Sex Trafficking in Southeast Asia

Name: Sex Trafficking in Southeast Asia
Brand: Taylor & Francis

Taylor & Francis

This book brings an important new perspective to the study of sex trafficking by considering the different types of social contracts which existed in the past that had sexual labour or activity as an inherent component. It outlines the nature of these social institutions \u2013 marriage, temporary marriage, debt bondage, and slavery \u2013 which were recognized in local law, carried no stigma, and endured for long periods. It discusses how labour pledged in return for a loan of cash or as a result of a punishment dictated by the state often included sexual labour, and how this could take the form of servicing the master of the house, his guests, or foreign travellers, who paid the debt-holder for the privilege, and how even wives of different ranks, temporary or permanent, and children, were pledged as sureties for loans. The book, which covers the modern states of Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, argues that cultural norms are not static, that sexual contracts are mor.