Below is a 204 page research report on Sex Trafficking, Human Trafficking

The author(s) shown below used Federal funds provided by the U.S. Department of Justice and prepared the following final research report:

Document Title: Researching and Rethinking Sex Trafficking: The Movement of Chinese Women to Asia and the United States for Commercial Sex



Author: James O. Finckenauer, Ph.D., Ko-lin Chin, Ph.D.

Document No.: 233583

Date Received: February 2011

Award Number: 2006-IJ-CX-0008

This report has not been published by the U.S. Department of Justice. To provide better customer service, NCJRS has made this Federally-funded grant final report available electronically in addition to traditional paper copies.

Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Researching and Rethinking Sex Trafficking:

The Movement of Chinese Women to Asia and the United States

for Commercial Sex

_________________________

Final Report

_________________________

To

The United States Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

National Institute of Justice

Grant # 2006-IJ-CX-0008

Revised August 17, 2010

Principal Investigator: James O. Finckenauer, Ph.D.

School of Criminal Justice

Rutgers University

Newark, NJ 07650

Tel: (973) 353-3301; Fax: (973) 353-5896 (Fax)

Email: finckena@andromeda.rutgers.edu

Co-principal Investigator: Ko-lin Chin, Ph.D.

School of Criminal Justice

Rutgers University

Newark, NJ 07650

Tel: (973) 353-1488; Fax: (973) 353-5896 (Fax)

Email: kochin@andromeda.rutgers.edu

Copyrighted by James O. Finckenauer and Ko-lin Chin

This project was supported by Grant No. 2006-IJ-CX-0008 awarded by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Points of views in this document are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policy of the U.S. Department of Justice.

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

2

Executive Summary

Despite the concern and attention devoted to human trafficking in general and sex trafficking in particular over the past decade, there is still much about it that is unknown or subject to disagreement. And in general there has been little empirical research on the issue. Where there have been studies, the researchers have often drawn conclusions or generalized findings based on biased samples. Given this state of affairs, we have chosen in the study reported here to assume that prostitution is a multifaceted business with a proliferation of diverse women, and that therefore it is essential to study women in different sex venues and different destination countries in order to have a more nuanced and better balanced understanding of the transnational commercial sex business and its relation to sex trafficking.

In contrast to the prevailing research approach in this area, of relying upon subjects defined by others, we instead decided to cast the broadest net possible, and to interview subjects under the broadest range of possible statuses. We also decided to conduct our subject interviews under circumstances that would maximize the probability that the subjects would be forthcoming and not constrained by other motives or agendas.

In brief, we set out to conduct a study with the following specific aims:

1.

To examine the underlying reasons for the illicit movement of women from China to destinations throughout Asia and to the U.S. for the purpose of prostitution.

2.

To explore the structure or social organization of the movement of women from China to Asia and the U.S.

3.

To understand the methods of recruiting, transporting, and managing Chinese women by various participants in the smuggling, trafficking, and sex businesses.

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

3

4.

To investigate the economic aspects of smuggling, trafficking, and prostitution.

5.

To examine the social adjustment and settlement patterns among Chinese women and the victimization and exploitation of these women by smugglers and traffickers and sex industry operators.

6.

To analyze the individual and group characteristics of smugglers and traffickers and their relationships with gangs and organized crime.

7.

To evaluate the problems and prospects of combating the movement of women from China to the rest of the world.

Our goal was to shed light on one group of women who go overseas to engage in commercial sex – in this case women from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) – and to provide a more nuanced understanding of the movement of these women and its possible relation to sex trafficking. Our underlying assumption is that commercial sex, the transnational movement of women to overseas sex venues, and sex trafficking are linked. In this study, we sought to explore that linkage, and to consider whether that linkage is as characterized by the U.S. government and the United Nations in their respective codifications of human trafficking . A secondary goal was to inform the development of better strategies and responses to cope with these phenomena.

