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Peer Review

Jennyxwen

This is a very interesting, thorough, and nuanced article! Overall I am very impressed by the degree of research. The article had a very neutral point of view, was very well cited, and drew from a variety of sources. I would suggest:

• In the demographics section, more about what countries and regions tend to be destination, which tend to be source countries. In the organization, I would drawn a clearer distinction between the discussion of of within country vs between countries migration (perhaps through subheadings?)
• Legal status of sex work picture: including a key would be helpful! Right now the colors don’t mean much
• more graphics in the article in general

Areas you can consider expanding on:

• More specifics on laws, legality of sex work, perhaps through representative countries: what would be the punishment if migrant sex workers are caught? Deportation? How would sex workers be punished differently depending on legal citizenship status?
• NGOs that advocate for sex workers: what do they lobby for?
• Gender distribution: why is it mostly women?
• What are the experiences of male migrant sex workers? Are their experiences studied? Are they different from women’s?
• Are there significant LGBT migrant sex workers? How do their experiences differ, if at all?

Overall, this was a great article, I learned a lot. Great job! -Jennyxwen (talk) 04:34, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Jennyxwen, thank you for your helpful feedback and comments!

Response to your suggestions: I added the key to the map in the map's caption, so thank you for pointing that out. I also added another image that helps illustrate some of the issues in the article. In terms of destination countries and regions - unfortunately there is no clear-cut source of which countries are receiving nations and which countries are senders. I have sprinkled references to a variety of countries throughout the article, but these are largely based on various scholars' own case studies that have spanned a diverse range of countries and situations. To my knowledge, there has been no international study that clearly defines the senders and receivers of migrant sex workers. I am very uncomfortable making generalizing statements of that nature, and have tried my best to be specific while still making it clear that I am referring to certain case studies (such as the case of UAE, which scholars have clearly documented as having migrants of certain nationalities).

Response to your expansion ideas: I think these are all FANTASTIC ideas and I wish I could address them all in-depth! Some of the scholarship and research simply isn't there regarding LGBT migrant sex workers and male migrant sex workers. That's not to say that they don't exist, but any type of somewhat generalizable statements about them will be difficult to make comfortably.

In regards to sex worker activism: I think this would be best addressed in a separate article regarding sex worker activism and rights in general. I've made a few mentions of sex worker activism when it specifically comes to migrant workers, but an overview of sex worker activism in general would definitely need a whole article. It's a very important and interesting topic that definitely influences migrant workers and could actually be greatly improved upon for future wikipedia projects under the article sex worker.

I think your question about why women are migrant sex workers instead of men is very interesting, and definitely requires a very large response that gets into some fairly abstract notions about global sexual economy, etc. which I am not super familiar. I added a few sentences to try to explain why female migrants oftentimes pursue labor in care markets as a result of gendered labor norms/unskilled markets, etc.

Thanks again for your feedback! -Lillyyu (talk) 21:34, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Laurenpedia

This was a very informative, neutral article that was easy and interesting to read! However, there are some minor changes that I would recommend making to make sure your article is the best it can be.

Firstly, this article is an “orphan” article. You can link to it on other pages that are closely related, such as migrant workers, sex workers, commercial sex industry, and feminization of migration. This would help the traffic that your page receives, and allow other Wikipedia authors to contribute their research to your page.

In terms of formatting, make sure you look over each reference and sentence to make sure you put a period at the end of the sentence, before the reference. Some of the sentences are left unfinished or are not uniform, so this is a minor detail that can easily make your article look more polished.

As for subject matter, this is a great article that covers the basics of migrant sex work. Areas you could add:

• more graphics that include maps and statistics information about this matter across the globe
• more of the arguments made in favor of migrant sex work, perhaps from the workers, to make the article more balanced.

Lastly, there are a variety of typos and grammar edits that can be fixed to improve the flow of the article:

• “migrants sex workers form a significant proportion of the sex worker population” – first word should read “migrant.”

• “and the economic push and pull factors that determine their migrant status” – “their” does not refer to anyone, so you should clarify. This also goes for the sentence right after this sentence.

• “reliable and conclusive numbers of migrant sex workers” – the word “numbers” is somewhat unclear, and perhaps you should use “estimations of the number of” or something similar.

• “much social science research have studied who” – should write “research has.”

• “result in their oftentimes marginalization” – the word “oftentimes” is somewhat unclear; you could use “frequent.”

• “Economic statuses and realities in the home country” – clarify by writing “in the migrant sex worker’s home country.”

• “…which the number of international migrants doubling between 1960 and 2005.” – did you mean “with” the number?

• “Responses to migration and sex work” – would you consider changing this section title to “Responses to migrant sex work?”

• “these legal benefits and reduction of risk is not available” – change “is” to “are.”

Wonderful job! -Laurenpedia (talk) 02:41, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Laurenpedia, thank you so much for the very helpful feedback! I went through and definitely used all of your citation and grammar edits - thank you for that, since that can be the most tedious thing for an editor and writer to fix. The orphan status was automatically removed by a bot once it realized that I had actually inserted several links to this article, so that should fix it.

