Profit Making Disguised as Rehabilitation: The Biopolitics of Homo Sacer in China’s Custody Education Program for Sex Workers

Homo Sacer From Agamben

Agamben (1998) begins his genealogy by differentiating zoe and bios. Zoe refers to the simple living conditions common to all living beings. Bios refers to the form of living appropriate to human individuals or groups. Bios connotes a good life lived in accordance with particular rights and dignities of citizenship, the production of politicized life, in the form of citizenship, which is the common (Spencer, 2009; Ziarek, 2008). Homo sacer reflects a life that is not governed by the dictates of politics and humanity, which positions life outside the bios. Instead, the homo sacer occupies the zoe. Modern democratic states, Agamben argues, have the ability and right to deprive citizens and human beings of their rights. In places of exclusion such as refugee camps, inmates are merely allowed to have rights of which they can be deprived, as they lack the right to have rights.

The figure of the homo sacer encapsulates bare life in a zone of exception and in distinction. The homo sacer is “sacred” as she or he belongs to a class of things outside of society, simultaneously excluded and included from the social order. The homo sacer can be killed with impunity but not sacrificed for religious reasons. Such a person is included by the very means of being excluded. In making this argument, Agamben describes such an environment as the “camp,” recalling a history of concentration camps in Europe during World War II. The camp was a spatial environment that was completely removed from the proper jurisdiction of law, thereby excluding the bodies that occupied these spaces from the norms and protections of civil society. Through their removal from zoe and bios, the homo sacer is stripped of rights associated with bios. They maintain an extra-legal relationship with the law by being excluded from it (Agamben, 1998; DeCaroli, 2007). Within the colonial societies of India and Pakistan, Jabbar has provided a theoretical framework explaining the empirical exertion of control over the body of the sex worker and their subaltern resistance through the modalities of religion and imperialism (Jabbar, 2012).

Female Sex Workers as a Form of Homo Sacer in Postreform China

Following Foucault (1990) that “sex was a means of access both to the life of the body and the life of the species” (p. 146), it is necessary to shift the gaze upon the regulation of sex and the body of the sex worker to illuminate the role that sex plays in the analytic of power in postreform China. More important, for us, operationalizing Agamben’s notion of the homo sacer can reveal the extent to which sexuality and the body are evidence of the external stability of China’s wielding of power in postreform China marked by morpho stasis amid a rising tide of capitalism. From the East Asian perspective of Mainland China, Agamben’s theory provides a grounded conceptual understanding of the empirical phenomena of rural–migrant sex workers in China’s reform camps. Chinese reform camps are places that constitutively include migrant sex workers by virtue of their constitutive exclusion from the legal order. From a biopolitical standpoint, as rural migrants lack the legal rights of abode in urban cities without hukou, so they are effectively subject to the totalitarian political control over their bare life (zoe) in such reform camps (Tsang, 2019f). Perhaps more important, these societies adopt policies allowing the detention of terror suspects without trial as “states of exception,” which, in turn, are powerful enough to transform democracies into totalitarian regimes. Neither are the social forms of asylum seeking designated “newly transnational,” from a historical perspective at least, a useful corrective to the kinds of political universality European nation states have been in the habit of espousing since the Classical age. The near-absolute knowledge system that makes up the dominant culture encourages us to believe in this liberal–utopian myth. For every Eurocentric form of knowledge about “other peoples’ way of life,” the case of rural–migrant sex workers held in reform camps represents modes of resistance against the prevailing order. Those aspects are pockets of subversion that challenge our normative paradigm, and instances of subaltern “minority” existence that fail to challenge the dominant discourse. By stripping them of their rights to live in the urban spaces because of their involvement in prostitution, the biopolitical treatment of rural–migrant workers creates the figure of the homo sacer. Their sexual deeds are thus deemed immoral enough to render them “sacred” as they have been tainted by the vices of prostitution—an illegal act in modern China that carries severe penalties of imprisonment. In reform camps, the rural–migrant sex workers are included in the nation’s criminal justice system by their exclusion from the fabric of urban China’s societal system. In the social sciences, there is a shift toward understanding the “embodied” nature of prostitution as a social practice. Scholars of sex work have attempted to explain how the regime detaches the human body of the female sex worker as an objectified, discrete entity or element from its symbolic value in native postreform Chinese society.