Research Approach

We included ten research sites in our project; eight in Asia and two in the United States. The eight Asian sites are Hong Kong, Macau, Taipei (Taiwan), Bangkok (Thailand), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Singapore, Jakarta (Indonesia), and Shenzhen (China), and the two U.S. sites are Los Angeles and the New York City metropolitan area. We selected This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

4

these sites because of reporting in the media, government reports, and other sources that indicated there were large numbers of Chinese women in the sex industries of these locations, and because we had firsthand knowledge from prior research that this was so.

One of the major premises underlying our research approach is the idea that the best sources of information about possible sex trafficking are the very people who might be most directly involved in it. These include most obviously women who are providing commercial sex services. We did not assume that these women are necessarily trafficking victims, but we did and do believe that the pool of commercial sex providers is a potential source for finding possible victims. Then there are the owners, operators or managers of the venues where those sex services are being provided, the law enforcement and other government officials who are charged with combating sex trafficking, the victim services providers who are charged with working with sex trafficking victims, and finally local individuals who can be key informants because they have good “street” knowledge and connections. Between December 2006 and August 2008, we conducted 350 face-to-face interviews with these groups of subjects – women who engage in commercial sex, sex ring operators, government officials/law enforcers, and NGOs/other key informants.

As we explain in the discussion that follows, we recognize that there are at least two other possible routes to finding sex trafficking victims which could be sources of information. One is law enforcement officials who have dealings with specific victims, and victims’ services providers and various NGOs who similarly have such contacts. Indeed, in other studies researchers have relied upon interviewing victims who were in the hands of law enforcement or who were in shelters. Much of what has been reported

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

5

about sex trafficking in the media and official reports has been drawn from this method. We deliberately rejected this approach for reasons that are discussed in the report.

A second possible route to victims is through some of the operators who are directly involved in the sex trafficking business – pimps, fake husbands, document procurers, etc. — who are also in the position of possibly putting researchers in touch with specific victims. In fact, we did interview a number of people who were engaged in the facilitation of commercial sex, and they referred some of “their women” to us to be interviewed. Whether or not they were sex traffickers however, and whether or not what they were doing could be considered sex trafficking, and whether the women in their charge could be considered trafficked victims, is hard to conclude, dependent as it is ultimately on how one defines sex trafficking. It is just that issue which is the point of our study.

Given that the ultimate goal of all sex trafficking is financial, we proceeded on the premise that sex trafficking victims must somehow be engaged in providing sexual services for money. This means they must be in settings or venues that are discernible to and accessible to potential paying clients. They cannot, in other words, be so hidden as to be inaccessible. We realize that our approach may be criticized because we did not find many transnational trafficking victims, but we did find that 10 percent of our female subjects had been domestic trafficking victims, i.e., had been victims in China before going overseas. To this criticism we would only say that we pursued every avenue in the 10 cities to find sex for sale, wherever and by whomever it was being sold. We interviewed between 15 and 18 women in each site for a total of 164 xiaojies (literally “miss”) — Chinese females who were involved in commercial sex.

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

6

We initially proposed to rely upon respondent-driven sampling (RDS) to select our xiaojie subjects. RDS has very strict requirements, i.e., initial respondents must have knowledge of the size of their relevant personal networks, each respondent must be given a serial number for tracking purposes, and each respondent must be assigned serial numbers for the recruitment and tracking of other respondents who they refer. We determined early on that we would be unable to follow this procedure. First, it became obvious that our respondents had only the vaguest sense of the size of the xiaojie network of which they were a part. Second, we became concerned that respondents would be afraid and thus reluctant to be numerically identified, and further that they would be reluctant to identify other xiaojies by what they would see as a traceable serial number. In addition, we had only a relatively limited time in each site, and a potentially time consuming effort to actually use this technique was thus not feasible. Consequently, we had to rely upon a more traditional snowball sampling technique. As Table 2 in the full report indicates, such referrals of individuals and venues account for the vast majority of our interview subjects. As with any snowball sampling however, there are consequent limitations on validity and generalizability.

