Silence,mobility and ‘national values’: South Korean sex workers in Australia

Abstract

Korean women sex workers have attracted attention from Australian border security, South Korean government officials and Korean-Australian communities. This article considers how the bodies of these women have become the ‘iconic sites’ (Luibhéid, 2002: ix–xxvii) on which the South Korean government and immigrant Korean-Australian communities perform ‘national values’. Within Korean-Australian communities, Korean sex workers have been perceived as threats to the immigrant project of socio-economic mobility and ‘legitimate’ citizenship. We consider the silence that is desired of sex workers within immigrant communities and how this can be co-opted by anti-trafficking discourses that are still predicated on the helpless, voiceless female victim.

Keywords

Anti-trafficking gender and migration migration sex work stigma

Introduction

Government officials, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and law enforcement have all cast their gaze towards Korean sex workers in Australia and scrutinized Korean sex workers for evidence of trafficking, debt bondage, vulnerability or illegal work. Korean sex workers comprise one of the main groups of immigrant or culturally and linguistically diverse (CaLD) sex workers in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia (Jang et al., 2009). The Australian Attorney-General’s Department confirmed that between 1 March 2004 and 31 March 2007, 530 Korean nationals were found working lawfully in the sex industry in Australia and 135 Korean nationals were found working unlawfully in the same industry (personal communication, 2007). A government report on non-Australian citizens working in the sex industry over a 12-month period in 2004/2005 showed that South Koreans outnumbered any other nationality (Australian National Audit Office, 2006: 75), with Working Holiday (WH) visas the most favoured visa class for these Korean sex workers (208 holding WH visas out of 244 cases identified). There was a big jump in the number of South Korean sex workers holding Working Holiday visas in Australia in the year to 30 June 2005 compared with the previous year. Some 222 workers were identified, up from 63 in 2003–2004.

The presence of Korean sex workers in Australia has also captured the attention of the Korean community in Australia. Within the Korean-Australian community in Sydney and Melbourne, community campaigns have emerged that ostracize Korean sex workers and call for their removal from Australia or their removal from sex work. The messaging by the Korean-Australian community has emphasized fears about the Korean-Australian community’s reputation and mobility. The anti-prostitution ‘eradication campaigns’ by members of the Korean-Australian community present an interesting case in which to consider issues of nationalism, minority representation, belonging and the practice of citizenship. In this article, citizenship refers to the social or everyday dimensions of citizenship or ‘belonging’ and encompasses ‘status, rights, practices and performances’ (Macklin, 2007: 334) that extend beyond a legal or administrative status.

Despite the increased media and government attention around Korean sex workers in Australia, there has been little research into Korean sex workers’ experiences in the Australian sex-work sector. This article addresses that gap and, based on in-depth interviews with 26 Korean women in Australia, highlights the voices and concerns of Korean sex workers themselves. In this article, we will first consider the South Korean government’s attempts to police Korean sex workers working abroad and the role of nationalist discourses in these efforts. Second, we examine the Korean-Australian community’s stigmatization of Korean sex workers in Australia, and situate this inquiry within the broader research literature on nationalism, citizenship, immigration and belonging. Third, we present sex workers’ responses to community stigma and discuss priorities identified by sex workers. We conclude with a comment on the silence of Korean sex workers within anti-trafficking and anti-prostitution debates led by anti-prostitution community campaigns and the South Korean government.

Methodology

This research draws on data from two separate research projects. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 26 Korean women with experience in Australia’s sex industry, 21 of whom were interviewed between February 2007 and April 2008 and five of whom were interviewed in 2013 and 2014 (four research participants and one key informant¹). Twenty one Korean women were interviewed for a research project in 2007–2008 specifically to assess the prevalence of trafficking victimization among Korean women in the Australian sex industry. Participant recruitment was aided by assistance from organizations with frequent contact with Korean sex workers. Leaflets about the project were distributed to community organizations and services, and advertisements were posted in community media and websites, which yielded a small number of responses. Instead, the majority of participants were recruited through snowball sampling; women were asked at the end of interviews if they could inform potential participants about the project. Interviewees in this project were compensated for their time and transport expenses (individual amounts varied up to $150 AUD). Workers based in Sydney were interviewed in Korean by a Korean-speaking researcher.²