Ethnographic Data in the Three Niche Markets

The importance of personal and professional networks cannot be stressed enough. I was able to stay and work in the high-end bar called Dragon Palace because the owner, Ken (pseudonym), was someone I had known for many years from my days as an undergraduate student in Hong Kong. As the initial research focus shifted from factory to sex work, I spoke to former classmates for leads on bar owners in China. Ken’s name came up and I called him. When I asked whether he knew of any places in China involved with this type of activity, he simply invited me to look around his bar in Dongguan, the Dragon Palace.

Similarly, Henry, owner of the low-end Peach Bar, was a former college classmate. So was Kevin, owner of the mid-tier bar Lotus Club. As we were college classmates, there was a degree of mutual trust, which assured them I was neither a police informant nor a crusader seeking to rescue the girls. In the same way, knowing these men from college (Henry and I had mutual friends) reassured me that I would be protected and watched over in this environment that was full of risk. In particular, Henry was a friend to many streetwalkers and played a vital role in putting me in contact with this very difficult-to-approach group. Henry was able to reassure both the bar girls and the streetwalkers that I was neither an undercover policewoman nor a spy. Kevin did the same for me in the mid-tier bar at the Lotus Club.

As a result, I was able to interview female sex workers from diverse backgrounds. All the 55 respondents were aged from 18 to 39 years. The respondents mostly came to Dongguan by way of Dongbei, Harbin, Hunan, Hubei, Jilin, Sichuan, Anhui, and Hebei; the majority of the respondents were born in rural communities. There were 32 respondents who had completed primary school; 19 completed junior high; and there were four participants who had completed high school. There were 45 women who resided illegally in urban Guangdong for 1 to 3 years. The other 10 women had lived in Guangdong for more than 10 years. Among the respondents, 39 of the women worked in factories before they transitioned into commercial sex work. Many of these women had either been laid off by employers or had willingly resigned from their previous jobs. The average monthly income for a mid-tier sex work was more than 15,000 yuan (US$2,419); low-end sex workers earned more than 11,000 yuan (US$1,774); and streetwalkers earned more than 9,000 yuan (US$1,304). Among the 55 sex workers interviewed, more than 70% of women were married or had one or two children. The rest were single. Although everyone had different reasons for engaging in sex work, none of the respondents said they were forced into sex work.

Recorded interviews, in situ note taking, postevent field notes, and less conventional methods such as QQ/WeChat interviews and photo-elicitation were utilized. Finally, community walks with the informants supplemented and amplified the data collected during the in-depth interviews. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed by using a grounded theory approach and the software package NVivo. The transcripts were analyzed by using a thematic analytic process that recognized major themes such as custody education, criminal justice, human rights, and the female sex workers in different low niche markets. I employed an inductive analysis of transcripts to see whether other themes or subthemes were identifiable. Assigned pseudonyms are used; excluding their ages, no personal information was collected. All of the verbatim accounts cited in this article were translated into English. To compensate the respondents for their time and participation, I gave cash coupons and noncash gifts (treating informants to lunch or dinner). Cash coupons valued at 200 yuan (US$30) were used as incentives to encourage the women to participate in the in-depth interviews that took place at a nearby café.

Dongguan as a Field Site

Dongguan, located around 50 km south of Guangzhou (the capital of Guangdong province), was selected because of the prevalence of its commercial sex industry, particularly in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. However, due to the crackdown campaigns in February 2014, the commercial sex landscape in Dongguan had changed considerably. Low-end sex services have been disproportionately and negatively affected; high-end bar owners, by contrast, have the financial resource and social capital to bribe police. In addition, due to frequent crackdowns, sex workers previously living in Dongguan have had to move to other cities, such as Hong Kong, Ningbo (Zhejiang province), and Huizhou (Guangdong province). Despite the numerous attempts made by the Chinese government to combat sex work, the “oldest profession in the world” continues to thrive. More recently, due to Yellow Crackdowns, most sex workers are using online platform such as “MeMe Live” (MeMeZhibao直播) to avoid being arrested by police.