Findings and Conclusions

Contrary to the popular image of the majority of women involved in commercial sex as sex trafficking victims, our data show that a variety of women from diverse backgrounds in fact go overseas to engage in prostitution – older as well as younger women; well-educated as well as poorly educated; married or formerly married as well as single, etc. Actually, we found that there is more diversity among the parties involved in prostitution

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

7

than is commonly supposed, and that to portray them all in the same way as victims is an oversimplification. Some four in 10 of the women we interviewed had engaged in prostitution when they were in China – before they went overseas. In fact, prostitution was the largest category of prior employment that was reported.

It is clear from our interviews that economic factors were the driving force behind whatever choices the women made. Many, as indicated, had already been the victims of circumstances. Whether they would have behaved differently or made different choices if they had had other options is, of course, unknown. Nevertheless, it would seem that greater economic opportunity for women in China would certainly reduce the pressure of economics as a major push factor in prostitution and sex trafficking. That said, once these women had already entered into prostitution, many of them were then receptive to or actively sought out the possibility of moving abroad in order to increase their earnings.

One way to view the process through which these women moved is in terms of what some criminologists call “bounded rationality.” The women’s decision making was bounded – constrained or restricted – by their social, physical and situational contexts, and their perceptions of those contexts. The individual assessments of the costs, risks and benefits involved are subjective, which is why different women in the same circumstances would make different choices; and why the same women may make different choices at different times.

Ultimately, we think that any failure to recognize the distinctions and nuances that actually characterize the commercial sex business, whether because of politicized moral positions or other reasons, helps neither the women themselves, nor leads to the development of coherent and effective practices and policies to combat sex trafficking.

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

8

Table of Contents

Executive Summary …………………………………………………………………… 2

Table of Contents ……………………………………………………………………… 8

Main Body ……………………………………………………………………………. 10

I. Introduction ………………………………………………………………………… 10

Background .………………………………………………………………………..10

Clarification of the Terms ………………………………………………………… 15

Sex Trafficking and Organized Crime ………..……………………..……………… 21

II. Research Methods …………………………………………………………………. 23

Research Approach and Rationale …………………………………………………23

Data Collection .……………………………………………………………………29

Validity and Reliability ……………………………………………………………35

Ethical Issues ………………………………………………………………………36

Limitations of this Study …..………………………………………………………38

III. Findings ……………………………………………………………………………42

The Women ………………….……………………………………………………42

Going Abroad ……………………………………………………………………. 69

The Sex Markets …………………………………………………………………. 75

Road Fee, Debt, and Income……………………….………………………………80

The Traffickers …………………….……………………………………..……… 87

Official and NGO: Responders and Responses ………………………………….110

IV. Discussion ………………………………………………………………………. 127

Rethinking Sex Trafficking ..……………………………………………………..127

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

9

The Issue of Definition …………………………………………………………. 137

Conclusions and Recommendations ……………………………………………. 146

V. References …….………………………………………………………………….. 157

VI. Appendices ……………………………………………………………………… 164

I. Questionnaire for Female Subjects in the Sex Sector ………………………… 164

II. Questionnaire for Sex Ring Operators ………………………………………. 175

III. Guidelines for Interview with Law Enforcement Officials ………………… 183

IV. Guidelines for Interview with NGOs and Social Service Providers ………… 187

V

II. Tables and Figures ……………………………………………………………… 192

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

10

Researching and Rethinking Sex Trafficking:

The Movement of Chinese Women to Asia and the United States

for Commercial Sex

Main Body

I. Introduction

Background

A little known topic just a decade or so ago, the illicit movement of people both within and across national borders has began to draw worldwide attention since then (Scarpa 2008). A variety of developments account for the growth in both the size of the problem and in the attention paid to it: the collapse of the Soviet Union, the breaking up of Yugoslavia, vast socioeconomic disparities between, e.g., Mexico and the United States, burgeoning economic development in China, rapid advances in global communication and travel, increasing demands for cheap labor, a growing sex industry. The list could go on and on.