Interviews conducted in 2012–2014 were grounded in a sex workers’ rights perspective and focused on the work experiences of immigrant, migrant and racialized sex workers in the sex industry in Melbourne, Australia and Vancouver, Canada. Four women interviewed for this project were Koreans working in Australia and are included in this analysis. Sex workers were contacted for this project through the researcher’s visits to licensed brothels in Melbourne as well as the distribution of Korean-language recruitment flyers in brothels and via email to independent workers’ websites. Participants were offered an honoraria of 40 AUD. To reduce the potential for social desirability bias, participants were given the honoraria after the consent form was signed and before the interview began. Participants were reminded that no particular narrative (e.g. victimization) or disclosure of personal details was sought, but that the intent of the project was to explore how women manage and structure their work in the sex industry. All but one of the workers in Melbourne (and all of the Melbourne workers quoted in this article) were interviewed in English by a Korean-Canadian researcher.

In addition to semi-structured interviews, data was collected from interviews and written communication with 22 informants from government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the sex industry in Australia.³ Additional data from key informants such as one sex worker, NGOs in South Korea, journalists, policy-makers both in South Korea and Australia were collected between 2012 and 2014. Secondary source materials, including articles in the South Korean and Australian media, academic publications and government and NGO reports, were also collected and analysed.

Of the 26 women discussed in this paper, i.e., 22 from the first research (21 from 2007–2008 and 1 from 2013–2014) and 4 from the second research (2012–2014), 11 worked as hostesses (with nine women working at noraebangs or karaoke bars and two at room salons). Nine women worked in brothels, five women worked in massage parlours, and one woman worked as an independent escort. Most women moved between workplaces (usually within the same industry). Interviews were analysed using reflective thematic analysis (Charmaz, 2006) to identify categories and key themes regarding citizenship, immigration, and stigma. Interviews were transcribed and read several times with initial analytic observations noted. Transcripts were coded line-by-line. Key themes were reviewed in relation to coded extracts and consideration of transcripts as a whole. The process of analysis was undertaken through individual analysis of the data and reflection as well as through discussion amongst the research team.

Criminalization of sex work and migration

We want to stop Korean sex workers doing sex business in Australia and to stop the [criminal] organizations associated with this activity. (Senior Korean official as quoted in Gridneff, 2012)

Attempts by both the Korean-Australian community and the South Korean government to police Korean sex workers in Australia demonstrates the ongoing debate about whether sex work is gendered exploitation (e.g. Raymond, 2004; Sullivan, 2007) or legitimate labour entitled to rights and protections afforded to other occupational sectors (Abel et al., 2010; Maher et al., 2012; Shaver, 2005; Weitzer, 2010; also see Showden, 2011 for a summary of this debate). Those who subscribe to the view that sex work is ultimately a form of violence against women are often referred to as anti-prostitution abolitionists and advocate the eradication of sex work. Those subscribing to a labour perspective or sex workers’ rights framework call for equal access to rights and justice for sex workers and the right to work without fear of criminal prosecution. We situate this enquiry within a labour perspective to better capture the day-to-day realities of sex workers and to examine the impact of anti-prostitution efforts on sex workers’ safety and well-being.

While the South Korean government has expressed a very public alarm over the increasing number of Korean sex workers abroad, what is less acknowledged is the role of South Korean anti-prostitution laws in shaping this migration. Partly in response to a Tier 3 ranking in the 2001 US Trafficking In Persons report,⁴ the South Korean government introduced two anti-prostitution laws in 2004: the Act on the Punishment of Procuring Prostitution and Associated Acts (otherwise referred to as the Punishment Act) and the Act on the Prevention of Prostitution and Protection of Victims Thereof (otherwise referred to as the Protection Act). The Punishment Act considers pimps, intermediaries and buyers to be criminals, while ostensibly protecting women who are made to sell sex by force, coercion or threat (Cho, 2005). The Protection Act offers welfare and rehabilitation services for sex workers who are recognized as victims. The anti-prostitution legislation in South Korea does not yet provide blanket protection to victims of forced prostitution. Instead, the protection is only for victims identified by police and public prosecutors.