Living Conditions in Custody Center

Unlike the prison system, custody education claims to incorporate a rehabilitative approach that seeks to reorient the detainees’ moral compass and their ideological positioning to better situate them with the ideological, political, and economic demands of the state. In line with such aims, physical labor has traditionally been a component of most detention sentences. However, physical labor is ideally only intended to be a minor portion of detainee’s sentences (Miller, 1982; Smith, 2012). Instead, detainees participate in labor, alongside a rigorous diet of moralistic and ideological pedagogy. This comes in the form of structured reading activities, counseling sessions, meetings with social workers, and other activities that hold relevance to detainees. On one hand, these activities are designed to provide detainees with practical skills that will help them when they leave the center and return to civil society. However, in reality, sex worker detainees rarely participate in any organized retraining and self-betterment activities. Instead, according to the respondents, the majority of the time is spent in the custody education center involved in highly strenuous labor. This stands in contrast with the supposed designated purpose of custody education, which is to provide detainees with the necessary skills and tools to leave the life of crime that originally brought them there.

However, most detainees seem to return to sex work after they leave custody education centers. The women gave a variety of reasons, but the most prevalent was to gain economic stability and to repay debts that they incurred during their sentences. Xiumen notes,

I had to pay for my living expenses in the center including sexually transmitted disease (STD) tests and therapy costs. But these costs are always much higher than regular hospitals and clinics. I was forced to have a STD examination but they didn’t tell me the results for the test . . . I also paid about 300 yuan (US$48) in living expenses per month. (Xiumen, 36, low-end female sex worker)

Xiaohua is a sex worker comes from Dongbei and works in Lotus Bar. She echoes Kiki’s claims:

The Chinese government, police, capitalists are bribing each other and running custody education as a business and making a lucrative profit . . . I was in there for six months and, of course, I had to pay my daily expenses. The toiletries are very expensive, at least triple the price of buying from the supermarket. Only rich people can be in jail, and poor people like me cannot survive. I’ve spent 10, 000 yuan (US$1,612) in 6 months. When I was released, I immediately went back to be a sex worker since I had to pay fines and debts from my sentence. This is very ironic because I’m not supposed to go back to it after being “rehabilitated.” The custody “education” did not change my mind or encourage me to change my career. I earn more than 8,000 yuan (US$1,290) a month which is three times more than working class workers with no skills. Why do I have to give up my job? (Xiahua, 29, mid-tier female sex worker)

Helin, a low-end sex worker originally from Guangdong, describes similar circumstances that ultimately lead her back to sex work.

. . . If I am sick and need medicine it will be deducted from my salary. I don’t think there is a need for a custody education, the purpose of “reeducation rehabilitation” is twisted. I was just working for the police, I didn’t have a salary. When I left the center in February [2016], I started back working as a sex worker immediately. (Helin, 39, low-end female sex worker)

Meixia comes from Guangdong and works in a low-end bar, she says,

I’ve used all my savings during my time in the custody center. I still have my son in my hometown and my mother takes care of him. When I was so broke, I could not afford to pay for my daily expenses in the center. The police asked me to give them a name to contact. They called my mother. Of course, my mother did not ask any question. But she is so quiet now, and I know she is ashamed . . . (Meixia, 37, low-end female sex worker)

Yuemiao, a streetwalker from Jilin, describes the high costs that come with living in custody education centers:

I paid 1,700 yuan (US$274) which included 200 yuan (US$32) monthly living expenses and another 500 yuan (US$80) extra for bedding, a uniform, and daily products like toothpaste . . . I was required to purchase all of my daily products. The stores inside the center charged at least triple that of normal supermarkets. I couldn’t wear clothing or shoes that my family brought. I had to purchase it inside. They are obviously over-priced. I was even charged 200 yuan (US$32) for my family to visit. (Yuemiao, 23, streetwalker)