These developments taken together comprise what have come to be called the “push and pull” factors driving human migration (Massey et al. 1993). Push factors include both societal conditions – lack of opportunity, discrimination, persecution, civil war, etc. – and personal issues such as domestic violence and divorce that push the individuals suffering them to want to migrate. The pull factors are the opportunities – real or perceived – in developed and developing countries for jobs, for freedom, for safety, and so on. In most instances, the most dramatic difference between source countries and destination countries is economic opportunity. The demand for cheap labor in industrialized countries creates opportunity. With specific reference to the sex industry, countries that have lucrative commercial sex venues – brothels, massage parlors, karaoke

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

11

lounges, topless bars, escort services, and so on – and/or that are tolerant toward or have legalized prostitution create a simultaneous demand and pull for prostitution (Zhang 2007).

Would-be migrants with connections, professional skills, or education can and do pursue legitimate channels to pursue their dreams. For thousands of others, however, the legitimate channels are closed off. For them, the choice is to give up their ambitions, or to seek alternative means. This is where smuggling and trafficking come in. Here certain facilitating factors usually work in concert with the push/pull scenario. Those facilitators include liberal or porous border policies and corruption. Greasing the palms of officials is almost always necessary to secure documents and to avoid detection, especially when smuggling is involved.

Unable to follow the legal route of migration and for a price that can vary from a few hundred dollars in the case of Mexican coyotes (as those particular smugglers are called) to well up into the tens of thousands, all travel and necessary documentation will be arranged. Human smugglers are in the business of illegally moving people across national borders. Their clients are willing customers. Once the fee has been paid in full and the transaction has been completed, the customer, the person smuggled, is generally free and clear of the smuggling operation, although they are illegal aliens in their destination country (Kyle and Koslowski 2001).

Human trafficking is defined by the exploitation of victims. These victims are forced to work with little or no pay; they are beaten or raped; they and their families are threatened; they are deceived by being promised one job and then forced to work at another; they are controlled in their movements; and their documents are held (Brown

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

12

2000; Hughes 2000; Farr 2005; Kara 2009). Our focus here will be on this more insidious form of the transnational movement of human beings.

A good deal of attention has been devoted to this subject during the past decade or so. Literally hundreds of articles, books and reports have been published, especially in the past several years (Gozdziak and Bump 2008; Zhang 2009). So why do we need yet another examination of the issue? The answer is simple. Despite the concern and attention heaped on this problem, there is still much about it that is unknown or subject to disagreement. In general there is little empirical research on the issue, as was indicated by Sheldon Zhang in his review of the literature on human trafficking (2007: 122):

Much of the current discourse on human trafficking has not been guided by empirical research. The increased urgency in U.S. government policy and funding priority to combat trafficking in women and children has been influenced more by a moral panic that continues to gain momentum rather than by solid and systematic assessment of the problem. Research on human trafficking remains challenging due to its secrecy and political sensitivity.

Where there have been empirical research studies on sex trafficking, these have mostly been narrowly focused, for example relying on a single type of women engaged in commercial sex. Again, according to Zhang (2007: 122): “[t]he existing body of literature is plagued with methodological and analytical flaws. Researchers often drew conclusions or generalized findings based on biased samples (e.g., street prostitutes only, but no call girls or other indoor workers).” As suggested by Anthony DeStefano (2007) in his book The War on Human Trafficking, prostitution is a multifaceted industry with a proliferation of high-priced women, and it is essential to study women in different sex markets to have a nuanced and balanced understanding of the sex trade.

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

13

One of the biggest shortcomings in the extant body of research on human trafficking is the fact that it has included almost exclusively rescued subjects who were in the hands of law enforcement officials, advocates, or service providers (Cwikel and Hoban 2005; Gozdziak and Bump 2008). Not included, for example, are any persons who may have initially been trafficking victims, but who have subsequently removed any indebtedness and have chosen to remain and to work wherever they are. Also excluded are any victims who escape on their own without contact or assistance by law enforcement or others, and any victims who just fall through the cracks because agency contacts fail to recognize them as being victims. Individually complex real life circumstances can get reduced to simple labels or categories by agency workers. In contrast to this approach of relying upon subjects defined by others, we think it is critical to find subjects by casting the broadest net possible, and to interview subjects under the broadest range of possible statuses. We also believe interviews should be conducted under circumstances that will maximize the probability that subjects will be forthcoming and not constrained by other motives or agendas. By this we mean it is preferable to interview them in their own natural settings, without the presence of a third party. This helps assure subjects that the interview is confidential, and that regardless of what is said there will be no repercussions and nothing to be gained by being untruthful.