State protection remains only for ‘prostituted women’ or ‘victims of prostitution’ who are deemed innocent, while it ‘prosecutes, criminalizes, or ignores those who are seen as complicit in their victimization’ (Cheng, 2011: 1643). The extra-territorial reach of South Korean anti-prostitution law criminalizes any nationals who engage in sex work, whether within or outside the borders of South Korea. For example, South Korean citizens who work legally in the Australian sex-work sector can be charged with prostitution offences when they return to South Korea. The South Korean government has reportedly threatened reprisals if women are caught engaging in sex work outside of South Korea.

In accordance to Korean law which regulates prostitution, such men or women involved will be subject to imprisonment up to a year. Once factual evidence is secured, the Korean government will consider such actions as cancellation of their passports and their compulsory return to Korea. In that case, they would be prohibited from leaving Korea for a period of three years. (Official from Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, as cited in Seage, 2013)

The government has also dispatched the Special Ambassador for Overseas Koreans and Consular Affairs to Canberra to discuss this issue with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and law enforcement officials (Seage, 2013). In late 2011, Jin Soo Kim, the Sydney Consul General for South Korea, sent a formal letter to Sydney councils asking for the names of any Korean sex workers working in Sydney brothels, either as victims of trafficking or prostitution offenders (‘S Korea wants crackdown’, 2012). The blurred boundaries between victims and offenders continues in media coverage about Korean sex workers in Australia in which sex work and trafficking are conflated, and calls to rescue women from victimization occur alongside calls to punish women who engage in sex work (‘Envoy’, 2011; Gridneff, 2012; Lee, 2011).

Since 2004, the South Korean government’s crackdown on brothels and other sex work businesses has been followed by many sex workers moving to Australia and elsewhere (e.g. Choo and Rebovich, 2014). Australian community stakeholders, law enforcement officers and the 2010 Victoria Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee have all suggested that South Korea’s anti-trafficking (i.e. anti-prostitution) laws and the legalization of sex work in Victoria have contributed to the movement of South Korean sex workers to Victoria, Australia (Jang et al., 2010; ‘Korean sex workers’, 2005; Lee, 2011; Na, 2012; Pickering et al., 2009). Unlike in South Korea, sex work in Australia is tolerated, decriminalized or legalized according to state or territory (Jeffreys, 2009). Sex work in the state of New South Wales (where Sydney is situated) is decriminalized (i.e. the removal of criminal sanctions for sex work), whereas sex work is legalized in the state of Victoria (where Melbourne is situated), through a licensing framework.

Interestingly, sex-worker activism has become much more visible in the mainstream media in South Korea since the introduction of anti-prostitution legislation. By situating sex work in the context of work, ‘making a living’ and ‘the right to live’, sex-worker activists sought to keep their distance from the sexual politics that regard prostitution as sexual violence (Cho, 2005; Ko, 2006; Moonhee and Young Mi, 2006). Indeed, sex worker groups have argued that the anti-prostitution laws violate women’s rights by making their labour illegal. South Korean sex workers have also called for the South Korean government to assert their sovereignty and challenge the US government’s controversial US Trafficking In Persons report rankings (Cheng, 2011; Jeffreys, 2009).

