Women in Comparative Society:

Selling Sex for Visas: Sex Tourism as a Stepping-stone to International Migration

Based on the Chapter of the same name by Denise Brennan in Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy. New York: Metropolitan Books

The Sex Trade

As a means of obtaining financial security, women in underdeveloped countries often operate within the sex trade

Although the occupational hazards of beatings, rape, and police intervention can be harsh, women

take these risk for short-run survival and long-rung stability

In the short run, the sex trade offers enough wealth for more comfortable living standards; albeit much lower than the standards of regular market jobs within developed states

But, the sex trade offers a much longer term goal of potentially finding and marrying a man who can help sex worker escape destitution

As Brennan notes, “These poor single mothers are not simply using sex work in a tourist town with European clients as a survival strategy; they are using it as an advancement strategy” (p. 155)

Sex as a trade

The standard of living as a sex trade is comparatively nicer than other forms of underdeveloped work (if accounted for in purely FINANCIAL terms)

In the Dominican Republic two very common jobs amongst lower income women include export processing and domestic service

-Both forms of work usually pay approximately 1,000 pesos, or $100, a month

Sex workers can earn as much as 500 pesos, or $50, per foreign client

-There is a clear incentive for those who are financially desperate to enter the sex trade

-Sex workers often forms social networks in place of pimps as a way of meeting clients

-There are even formalized faxing services in order to alert sex workers as to when a client is returning to the country

Mind you, much of this income disappears in police bribes, living costs, and parental expenses

-The monthly cost of living for a sex worker can vary from 1,500 to 3,000 dollars per month

-This does not include the cost of basic appliances and children

-Many women who enter the sex trade often leave as impoverished as they were upon entering

Many of these jobs become more difficult without basic levels of education

-reading and writing often help sex workers chances of financial success

-The paradox being that usually those who resort to the sex trade lack such education

This is far from a lucrative career endeavor, its survival

Marriage for Love?

The potential of marrying a foreign client is a major incentive for many of these sex workers

-The hope is to leave to a developed country and eventual obtain a work visa

In countries like the Dominican Republic clear distinctions are made for these types of marriages

-Marriage forms into two varieties: por amor (for love) and por residencia (for visas/ residence)

-The two rarely mix, and most sex workers are aware that the latter is a financial agreement

These situation rarely work out into a Cinderella story

-Men from developed countries who partake in the sex trade are often unsurprisingly abusive

-These negative qualities are often overshadowed by the potential monetary payoff

-A large number of men who partake in the sex trade come from Europe, the United States, or Canada

-Most women generally return to their homes empty-handed within a year