Even worse, some sex workers told me the government officers woke them up in the early morning and forced them to get in the back of a truck wearing prisoner’s uniforms. They were then paraded around the streets for everyone to see, the purpose of the parade seemingly to simply insult and humiliate them. Yet, the government wants the sex worker to return to a “normal job” after she is released from the custody center. One night in June 2016, I went to a dark alley. I called Siuhan (28) who is a streetwalker, and she promised to talk to me about her experience in custody center. After I waited for 30 min outside the dark alley, Siuhan greeted me with great smiles. Siuhan shared the same parade with Alice:

I have to wear a bright yellow prisoner vest, with the name badge in front of my chest. I was forced to walk along the strip of downtown [Dongguan]. My hands are tied up with hand cuffs and lots of police were watching me. Of course, the police want to insult me; they included my real name, date of birth, and hometown. (Siuhan, 28, streetwalker)

Uphold the Guiding Principles of Custody Education in China

The dehumanization of custody education is reinforced in various ways. Violence, abuse, harsh, and inadequate living conditions, and forced labor are examples of the exploitation that sex workers must negotiate in the government-run institutions where they must serve. In effect, basic human rights are not afforded to the sex worker in these facilities. Moreover, their lack of claim to basic human rights is reinforced by their strategic physical exclusion from society through their detainment. Although it is a departure from Agamben’s iteration of the homo sacer, there are evident points of contact. Custody centers have many similarities to the “camp,” insofar as these are spaces wherein the expectations of civil society are entirely abandoned in an effort to enforce the exclusion of the sex worker. The physical removal from civil society echoes Agamben’s discussion on the role of the ban. The sovereign–bare life resides in the zone of indistinction of inclusion/exclusion, insofar as the homo sacer is excluded through the ban but is included by virtue of its relationship in opposition to the sovereign (Agamben, 1998; Spencer, 2009). Furthermore, the role of the camp calls to mind the space of the custody education center. In the camp, punishments (death, harassment) and violence (bullying, exploitation) enacted by law enforcement become instruments of biopower that all work to affirm the lack of agency and legitimacy of the homo sacer. That said, by and large, most sex workers who are charged do not serve sentences. Instead, most of those charged are typically fined heavily and then released upon payment of the fines. Although the Ministry of Public Security has cautioned local police not to substitute fines for detention, due to a lack of oversight, local law enforcement continue to impose fines at their own discretion. Most of the sex workers pinpointed that the only reliable option to forego detention is by offering exorbitant bribes to the police in the center. The culture of corruption is also reinforced by the fact that law enforcement relies upon the profit generated from custody education centers (Fu, 2005). At times, there will be fixed quotas for arrests and monetary demands from the department; these circumstances can lead law enforcement to make stringent efforts to arrest and detain significant numbers of sex workers. For instance, to meet quotas, police in Guangdong province will occasionally organize “Yellow Crackdowns” for the primary purpose of replenishing jailhouse workshops or to gain revenue through harsh fines (Tsang, 2019c; Tsang, 2019d; Tsang & Lowe, 2019). Sex workers reflect that the state is able to punish and exploit offenders with utter disregard for their basic human rights. Their treatment and exploitation effectively position the sex worker as the quintessential embodiment of the homo sacer, in opposition to the rights bearing, legitimate, and citizen.

Custody education centers and law enforcement reinforce the stigma of sex work and perpetuate exploitation and violence against sex workers (Tsang, 2019b). This stigmatization is further encouraged and normalized during public raids as well as by exploiting sex workers for cheap labor once they are detained. Moreover, their treatments while detained only secure their marginalized position in society (Johnson & Wang, 2018). The conditions of custody education leave little opportunity for offenders to leave the center and take on new career and social paths. Therefore, the state perpetuates a discourse of stigma and exploitation by continuing to use this group for their own ends. Specifically, the state continues to normalize the marginalization of sex workers, and uses their imprisonment to generate questionable revenue for local law enforcement bodies. The public displays of anti–sex work sentiment normalized through mass arrests assert a notion of acceptability, and suggest the work and value of the state and law enforcement’s ability to maintain order within the society.