Korean-Australian anti-prostitution community campaigns and performing ‘national values’

The South Korean government’s attempts to police sex work across borders are compounded by Korean-Australian communities’ vigorous support of crackdowns against Korean sex workers who enter Australia, presumably on Working Holiday visas (Na, 2012). In response to the South Korean media coverage about Korean sex workers in Australia, Korean community members in Sydney formed an alliance to protest against the sex work sector and called for the criminalization of sex work in Australia. It has been reported that more than 2000 Koreans living in Australia were willing to join a street campaign in Sydney (Na, 2012). The alliance has taken out advertisements in Korean-language newspapers in Australia calling on South Korea and Australia to revise the working holiday system to prevent Korean sex workers from getting Working Holiday visas for Australia (Na, 2012). In February 2012, the New South Wales government launched an inquiry into the alleged sex trafficking of Korean women in response to demands from the Korean community in Sydney (interview with Strathfield MP Charles Casusscelli).

There may be a number of reasons why immigrant communities might stigmatize sex work, and these may not differ from the reasons sex work is stigmatized by the broader community. For example, members of the community may hold the opinion that sex work is immoral, or that the most extreme examples depicted in the media represent the whole sex work sector. The use (and regulation) of women’s sexuality in constructing nationalist discourses has particular resonance for South Korea, given the history of ‘comfort women’⁵ during the 1910–1945 Japanese military occupation of Korea (and subsequently China and South-East Asia) and the current visibility of the sex work sector around US military bases (Moon, 2007). In nationalist discourses, the sexual morality of Korean women has functioned as a metaphor for the authenticity of South Korea’s identity and sovereignty (Moon, 2007), and the sexual victimization of or sex work by a country’s women has been used to represent the loss of national sovereignty (Cheng, 2011; FitzGerald, 2010; Jeffrey, 2005; Moon, 2007). Violence against sex workers around US military bases has been used to fuel anti-American sentiment in South Korea, even as helping the victims of this violence is considered a secondary priority to expelling US forces (Moon, 2007).

However, the responses by the Korean-Australian community have stressed the negative consequences for the broader Korean-Australian community. In English-language media, concerns are centred on representation and legitimacy. The alliance of Korean communities has called Korean ‘prostitutes’ a national disgrace and a threat to South Korea’s reputation.

Many Australians take the problem very seriously. Korea’s reputation is being tarnished as they see the country as an exporter of prostitutes … Some jokingly say prostitutes are one of Korea’s major export items. It is shameful for all of us. (Korean community association spokesperson, as cited in Na, 2012)

I think people migrating from Korea are some of the best migrants we receive in our country … Koreans are rightly proud of their wonderful culture, of their education system, of the contribution they make to the Australian way of life. (Victor Michael Dominello, Minister for Citizenship, Communities and Aboriginal Affairs in New South Wales as cited in Moon, 2012)

The links between representation, legitimacy and mobility can be urgent concerns for marginalized communities (e.g. Skeggs, 2004; Skeggs and Loveday, 2012) such as immigrant and visible minority communities. This may be particularly salient in Australia, given its history of favouring immigration from European countries (i.e. White Australia policy). Perceptions of a visible minority by a historically White society can have consequences for social and economic mobility, which remains one archetypal immigrant narrative. However, sex work complicates ideas about mobility as sex work may afford some mobilities such as financial, economic mobilities, but impede others such as social mobilities (Ham and Gerard, 2014). The resistance within immigrant communities towards sex workers’ rights, as evidenced by the quotation from the Korean community association spokesperson, given earlier, may also speak to fears (and often lived realities) of downward mobility documented in immigration research (e.g. Guo, 2013a, 2013b; Man, 2004), and concerns that employment options are not determined by one’s qualifications so much as by what attributes are ascribed to one’s racial, migrant or ethnic identity.