I wish I could provide a more helpful map or statistics around the globe, but so much of the scholarship explicitly discusses how inconclusive these numbers truly are that any research claiming to have numbers on migrant sex work is oftentimes quickly debunked by another scholar. I am overall very hesitant to cite any migrant sex work numbers as a result, partly because they are oftentimes conflated to be the same thing as human trafficking numbers.

In terms of putting in more favorable material towards migrant sex work - this is an interesting comment because the use of the phrase "migrant sex worker" instead of "sex trafficking victim" itself denotes favorability for a more labor-focused perspective. This is something that is fairly clear within the trafficking/work debates. Since it was not apparent to you as the reader, I can definitely add some material that discusses how these terms are used and why each term signifies something different. -Lillyyu (talk) 18:29, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Untitled

Hey guys, I was wondering if adding another case study to this page would be helpful? Also, some more information to the "Problems in data and research"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mdutta123$ (talk • contribs) 05:23, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Page move

user:Sparrow (麻雀) boldly moved the article from Migrant sex work to Migrant prostitution. Whilst I have no doubt of the good faith of this move, it raises some issues:

• Some may think the move should have been discussed and concensus reached before moving.
• Some may object to the move on the grounds that most reliable sources use the term "migrant sex work" not "migrant prostitution".
• The page edit infers that "sex work" is voluntary and "prostitution" is not. That is a POV definition not generally supported.
• Procedures aside, when the terminology of an article's title is changed, then the text of the article also needs to be changed to match, ie "migrant prostitution" should be used within the article not "migrant sex work".

--John B123 (talk) 07:56, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi John B123, the article of prostitution is also titled prostitution and not sex work. Sex work is a propaganda term used by human traffickers to normalise prostitution, change attitudes towards it and increase the overall volume of the prostitution business, which is despicable. I'll change the introduction to prostitution as well. I don't think that Wikipedia should be used as a propaganda tool for human traffickers. I'm open for discussion about this of course. I was indeed quite angry about the titling of the article and decided to move it without prior discussion because of that. --Sparrow (麻雀) 🐧 08:39, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi. Disagree that the term "sex work" is a propaganda term from traffickers. My understanding is that the term is from academics, NGOs etc, used in preference to "prostitution" which some see as having negative connotations. In general terms I prefer the use of the term prostitution. Sex work is ambiguous as the term also includes those in pornography, strippers, cam girls etc. However there is a large faction who support the use of sex work over prostitution. --John B123 (talk) 08:51, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Sorry I'm late to this discussion. The choice of the terms "sex work" and "prostitution" in WP has long been the subject of argument. As I understand it, both "prostitution" and "sex work" are sometimes used for POV effect in campaigning and in that sense both could be called "propaganda terms". However, both also have legitimate encyclopaedic meanings and both are used in many WP articles. As the WP article about prostitution is titled prostitution, so the WP article about sex work is titled sex work. It is perfectly understandable that the title "Migrant sex work" might make some people angry, but others I suspect would be made angry by the title "Migrant prostitution".

One distinction being proposed here is the idea that sex work is voluntary while prostitution is involuntary. Some of the difficulties with our using such a distinction are covered in the "Conflation with human trafficking" subsection. I also don't believe that such a distinction is made throughout WP, nor indeed in most sources. What is clear is that this article deals with both voluntary and involuntary instances, and it does not appear to cover types of sex work other than prostitution.

A number of specific points spring to mind:

1. I think we need to keep an eye on the sources cited in the article. Most of these appear to use the term "sex work", and in those cases we ought to use that term. Equally, we should use the term "prostitution" in those cases where the sources use that term.
2. The lead, preferably in or near the definition, should make it clear that both terms apply to the subject of the article.
3. The definition should not use the word "prostitution" transitively (the prostitution of migrants) as this implies the article only covers involuntary cases.

As for the article's title, I'd personally choose to return to the original title as it's more compatible with the sources, but I don't have too many problems with the current title either.

Polly Tunnel (talk) 15:55, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia seems to be caught in the crossfire of a terminology war. On this page we have the strong view that "prostitute" should be used rather than "sex worker". The opposite is happening on the article Prostitution, with editors wanting to change "prostitute" to "sex worker" as prostitute has become stigmatised. --John B123 (talk) 18:21, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Another one today on Violence against prostitutes [1] with the edit summary "Please remove the word prostitute from this wiki article. It is a slur. Please use sex work and sex worker instead." --John B123 (talk) 15:58, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

John B123 alerted me to this matter via this discussion. I reverted the page move per WP:Requested moves#Undiscussed moves. WP:Status quo applies in this case. WP:Common name should also be considered. I see that the sources are using the term "sex work" except perhaps for cases specifically about prostitution. I also made this, this and this followup edit. Stick to what the sources state and with WP:Due weight. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:03, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program course assignment

This article is the subject of an educational assignment at Rice University supported by the Wikipedia Ambassador Program during the 2013 Q1 term. Further details are available on the course page.

The above message was substituted from {{WAP assignment}} by PrimeBOT (talk) on 17:00, 2 January 2023 (UTC)