As the article has revealed, custody education merely continues to exclude and place sex workers at the margins. There are ways to lessen the stigmatization and exploitation that sex worker detainees face. However, to do so, it is important to standardize punishment to make sure that some detainees are not arbitrarily given longer sentences. There is a need for mandatory training on ethical and appropriate ways of handling women during arrest and detention. Some women described the experience as dehumanizing. In addition to proper treatment, the curriculum provided to detainees must also change to one that suits the needs of the detainees beyond their time in custody education. Finally, there needs to be greater oversight of the center’s daily operations. The labor of these women should not be used as a revenue stream that maintains law enforcement operations. This not only is inappropriate but also undermines the entire concept of rehabilitation. For custody education to work, the fundamental tenants of the ideologies must be respected and practiced. A system of checks and balances would provide oversight to monitor law enforcement standards and practices. Without such a system in place, unsupervised authority may succumb to the temptation of using power and authority to normalize the exploitation of offenders. This article has argued for building a more incisive critique of custody education and its brutal and inhumane treatment of female sex workers in postreform China.

Securing and protecting the basic rights of detainees addresses a widespread source of discontent. The rule of law in the creation of these liminal legal spaces has received significant attention on an international level. The culture of lawlessness and violence in spaces such as custody education stands in opposition to international commitments the Chinese government has made. Specifically, in 1997 and 1998, the government signed two major United Nations international human rights covenants, signaling China’s acceptance of universal human rights standards (Liu, 2010). In 2004, the National People’s Congress (NPC) amended the Constitution, writing into the document for the first time that “the state respects and guarantees human rights,” signaling that human rights are a fundamental principle of China’s rule of law. Taking these factors into account, there is now an urgency to reform detention spaces and protocol. Due to reports of rampant abuse and exploitation, some sort of oversight of law enforcement regarding sex workers is critical to the development of a more just and standardized approach toward detention. Arguably, building an all-round, modestly well-off (xiaokang), and harmonious society (hexieshehui) brings the stability desired by the ruling Communist Party. Criminal offenders are often employed as examples, by the government, of acceptability. As a result, the Chinese government deploys custody education as a form of homo sacer by treating sex workers without basic dignity and stripping them of their rights. The findings presented here contribute to a wider critique about imprisonment systems within China and provide depth and texture to the brutal and inhumane treatment of female sex workers in its postreform society.

Criminal Justice System in Today’s China

One of the major themes in this article is criminal justice in China, in particular, how the Chinese government and the police treat sex workers. Most of the sex workers detained in the custody center did not have citizenship rights and were directly labeled as unwanted, dirty, and disorderly criminals. The deviant identity not only persists in the internal mind of the sex worker but is also reinforced by the custody center that ascribes stigma and deviancy to sex work. China’s growth and development is recognized internationally along with its political visibility under the dual influence of economic reform and globalization. However, there remain concerns about China and the suppression of human rights. These include social movements such as in Tibet, with groups such as Falungong, and individuals like Liu Xiaobo and his wife. There remain criticisms about China’s human rights abuses and criminal justice as well as the ways in which China engages with corrupt and abusive regimes. The involvement of governmental officials—and police in particular—in the business sectors that abuse human rights reflects only a fraction of the problem that permeates China’s political system, legal system, and criminal justice (Hsiu, 2009). How does the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) perceive “human” rights? Who are regarded by the CCP as “humans” who are entitled to the enjoyment of political and civil rights? They are not decided by humankind or citizenship. Not only sex workers but also HIV/AIDS carriers, the mentally ill, and political dissidents are treated as “non-persons.” The CCP believes these people pose threats to “societal security,” and are excluded from the “normal” political and legal system. Accordingly, they are not entitled to the constitutional protection of their political and civil rights. The brutal treatment of political dissidents in China is evidenced by how the party handled Anti-Rightist Movement, the Cultural Revolution, the June Fourth movement, and, more recently, Liu Xiaobo and his wife Liu Xia. It is common for the CCP to strangle freedom of speech and to trample on human rights, stifle humanity, and suppress truth (Liu, 2010). The sex workers lack support or legal protection, and are typically undereducated rural migrants facing the daunting task of overcoming their victim status to get support within the criminal system in postreform China.