If perceptions of immigrant or visible minority communities have consequences for social and economic mobility, how are those perceptions managed by immigrant communities? Research on second-generation ethnic or religious minorities, migrants, refugees, Muslim communities and racial minorities have examined the strategies marginalized communities have used to demonstrate or ‘prove’ their citizenship (legal, social, or practical) and/or belonging (e.g. Anderson et al., 2011; Frisina, 2010; Ramos-Zayas, 2004; Riccio and Russo, 2011). It may be that the Korean-Australian community’s ostracization of sex workers provides one way for a racialized community to practice citizenship in a country that has historically privileged Whiteness (e.g. White Australia policy). Korean-Australians’ anti-prostitution campaign efforts mirror the ‘politics of worthiness’ (Ramos-Zayas, 2004) or the social performances that demonstrate one’s worthiness to reside peacefully in a particular country. How this legitimacy is achieved depends on adherence to what Anderson et al. (2011) calls a state’s ‘community of value’, whether adherence to the values ascribed to a certain nation or the values that have been ascribed for one’s particular community. It may be that Korean-Australian campaigns against Korean sex workers in Australia act as a way of practising and legitimizing citizenship by allowing members to demonstrate that they know (and are capable of enforcing) the differences between ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ immigrants. In the post-9/11 era, researchers have noted that citizenship obligations have expanded to include surveillance duties such as reporting ‘illegal’ migrants and reporting suspicions of terrorism to authorities (Anderson et al., 2011). In anti-prostitution campaigns which emphasize the ‘type’ of Koreans that Korean sex workers are assumed to undermine, Korean-Australians can act as arbiters of what Koreanness will mean or represent in Australia.

Korean sex workers’ responses to community stigma

The vocal and emotionally charged responses from the Korean-Australian community, the South Korean government and Australian anti-trafficking and anti-prostitution stakeholders contrasts with the relative silence from Korean sex workers in public discourses. Service provision organizations and researchers have described Korean sex workers in Australia as a ‘hard to reach’ group (Jang et al., 2010). In Jang et al.’s (2010) study of Korean sex workers in Australia, the majority of sex workers further protected their anonymity by masking their appearance during research interviews with baseball caps, sunglasses and scarves. In this section, we seek to address this silence by sharing Korean sex workers’ reflections on the stigma fostered by the Korean-Australian community. We also highlight sex workers’ expressed priorities that are often silenced in public discourses, namely economic empowerment and ethical working conditions.

In this article, all 26 interviewees voluntarily sought work in the Australian hostess and sex industry. Contrary to stereotypical representations of the coerced or deceived Asian sex worker, participants’ migration to Australia was self-directed and all had left Korea on their own initiative. Seventeen of them specified that they came to Australia with an intention to work in the hostess or sex industry. For seven interviewees, work was a secondary activity to their primary purpose for coming to Australia, often study or travel; the motivations for the remaining two workers is not known. There were 19 women who had come to Australia with a one-year Working Holiday (WH) visa. Four came to Australia on student or tourist visas. None of the women suggested that their migration to and employment in Australia had links to a criminal network and there were no signs of organized crime, such as false documentation, drugs or money laundering within their workplace.

In 2013 and 2014 interviews, South Korean sex workers in Melbourne and Sydney were forthright about the hypocrisies they perceived in Korean-Australian campaigns against Korean sex workers. Lila⁶ and Mia challenged the hypocrisy of Korean-Australians who stigmatized Korean women engaging in sex work while simultaneously benefiting from sex workers’ services or business. Lila pointed out the influence of nationalist discourses in discounting sex workers’ contributions to diasporic economies:

But they sell to Korean [workers] – supermarket, food, things. He makes money because of me or sex shop women. [Then] turn around [and say] ‘Korea image bad, you go’ – [this is] selfish, Korean-style selfish. (Lila, 28, brothel worker, Melbourne)

Mia criticized Korean clients that sought to police Korean women’s involvement in the sex industry, even as they sought out their services:

I think they’re just a bunch of bullshitters … But anyway, long story short, one of them [clients] were kind of judgmental. It’s like you booked me! And you asked me if I was Korean. [He said] ‘So why don’t you go back to Korea?’ … first of all, I came here when I was [a teenager], [I] have a degree from here. They’re really pity looking and like, ‘why don’t you, like, quit this and go back to Korea?’ [I reply] ‘I possibly earn way more money than you’. Lot of things, like, where do I start? (Mia, 25, independent worker, Melbourne)

Concerns about representation and imagery were centred in sex workers’ analyses, and participants critiqued the use of nationalist discourses to further marginalize sex workers. Women readily identified the differences between their experiential knowledge of the sex industry and the misinformation that grounded anti-prostitution campaigns, as Amanda notes when asked about her responses to such campaigns:

No. I never [respond], cause I think I’m here, but they are not. They don’t know about these things. They don’t know about how, how we work. So they can talk whatever they think, that’s only from brain [imagination], from thinking. You know? But this kind of industry, this type of industry … it’s very different from what they talk. (Amanda, 40, brothel worker, Melbourne)

Amanda also argued that Korean community and media attention was only concerned about particular Koreans, depending on their legal status. In the next quotation, she notes that workers with more precarious status (i.e. temporary visas) tend to bear the brunt of Korean-Australian communities’ selective scrutiny:

Normally, on newspaper, have issue about working holiday visa or student visa, something like that. They don’t talk about permanent or citizens here, they don’t care about that. But … whoever working here, just work here, same. Doesn’t make different, you know, which visa you have. As long as you are here, just here, working in sex work, same.

… they’re only talking about Korean cause they’re Korean. I think that’s wrong, of course. They should feel all same, this industry. But they don’t, you know, feel bad with Aussie [workers], with Thai or Japan, they don’t feel like that. But only with Korean, because they are Korean. That’s the reason – we don’t want to see same country people.

While Lila and Amanda critically challenged the intent and content of anti-prostitution campaigns, they and other workers interviewed also spoke of the toll stigma placed on their lives and the effort needed to maintain separate work and personal identities, in Australia and South Korea. Although sex work discourses may at times appear to present an easy dichotomy between ‘exploited’ and ‘empowered’ sex workers, participants’ comments eschew an easy categorization. Continually countering ostracization demonstrates resilience but can also demand significant internal resources.

There’s website, online community, social in Melbourne. But they, sometimes they talk about sex workers. If you know, brothels or Korean sex workers have issues in newspaper or radio or something like that, they thinking very angry because they’re Korean … they write down very bad things. If you read, [you become] very upset. (Amanda, 40, brothel worker, Melbourne)

In response to my story, [the psychologist I visited in Korea] only asked me why I had to choose this work when I had other options. Then I realized that he’d never understand me. I never went to see him again. Wherever I go for help, it’ll be useless as much as the psychologist. (Dina, 28, massage worker, Sydney)

With intense social stigma and moral judgement about sex work, all kept their work secret from family and friends. All of the workers interviewed in Sydney said that they found it easier to work in Australia because it was easier to hide their occupation at such a distance from friends and family. At work, pseudonyms were the norm, typically common English names. Of the 21 women interviewed in 2007–2008, nine women indicated that they had one or more individuals that they could ask for help. This constant concern about social exposure complicated social engagement and access to formal and informal sources of support in Australia.

I sometimes wish to go to church, a Korean church. But what makes me hesitate is … what if I bump into my regular on the street while I’m with my church people? What if he calls me my work name in front of them? What if they get to know about the work I do? It would be really a burning shame! (Susie, 25, noraebang doumi, Sydney)

All of the workers interviewed in Sydney found it very difficult to maintain intimate relationships. One karaoke bar hostess talked about an ex-boyfriend: ‘When he found out the work I was doing, he got furious with me and then our relationship was brought to an ugly end.’ Another room-salon hostess, said that although she managed to keep her work secret, she constantly felt guilty towards her boyfriend until she finally quit.

While public and government discourses have focused on issues of legality and illegality to explain the movement of sex workers across borders, Korean workers in Australia discussed a range of economic and personal motivations that influenced their decision to work abroad. The overriding trends of globalization and internationalization in South Korea may also direct women towards Australia. Certainly, more South Koreans are venturing overseas to travel, study and learn English (Shin, 2003). Many women indicated that one reason for travelling to Australia was the opportunity to explore a new country and learn English. Seven interviewees said that they came to Australia to study and six were enrolled in an educational institution. Regardless of whether they had higher educational qualifications, many women were previously engaged in low-paid work and often found it difficult to support themselves in South Korea. For a range of personal reasons, the priority for these women was to make as much money as possible and as quickly as possible. Some were supporting their families back home, while others wanted to finance other goals, including more study, repayment of personal debts, or gathering capital for a business or real estate. Five of the eleven karaoke doumi interviewed were financing or had financed their study in Australia through their work. As one worker argued:

When working at a restaurant, I could hardly afford to pay the rent. Although I worked eight hours a day, seven days a week, there was always no money left for me. Then I got involved in this work in a hope to make money little easily. Now I can afford to send some money to my parents. (Wendy, 24, karaoke worker, Sydney)

Although anti-trafficking discourses in South Korea and Australia have stressed debt bondage, none of the women were under a slavery or bondage agreement. Instead, personal debts were a greater concern for the sex workers interviewed. Five of the 26 interviewees said that credit card debt and personal loans factored in their decision to come to Australia, even if their debts were not necessarily substantial, ranging from 2,000,000 won (USD 2100) to 10,000,000 won (USD 10,600).

The stigmatization of Korean sex workers in Australia unfortunately ends up obscuring, rather than illuminating, exploitative conditions in the workplace. Interviewees worked in a range of workplaces including karaoke bars, hostess bars, massage parlours and brothels. Women moved between agencies for a range of reasons, such as dissatisfaction with pay or the extent of work that was required. In Sydney, women noted that if their employers were Korean, they were more likely to have their earnings withheld or ‘managed’, and their working hours and fees dictated to them. Although workers had the legal right to work in Australia (e.g. Working Holiday visas), workers critiqued unsupportive work environments and management practices that diminished worker autonomy, such as continuing changing ‘house rules’ or workplace rules governing tardiness, absences or termination. Women also questioned requirements in certain workplaces regarding required deposits paid to the owner, lack of choice regarding shifts and clients, and pressure to take on longer shifts.

You have to stay on premise until close of business, which is normally three or four o’clock in the morning as free transport is available only at that time. Otherwise you have to take a taxi at your expense. And he prefers girls working at least six days a week. If you try to choose working days and hours at your own convenience, he won’t let you continue to work. That how I got fired. (Emma, 28, former noraebang doumi, Sydney)

Women’s critiques reveal that sex workers are acutely aware of the importance of ethical working conditions and supportive work environments. However, current government and community analyses that continue to focus on the individual legality, morality and legitimacy of sex workers may likely pose a barrier to addressing work conditions and work environments.

Concluding comments: Korean sex workers’ silences

Korean sex workers’ voices have been conspicuously absent from the debate sparked by the Korean-Australian community and the South Korean government, an omission we hope to rectify with this article. Indeed, it could be argued that the Korean-Australian community’s stigmatization campaigns and the South Korean government’s extra-territorial efforts rely on Korean sex workers’ silences. The meaning of Korean sex workers’ silences can be malleable depending on what’s at stake. Asian sex workers⁷ are already highly visible (and arguably over-represented) in discussions around sex work and migration. On the one hand, silence can be a protective strategy for sex workers, to protect their privacy and prevent stigmatization (Ham and Gerard, 2014). Silence may be particularly relevant for Korean sex workers, as they can be at risk of arrest for prostitution offences upon their return to South Korea.

The use of silence as an agentic or protective strategy contrasts with anti-trafficking and anti-prostitution frameworks that posit silence as an indicator of isolation, vulnerability or cultural difference. Migrant women in the sex industry are often regarded as trafficked victims, despite research showing this presumption by many international bodies and governments to be incorrect (Jeffreys, 2009; Mai, 2012). Feminist and post-colonial scholars have critiqued the anti-trafficking efforts that have resulted in harms against sex workers and for relying on highly exoticized images of violence against racialized women (e.g. Andrijasevic, 2007; Kempadoo, 1999; Kim and Fu, 2008). This has resulted in an anti-trafficking sector that is economically and politically invested in what Jules Kim (2014) of the Scarlet Alliance⁸ calls ‘the convenient lie of the silent sex worker’. The trope of the racialized helpless, passive victim continues to be thoroughly critiqued by feminist scholars and activists. To this, we would add that analyses of migrant or immigrant sex work should not be limited to proving the inaccuracy of racialized stereotypes (or how women ‘rise above’ the stereotypes assigned to them), but rather must also address how anti-trafficking, border control and other stakeholders may stand to benefit or utilize these tropes of passivity and sex workers’ silences.

