NLGRev 68-2[1].indd - National Lawyers Guild

68 national lawyers guild review
Another five-country study of trafficked women in Indonesia, the Philippines,
Thailand, Venezuela, and the United States, authored by Janice
Raymond and colleagues, found much the same. 21 There, violence against
women was endemic in prostitution, with high rates of physical harm (almost
80 percent), sexual assault (over 60 percent), emotional abuse (over 80
percent), verbal threats (over 70 percent), and control through drugs/alcohol
(almost 70 percent). 22
In Indonesia, reported violence against prostitutes included the use of
belts, wooden sticks, and fists; the women were isolated, raped, and overworked;
and this was compounded by use of law enforcement or the military
to protect the brothels. 23 In the Philippines, 60 to 70 percent of prostitutes
reported repeated violence. 24 In Thailand, women were raped, drugged and
gang-raped; they were denied money, their documents were confiscated,
and their names were changed; they had no control over the choice of client,
pace of work or nature of activity. 25 One woman noted that she was treated
as “the shared property of any male who can pay a price for sex and for her
body.” 26 In Venezuela, women in the study were pushed, hit with objects,
punched, isolated, victimized with guns and knives; their movements were
controlled, their money withheld, and they were forced to have sex with law
enforcement and immigration officials. 27
In the United States, 84 percent to 100 percent of the women surveyed
reported physical violence of similar brutality. 28 Prostituted women reported
such injuries as bruises, mouth and teeth injuries, vaginal bleeding, internal
pain, head injuries and broken bones. 29 Most women reported higher rates
of injury for other women than for themselves. 30 Even those brothels with
so-called “safety policies” did not protect women from harm from customers,
pimps or others. 31
Psychological trauma and health effects The 1998 Farley study also described
the psychological damage caused by prostitution. Prostituted women
suffer from depression, mania, suicidal thoughts, mood disorders, anxiety
disorders, dissociative disorders and chemical dependence. 32 Many survivors
have independently reported outside of this specific study that, in order to
cope with the psychological degradation of prostitution, they developed a
dissociation response—a sense of splitting off a part of the self, of “leav[ing]
my body,” or of going “someplace else mentally.” 33 The aftermath is a high
incidence of dissociative disorders diagnosed in individuals emerging from
prostitution. 34
In the study, though more violence occurred in street prostitution than in
brothels, the incidence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) remained