Confucianism also has a deep influence on China’s culture. To the government, cultural harmony prioritizes society’s needs over the needs of the individual. Individual freedom, as addressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, remains a conceptual goal rather than a specific policy or specific set of actions. With its roots in Confucianism, the idea of social harmony may be used to justify curbing freedom of speech and other individual rights. It is commonly held that regular clients of prostitution include government officers, successful entrepreneurs, directors of listed companies, and foreign businessmen. According to the literature, it is common for cadres to have mistresses and frequent high-end bars to make business deals. The sex workers who serve these upper echelons report that the Yellow Crackdowns are merely a window dressing. Similarly, the custody center as a form a reeducation is more symbol than substance. The government neither controls its government officer to buy commercial sex nor does it punish him. Thus, prostitutes lack protection from the legal system. Trafficking victims and streetwalkers—usually undereducated rural migrants—typically face severe and brutal punishment by government officers once they are in the custody canters. Bracey (1985) mentioned Confucius taught that people were born without innate defects and, therefore, their moral growth depended upon education. Education to educate people should protect justice and integrity. However, as hypermaterialism and moral vacuums are soaring in China, most people forget what exactly Confucius and education enlightened them. Meanwhile, the socialist China has to set up controls, including custody education to the female sex workers.

The Chinese penal system lacks a fair judicial process. It employs an extensive network of forced labor camps so as to “reform” criminals through labor. Although this neglect can be partially attributed to corruption and the opaque nature of the Chinese criminal justice system, the goal is maintaining stability and social harmony while improving the economy to avoid chaos. Worse, as an institutional tool for the government to stifle political opposition, the penal system almost inevitably employs the use of both physical and psychiatric torture and active police involvement. The Chinese government deploys custody education as a form of reeducation where sex workers are treated without dignity and stripped of their rights, likening them to the homo sacer. Analyzing custody education is timely and provides information to Western countries about China’s criminal justice and human rights issues. This article supports an incisive critique about custody education and its brutal and inhumane treatment of female sex workers in postreform China. Custody education poses a challenge to some long-held fundamentals of Western legal systems.

By unveiling and exposing the dark side of custody centers and engaging the voices of the detained sex workers, the goal of this article is to raise Chinese criminal justice human rights issues to an international level—to pressure the Chinese government to rethink these criminal justice and human rights issues. The international voices that seek to uncover and disseminate information about China’s human rights issues should not be dismissed. This approach was successful in drawing attention and widespread criticism from the international community before and during the Beijing Olympics in 2008. It is also useful to demand that the Chinese government revisit human rights issues related to underprivileged groups such as sex workers, as they are treated as homo sacer under the government’s existing policies. This criticism will continue to haunt China, given unparalleled tensions between political reform and economic pursuit. Further research should continue to examine how policy makers in China can depathologize sex work in postreform China to improve conditions for hundreds of thousands of women struggling for a better life.

Long-Term Social Impact to Social Policy Makers

Despite numerous attempts by the Chinese government to combat prostitution and sex work, the “world’s oldest profession” continues to exist and thrive. Although sex work is illegal in China, it has been impossible to abolish. Various “Yellow Crackdown” campaigns have had minimal effect. There were an estimated 300,000 sex workers in Dongguan, or about 10% of the city’s migrant population, before the “Yellow Crackdown” campaign in April 2013 (Phillips, 2013). My research findings revealed that most detained sex workers return to the sex work industry and its high salaries after they have been released from the custody center (Davis, 1937). The Chinese government cannot merely impose a Yellow Crackdown as the guiding principle behind their policies. The government really needs to improve the human rights issues by devoting more resources via the establishment of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), in which sex workers participate in retraining programs to provide job skills to support their exiting the commercial sex industry. To date, there are no formal Chinese NGOs registered to help the female sex workers. Yet, there are a large number of NGOs focused on male sex workers and HIV prevention. The hope is that China can ensure that detained sex workers experience a sense of dignity, while maintaining prison order and opposing the homo sacer among inmates.