The presence of Korean-Australian anti-prostitution campaigns also raises the question of whether the values argued by these campaigns are an assertion of ‘Korean’ values (who is the ‘proper’ Korean) or ‘minority’ values (who is ‘the good immigrant’). Are these Korean-Australian anti-prostitution campaigns a show of ‘Australianness’, to prove a community’s legitimacy in Australia by policing which community members are fit or unfit in reside in Australia? Or are these anti-prostitution campaigns a display of ‘Koreanness’, to determine what the meaning of ‘being Korean’ in Australia will mean? The question remains whether the tension between immigrant narratives and sex workers’ rights is if sex work provides an uncomfortable reminder of how precarious citizenship and socio-economic mobility are for visible minority communities in a country that has historically privileged Whiteness in its immigration policies. If this is the case, support for sex workers’ rights may be perceived to undermine the narrative of socio-economic mobility, even if sex work provides a vehicle for economic mobility for workers.

Perhaps the concept of mobility (social, economic, physical, etc.) can provide a useful common starting point between immigrant narratives and sex workers’ rights. Mobility is a central characteristic of sex work – in terms of what it affords, but also how sex work is practised (Agustin, 2003; Ham and Gerard, 2014; Maher et al., 2012; Sanders and Hardy, 2012). This includes moving workplaces or moving locations to increase business, and movement in and out of sex work over time. Mobility also remains a central tenet of immigrant narratives in western, English-speaking countries (e.g. Guo, 2013a, 2013b; Man, 2004) as demonstrated by the fears that Korean sex workers impede the mobility of Korean-Australians who are not in the sex-work sector: one of the underlying messages in Korean-Australian anti-prostitution campaigns. Greater understanding and solidarity within immigrant communities could be fostered by revealing how stigma impedes socio-economic mobility and the immigrant project for sex workers. Within sex-work communities, mobility may act as a useful starting point to discuss how women experience sex work differently based on their social location (e.g. socio-economic status, migrant status) and the consequences of racialization or anti-immigrant sentiment on sex workers’ mobility. As with other social movements, the sex workers’ rights community has not been immune to critiques that it reflects the priorities of more privileged sex workers or sex workers that are located closer to dominant, hegemonic ideals such as white, middle-class workers (Bernstein, 2007; Bouclin, 2006; Wojcicki, 1999). Analysing sex work through an immigrant mobility lens may help illuminate the diversity of concerns about the sex work sector and strengthen strategies to assist sex workers from diverse social locations.

Footnotes

Funding

The data collection undertaken in 2007 and 2008 was funded by the Bombit Foundation, South Korea.

Notes

Julie Ham is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong. Her research explores how the regulation of sex work and migration shapes sex workers' security, mobility and agency. She has published on the impact of anti-trafficking measures on sex workers' rights, feminist participatory action research, and activist efforts by trafficking survivors, sex workers and domestic workers.

Kyungja Jung is Senior Lecturer in Social Inquiry at the University of Technology, Sydney. Kyungja's academic interests are grounded in and inspired by her involvement in women's activism in Australia and Korea. Drawing on feminist theories of intersectionality, her research maps the gendered nature of social processes from cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approaches. Her areas of research include women's movements, women's policy, North Korean female defectors, sex workers, violence against women and migrant women's issues.

Haeyoung Jang works at the Ageing, Work and Health Research Unit, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney. Haeyoung is an interdisciplinary researcher with a qualification in social policy. She is an experienced qualitative researcher in ageing, culture and gender studies. Her interests include ageing, aged care, cultural influences, migration effects, culturally and linguistically diverse communities and gender issues.

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