Notes: Children in Sex Work - Part 3

In all my travels and years in development work, I always find the plight of children to be disturbing. As a foreigner and tourist in developing countries, I can’t help but notice children in the streets begging or being involved in the flesh trade. It is the latter that I find most upsetting. I know that the main reason behind these activities is poverty. But I can’t also help but wonder if children engaged in sex work are pure victims, or do they exercise human agency in making sense of, and living in the social world of sex work? What aspects of sex work are open to their decision-making? And how do children decide and interpret their engagement in this occupation?

This is the last part of my 3-part post.

THE RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION
In all free societies, the right to self-determination is a fundamental right. As such, all people, adult and children alike, possess it. However, children being young and immature, are considered to be lacking in adult reasoning and knowledge, and are thus incapable of being responsible for their deeds or for making the rational decision for themselves. Adults, then, through the state, and primarily, the family, uphold the right of self-determination for the children and deny them the right to make a choice.

Thus, while children possess this fundamental right, they are unable to exercise it. Yet, the child is not a mere innocent and passive social actor. The children sex workers are not mere victims who do nothing about their circumstances. They may have limitations, but they are also active agents that actively participate in the production and reproduction of the social rules and structures in sex work, even if only at their level.

The mere recognition by the child that she is an agent, and by claiming her body as her own resource, the child has effectively shown that she is a knowledgeable and competent social agent, albeit a limited one. Whenever they disobey their managers, they always refer to their own body as theirs, and so the decision on what to do with it should only be theirs.

The children sex workers have also shown that they are capable of rational decisions based on the choices available to them. All of them underwent a rational decision-making process in choosing to remain in sex work and refusing assistance from government and other institutions. As stated earlier, both Two of the children find sex work as a better alternative to their past lives. One rationalized that sex work is better than begging or vending in the streets as it gives her security of shelter, food and stable income. The other prefers sex work over being raped by her uncle and step cousin. For her, sex work is purely an economic transaction between her and the customers where she can exercise her agency, while rape is actually a situation of abuse where her agency is repressed.

Findings of studies also demonstrate that the children sex workers are in fact very effective agents to the point of defeating the social welfare institutions with their refusal to cooperate. Most of the institutions that have attempted to help them have always asked them about their families. These institutions believe that the families should be informed of the children's plight. But this is exactly the opposite of what the children want.

Two children refused outside attempts to help them get out of sex work for fear that their families will be involved. Both know that sex work is considered to be deviant and unacceptable, and they are afraid that they will be ostracized by their own family and friends for being involved in sex work. Mary, for her part, did not want her family to know about her plight because of her uncle's threat of killing her parents and siblings if she reported the rape/abuse to the authorities.

I conclude that child sex workers are not mere victims of exploitation. They are victims of society’s perception of them. They are victims of the very theories and policies that seek to protect them. Yet, they are also active social actors in sex work who both break and follow rules that consequently keep them in sex work. Regardless of their lack of knowledge and skills, and despite their lack of resources, children sex workers are competent agents in sex work, who, like all adults in society, do not want other people to deprive them of their right to exercise their agency and self-determination.

The right to self-determination is a fundamental right that is central to the issue of children’s liberation. It is essential to all the rights of the child. Thus, society should acknowledge this right. However, the acknowledgment and acceptance of the right of the child to self-determination by society should also be balanced by the recognition of the limitations of the child’s agency. Therefore, it is imperative that policies and programs for possible interventions affecting children sex workers must take into consideration both the agency and structured constraints of the child.

This post (including parts 1 & 2) is based on the paper "Children in Sex Work: Is There Room for Social Agency" that I presented during the Fifth National Social Science Congress at the Philippine Social Science Council in May 2003. The views reflected on all parts of this 3-part post are mine alone and does not in any way assume to have the same ideals and statements of the Philippine Social Science Council . If you have any comments, please feel free to do so...

Notes: Children in Sex Work - Part 2

In all my travels and years in development work, I always find the plight of children to be disturbing. As a foreigner and tourist in developing countries, I can’t help but notice children in the streets begging or being involved in the flesh trade. It is the latter that I find most upsetting. I know that the main reason behind these activities is poverty. But I can’t also help but wonder if children engaged in sex work are pure victims, or do they exercise human agency in making sense of, and living in the social world of sex work? What aspects of sex work are open to their decision-making? And how do children decide and interpret their engagement in this occupation?

This is the second of this 3-part post.

THE CHILD AS A SOCIAL AGENT
People acquire the capacities necessary to be agents in the social world, at the same time that society both enables and constrains the exercise of this agency. By active participant, I presuppose the intentionality and willingness of the child’s agency regardless of, and given, its limited experience and bounded knowledge – connoting the concept of the child sex worker’s limited agency and bounded realities.

