Abstract
In this book, Christine B. N. Chin argues that women’s transnational migration for sex work is catalyzed by the economic restructuring process in the new global economy. More specifically, Chin explores the ways in which contemporary neoliberal economic restructuring has encouraged and facilitated women’s transnational migration for sex work and its consequences. Women, as Chin contends, are negatively influenced by the shift toward flexible labor, which results in a gap in employment rates between men and women. Consequently, women actively pursue facilitators through both legal and illegal channels to aid their migration elsewhere for livelihood.
Chin conducted fieldwork in Kuala Lumpur in 2010 and 2011. A female scholar with a Malaysian Chinese heritage, she accessed the syndicate group with the help of intermediaries. Chin was viewed as both an insider and an outsider because of her Malaysian ancestry and her residence in the U.S. Syndicate men would rein in their discussions in her presence, and she was not allowed to tape-record the conversations. Chin’s interactions with women in the syndicate and with transnational migrant women sex workers were limited. Only one woman agreed to speak with her directly, and another answered her questions via an intermediary. Through other intermediaries such as taxi drivers and parking valets, Chin managed to interview 39 migrant women, upon which this research was based.
The book is composed of five chapters. The introduction encapsulates the framework of city, creativity, and cosmopolitanism that Chin uses to analyze nontrafficked women who participate in transnational migration for sex work. By city, she refers to global city networks. Creativity means the agency of migrant women, host states, and facilitators who maneuver through structural constraints produced by neoliberal economies. Cosmopolitanism refers to migrant women’s attitudes, worldviews, and practices sparked through their encounters with myriad global cities.
In chapter two, Chin focuses on the global city of Kuala Lumpur from its function as a trading settlement during the nineteenth-century colonial era to its ascendance to a global city in the twentieth century. The city has transformed from the previous colonial state policies that cemented the relationships between Malay and Chinese and Indian migrant workers to the current neoliberal policies that depend on migrant labor from around the world.
Chapter three explores the ways in which the state of Malaysia tightens border control against migrant workers. More specifically, the state employs privatization and diversification to achieve its goal. Diversification precludes domination of any ethnic migrant workers from any particular nationalities, and privatization enables the monopoly of security control in the hands of volunteer corps. Central to these two strategies to monitor and control migrant labor is the segregation of class, gender, race, and ethnicity. Under these policies, many migrants are treated as illegal aliens.
In chapter four, Chin offers a history of prostitution in Kuala Lumpur and discusses the ways in which migrant women from myriad nationalities make the decision to engage in sex work based on their experiences of the inequalities of nationality, gender, class, race, and ethnicity. She also investigates other reasons for sex work, the avenues to sex work, and sex workers’ perceptions of sex work. Most migrant sex workers view sex work as a less exploitative and a faster route to achieving more disposable income and upward mobility. While some aspire to garner education and skills and own businesses, others long to experience the world, as well as to support family members.
Chapter five explores the syndicate that facilitates nontrafficked migrant women to work as sex workers in Kuala Lumpur. It provides a history of the syndicate that has transformed from a hierarchical Chinese secret society to a more egalitarian corporate entity. The transformation is a result of the 1990s campaign to purge the city of brothels, pimps, and sex workers. The syndicate provides legal paperwork for women of different nationalities to enter the country and offers them board, lodging, clients, and security. In return, migrant sex workers pay a monthly fee and taxes set by the syndicate.
Chapter six investigates the cosmopolitan practices, worldviews, and attitudes of migrant women and the syndicate members. It focuses on their multiracial and multicultural perceptions and understandings of different ways of being human and diverse practices of people born and raised in different nations and cultures.
In chapter seven, Chin concludes that migration for sex work is spurred by the constraints and opportunities in the marriage of patriarchal power and neoliberal free-market economies. Chin proposes that only policies that address these structural forces fully can cope with the issue of migration sex work. Otherwise, they can only reproduce the contradictions that spawn migration sex work.
Research in this book is based on interviews rather than participant observation in migrant sex workers’ natural surroundings. This research methodology can skew the research results because of the questionable validity of self-reporting. The argument of the book is also a repetition of the argument made in voluminous previous research on migrant sex work. The book would benefit from a literature review of existent research on migrant sex work and a discussion of how this book advances and contributes to this literature. Nevertheless, Cosmopolitan Sex Workers should be welcomed by scholars who have an interest in trafficking, gender, migration, sex work, criminal justice, and Asian Studies.