We also think it is important not only to compare women from different sex venues, but also in different destinations. Again, the available empirical research on sex trafficking has mostly focused on only one group of women from one source country and in one destination country (Gozdziak and Bump 2008). This approach overlooks the possibility that women from the same source country might have significantly different

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

14

traveling and working experiences, handlers, clients, payment arrangements and so on in different destination countries.

Given the limiting effects of these various negative aspects, which in turn have constricted the available explanations and understandings of the sex trafficking phenomenon, we set out here to conduct a study with the following specific aims:

1. To examine the underlying reasons for the illicit movement of women from China to destinations throughout Asia and to the U.S. for the purpose of prostitution.

2. To explore the structure or social organization of the movement of women from China to Asia and the U.S.

3. To understand the methods of recruiting, transporting, and managing Chinese women by various participants in the smuggling, trafficking, and sex businesses.

4. To investigate the economic aspects of smuggling, trafficking, and prostitution.

5. To examine the social adjustment and settlement patterns among Chinese women and the victimization and exploitation of these women by smugglers, traffickers, and sex industry operators.

6. To analyze the individual and group characteristics of smugglers and traffickers and their relationships with gangs and organized crime.

7. To evaluate the problems and prospects of combating the movement of women from China to the rest of the world.

We do not promise nor assume that we will lay to rest all the controversies or definitively answer all the questions about sex trafficking. Instead, our goals are to shed light on one group of women who go overseas to engage in prostitution – in this case women from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) – and to provide a more nuanced

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

15

understanding of the possible relationships among commercial sex, human smuggling and sex trafficking, so that we may develop better strategies and responses to cope with this phenomenon.

Clarification of Terms

Throughout this report, we have chosen to use the terms “prostitutes,” “women who engage in commercial sex,” and the Chinese slang term for prostitute “xiaojie,” to refer to our female subjects. We do this to avoid such terms as “sex workers” as well as “prostituted persons,” since we fully understand the ideological construction and controversy surrounding the use of those terms (Barry 1981; Jeffreys 1997; Kempadoo and Doezema 1998; Outshoorn 2004; Stetson 2004; Miriam 2005). Whether commercial sex is sex work or violence against women is an empirical question to be settled by facts, data, and evidence, and not by ideological posturing on either side of the issue. Our study is actually about the social organization of the transnational movement of Chinese women for commercial sex, and thus may have relevance for sex trafficking as well as prostitution. At the very outset, we want to clarify what we mean by the following terms.

Prostitute or Xiaojie

A prostitute is a woman who willingly engages in sexual intercourse for money. Of course, agreeing on what is “willingly” can be a problem, but we will return to this question later in the report. For our purposes here, we will use the Chinese word xiaojie interchangeably with the word “prostitute,” because xiaojie is the term used by the vast majority of our female subjects in the sex business to refer to themselves. The term xiaojie is composed of two characters: xiao which means “little,” “small,” or “young,”

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

16

and jie which means “older sister.” Xiaojie is usually translated as meaning “miss,” and people in Taiwan and Hong Kong often use the word xiaojie to refer to any young woman, regardless of who she is. Even in China, most, although not all prostitutes are called xiaojie, but not all xiaojie are prostitutes.

Beginning in the 1980s in China, waitresses at service facilities such as restaurants, hotels, bars and other entertainment venues were addressed as “miss,” which was considered a form of courtesy. But it was also in these establishments and at this time that prostitution, although illegal, reemerged. Because some of the waitresses provided sex services, the term “miss” thus became a euphemism for the term “prostitute.” In general, most prostitutes in China are called xiaojie, but some are called jishi (technician), or falangmei (hair salon lady). Strictly speaking, a xiaojie is someone who works in a nightclub, a KTV (karaoke/TV lounge), or in a dance hall as a hostess. She can insist that she is not a prostitute because she entertains customers only by sitting at their tables (zuotai or on stage), and does not go out with them (chutai or off stage). In reality, however, it is rare that a xiaojie can resist going out with a customer, or at least not for long.