Thus, I contend that children sex workers have both the practical and discursive knowledge, however limited these may be, of the rules and structures in the social world. These include authority structures and role-specific social structures that guide the actions, interactions, and relations of social actors in the process of exercising their agency through restructuration (reproduction of social structures) and destructuration (breaking the rules and preventing the reproduction of structures).

This contention presupposes the rationality of the children sex workers as it is imperative to establish the intentionality of the child as active social agents, albeit a limited one given the limitations of the child’s knowledge and experience. While knowledgeability is founded less upon discursive consciousness than practical consciousness; human agents always know what they are doing on the level of discursive under some description.

I further contend that the child’s agency is limited compared to the adult; the child’s exercise of agency is bounded by the lack of knowledge and experience by virtue of their age, and not because of their incapacity for reason. The adult is more “rational” than the child in the sense that the adult has more time than the child to acquire knowledge and experience, and to exercise the ability to reason. In other words, the child is capable of reason as far as her knowledge and experience allows.

Thus, I also contend that the limited knowledge and experience of the children sex workers does not prevent them from exercising their agency in their everyday life situations, however limited her agency may be compared to the adult social actors in sex work.

The children sex workers I have interviewed and observed were 14 years old. Prior to sex work, the social worlds of these three children were limited only to the family and, in one case, to the gang, as well. The very limited knowledge and experience of the children sex workers, which form their discursive and practical consciousness, were founded on this bounded reality as they entered sex work.

Furthermore, the social rules and structures in sex work affect the agency of the child. Most of the social rules and structures in sex work are mainly based on the social constructions of childhood and sexuality characterized by adult and male bias. Thus, as the child exercises her agency in sex work in her everyday interactions and relations with the pimps, managers, and customers, the child finds her agency to be limited not only by her bounded reality, but also by the social rules and structures in sex work.

Wait for the last part of this 3-part post...

Notes: Children in Sex Work - Part 1

In all my travels and years in development work, I always find the plight of children to be disturbing. As a foreigner and tourist in developing countries, I can’t help but notice children in the streets begging or being involved in the flesh trade. It is the latter that I find most upsetting. I know that the main reason behind these activities is poverty. But I can’t also help but wonder if children engaged in sex work are pure victims, or do they exercise human agency in making sense of, and living in the social world of sex work? What aspects of sex work are open to their decision-making? And how do children decide and interpret their engagement in this occupation?

ADULTHOOD AND RATIONALITY
Many studies have been conducted on the involvement of children in sex work, but very few studies have dealt with the issue from the perspective of the child, as it is being lived and experienced by the child herself. Policies and laws regarding children reflect the social construction of children as incompetent human beings who lack reason and are thus “incapable of supporting themselves and of acting for their best interest.” Because of their perceived inability to act rationally, children are not allowed to participate in the adult world, and are seen to require the protection and supervision of adults. It is this adult bias that leads society to approach the issue of children’s sex work from an adult perspective.

However, there is no defining line that distinguishes the rational adult from the rational child. While adulthood is associated with full rationality, childhood cannot be considered as a period of complete lack of reason, since maturity and development of reason is a gradual process through the acquisition of ideas and experiences. As such, I contend that regardless of the limitation of knowledge and experiences of the child, the child makes sense of the social world in the process of living in it. I support the contention that human beings both act in the social world, and are acted upon by it.

In general, adults are assumed to be the only knowledgeable, active and competent social actors in society. Children are considered incapable of making the right decisions and taking the right actions because they are not yet equipped with the skill to make rational decisions, and they lack the knowledge of the rules and structures of society that would enable them to become active and competent actors. Thus, as a rule, adults make decisions for children until such time that the latter are deemed competent and fully capable of deciding and acting for their best interests.

In most countries, the transition from childhood to adulthood is defined by age; a person is considered to be an adult upon reaching the age of 18 years. Only then can the person act and be treated as an adult. Individuals have to undergo a process of socialization throughout their childhood and adolescence in order to prepare them to become adults. It is through the socialization process that social actors learn the social rules and structures of society that would guide their behavior and actions in any situation.

Through socialization, children are taught the idea of self-determination, and of agency, during this preparatory phase. They learn to exercise their agency. Society has even formed social structures that would facilitate a more ordered socialization of children. First and foremost of these are the family and school.

However, in the case of the children sex workers who are living apart from their family, and are not in school, their socialization has to be continued in their everyday life, and with the social actors in sex work. Sex work can then be considered as both the context and the process by which the children sex workers are socialized into a world of social inequality, based on social class, gender and age.

Wait for the 2nd part of this 3-part post...