FASE V. Validar el funcionamiento del robot con tracción de orugas para inspecciones en fondo de recipientes industriales

2.1. Radical View

Two self-proclaimed feminist groups dominate the debates on prostitution – the radical and the liberal. The radical, anti-prostitution feminists (also called neo-abolitionists) derive their argument from (a) the poverty-driven forced nature of the occupation that leads to exploitation (and trafficking), and (b) prostitution’s characteristic of reinforcing male dominance over women (Barry, 1995; MacKinnon, 1993; Lederer, 2001; Farley et al. 2003, 2005; Jeffreys, 2004). The logic is that given the coercive nature of trade, consent is never free. Women with the fewest choices available resort to prostitution, and prostitution is characterized by violence against sex workers. As a “harmful cultural practice,” prostitution has been considered an activity that involves significant exploitation, both psychological and physical (Jeffreys, 2004). In some ways, one can view prostitution as slavery (Lederer, 2001).

2.2. Liberal View

Liberal feminist groups (sometimes called neo-regulationists) challenge such views and argue that women may make an independent decision to engage in sex work and that their choice must be respected (Nagle, 2001). According to this scholarship, trafficking is different from prostitution, where the former is coerced (and therefore need to be criminally dealt with), while the latter may not necessarily be forced when based on women’s use of their own bodies as labor (Saunders, 2005). The notions of sexuality, as O’Connell (1998) reminds us, are outdated and hinge on a construction of sexuality that is a product of patriarchy, creating a need to remove the parallax from the view that prostitution is a large monolith of women’s exploitation. Therefore, for these scholars, the right approach is a rights-based approach. If self- determination is a pivot of feminist politics, then decriminalization will enable sex workers to engage in their work, just like any other employment. Instead of abolishing sex work, society needs to check the unsafe working environment for sex workers. Criminalizing prostitution does more harm than good because it increases their chances of being exploited. In line with this reasoning, there is significant literature on the activity being forced to slip into underground, luring associated illegal activity, including trafficking (Weitzer, 2005).

2.3. Indian Scholarship

In India, the feminist movement has echoed the gender essential voices, reinforcing the idea that Indian prostitutes, as Kotiswaran (2001) remarks, are ‘mere sex slaves who are invariably

trafficked into prostitution and who, as victims, do not have the ability to speak for themselves or their communities.’ They have rested the issue of prostitution on three pillars: (a) deliberate

silence on the issue in a cultural context of heterosexual monogamous marriage, (b) violent victimhood, depriving the label of labor from sex-work, and (c) the invocation of the sex-work collectives’ lens of choice and identity (Gangoli, 2008). Overall, arguments on both sides abound in India too.113

113 _{Recently, Gloria Steinem, a leading voice in the movement against prostitution visited India. Another leading}

voice from the other side of the debate criticized her in an open column: Svati Shah, 2014, “Gloria Steinem vs. Prostitution in India,” Huffington Post 28 November. Available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/american- anthropological-association/gloria-steinem-vs-prostit_b_6198614.html last accessed on 19 December 2014.

2.4. Gaps in the Literature

Regardless of the side of debate one wants to read, scholarship is unbiased in asserting that sex workers indeed face extreme violence. Farley et al. (2003) found that almost three quarters of prostitutes have been physically assaulted, two-thirds have been raped, and around ninety percent of them wished to leave the trade but could not do so due to a lack of adequate financial means.

Many papers also document incidents of police extortion (for India, one of the early works is by D’Cunha, 1991). Jayasree’s (2004) extensive reports on the experiences of sex workers in India suggests that sex workers do not accept victimization or criminalization as an option and indeed possess agency. However, most of the concerns of feminist literature (which is indeed significant) remain largely theoretical or rhetorical, with little focus or demand for empirically sound data. In addition, the has been little systematic effort to understand the role of intermediaries like pimps in the market, who not only make the trade possible but are also almost unanimously considered the sources of violence in the market for sex work.

The economics of prostitution has been disparately researched.114 Each of the studies that focus on economic aspects of sex work are localized in their scope and limited in their inferences. Part of the reason lies in scholars’ hesitation to view prostitution as work, leaving little room for alternative imagination. Levitt and Venkatesh (2007) offer a compelling empirical study on street-level prostitution in Chicago. Yet, this study is merely illustrative and doesn’t aid to any rigorous analysis of the profession beyond explaining the mechanism of it. Cameron et al (1999) have studied the male prostitute market in the UK empirically. This is again, an illustrative study of this labor market. Reynold’s (1986) work is noteworthy in arguing that regardless of the legal rule, prostitution will continue, but with varying incentives and disincentives. It also showed that by decriminalizing prostitution, governments can reduce its social costs and increase the social benefits related to the profession. A recent and ambitious study by Dank et al (2014) has attempted to map the underground sex economy and network of traffickers in the sex commerce in USA, by studying eight major cities, and estimated its size at lying between US$ 39.9-290 million. However, the authors do not dwell on the question of legality of the trade.

114 _{Edlund and Korn (2002) offer a detailed review of economic studies in this context. Economic studies on sex}

work has also received criticisms, since scholars often feel that economic analysis shouldn’t be applied to human life. See Radin (1996).

A unique pan-India survey of sex workers has recently been published (Sahni and Shankar, 2013), which is very insightful. This was a survey of 3000 sex workers across India, and its primary finding was that there is a strong economic rationale and agency involved in prostitution, when women choose to take this as a profession which offers a higher income than their previous jobs. Other region-specific works are valuable too. Ramseyer (1991) for instance, studies indentured prostitution in Imperial Japan and finds evidence that these contracts were aimed at securing credible commitments and hardly led to slavery. From an organizational point of view, this is an interesting entry point to study sex work, although highly specific. Symanski (1974) empirically studied brothels in Nevada, but the study is only demonstrative rather than general.

Edlund and Korn (2002) conducted several studies on sex work, which have attempted to map out the average payment of sex workers in certain place and time. They compare sex work payments with average earnings in another type of profession sex workers could have joined. For instance, some relevant studies include Muroi and Sasaki (1997) estimate that Thai sex workers earn twenty-five times more than a housemaid. Davis (1993) observes the market in Munich, showing sex workers’ earnings to be at least more than double that of per capita income. Montreal’s study also yields a similar result (double than per capita – Ford, 1998). In Indonesia, sex workers earn much higher than a mid-level civil servant (Jones et al, 1998). Nagaraj and Yahya’s (1998) study of the Malaysian market pegs sex workers’ earnings to be six times any unskilled work. Each of these studies indicate prominently, the low opportunity cost of sex work in diverse economies.

In New Delhi, we discover similar conclusions. However, none of these studies explain the idea of choice that the sex workers have in whether they engage with an implicitly contracted intermediary or not. That is the type of analysis which has potential to lead to understanding the organizational framework and choice architecture of sex work, which can direct more meaningful policy reforms.

Further, sizeable scholarship remains rhetorical and builds on existing frameworks. This makes a large amount of literature in this area rather unoriginal and trite. This is one of the reasons that prostitution is viewed as an institution ignoring considerable heterogeneity in the profession across countries, regions, and class (Goyal and Ramanujam, 2015). It also re-emphasizes existing categories and nomenclatures, and coagulates existing consciousness. We intend to study an organizational form of sex work in a specific case to nudge future research to engage with key stakeholders in the process. For us, the key stakeholder in question is the pimp. Even

though the study focuses on India, there are many general conclusions that show potential application across other developing nations.