A streetwalker is also normally referred to as a xiaojie. The term jishi, or technician, refers to someone who works in a spa or a sauna as a masseuse, but most jishi also provide sexual services. A falangmei is someone who works in a “hair salon,” but again as a prostitute. The use of these terms will become clearer when we discuss the operations of the various sex venues later in the report. To keep things simple, we will use the word xiaojie to denote all the Chinese women who are hostesses (zuotai xiaojie or sanpei xiaojie) in nightclubs, KTVs, and dancing halls, as well as those who are

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

17

technicians (jishi) in spas and saunas, hair salon ladies (falangmei) in hair salon-style brothels or streetwalkers.

We also want to clarify that, although we use the terms prostitute or xiaojie to refer to our female subjects, some of these subjects did not regularly (i.e. on a daily basis) engage in sexual intercourse with their clients. Some engaged in sexual intercourse only with certain customers, or with just one particular customer to whom they referred as their “husband.” And, some of them regularly provided other sex services such as oral sex, rather than sexual intercourse. All our subjects, however, provided sex services up to and including sexual intercourse, for money. Thus the terms defined above are applicable and appropriate.

Sex Trafficking Victim

A sex trafficking victim is a person who unwillingly engages in commercial sex as a result of the use of force, fraud, or coercion. If the force, fraud, or coercion occurs only in the victim’s own country, we will refer to that victim as a domestic trafficking victim. If any of these criminal acts take place overseas, we refer to them as a transnational trafficking victim. All minors are by legal definition victims. The U.S. TVPA (Trafficking Victims Protection Act) has created a two-tiered definition: “severe forms of trafficking in persons” in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion; and “sex trafficking,” that is defined simply as the recruitment, harboring, transportation, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act. In this report, when we use the term “sex trafficking,” we will be referring, unless otherwise specified, to the “severe forms of sex trafficking” that involve force, fraud, or coercion.

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

18

Among our female subjects in the sex business, there were domestic trafficking victims (those who were deceived into prostitution in China). These subjects will not be considered to be transnational trafficking victims if no force, fraud, or coercion was involved in their transnational movement and activities. To reiterate, while we regard certain of our subjects as having been domestic trafficking victims, we do not view them as continuing to be victims when we consider their prostitution overseas, if they were not deceived or forced to go overseas.

We will take up this classification issue when we interpret and discuss our findings. In assessing the full picture of whether a subject is a transnational sex trafficking victim, we will also consider various other criteria in addition to whether force, fraud or coercion were present. These include whether there was a recruiter or a facilitator involved in the women going overseas; whether there was payment involved in the transnational movement; whether there was debt bondage; and whether a subject’s travel documents were withheld. While our focus is mainly on the overseas experiences of Chinese women, we also consider their circumstances and experiences back home in China. The latter are especially relevant to the “bounded rationality” theory and the choices exercised by the women.

Because we interviewed women who had not already been identified as victims, and because the interviews were conducted either in these women’s natural settings or in public places, some might argue that we are only studying prostitution, and not sex trafficking. But as we argue later in this report, we deliberately chose not to seek already identified trafficking victims as our subjects. Doing so would have simply repeated what the majority of other studies have done over the past ten years (Gozdziak and Bump

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

19

2008; Zhang 2009). Instead, we chose to examine the broader issue of the transnational movement of Chinese women for commercial sex, and in the process sought to define and differentiate what constitutes prostitution and sex trafficking respectively, and how the two phenomena are related. Our questionnaires and interview guides (see appendices) clearly show that most of our questions are related to two issues: the nature of commercial sex overseas, and the social organization of the transnational movement of women. Our goal was to examine the many nuances of prostitution and sex trafficking, and to reflect on those nuances in the context of the current human trafficking discourse. Do the current definitions of sex trafficking, and the policy derivatives, reflect the realities in the field, or do they perhaps need to be re-evaluated?

Trafficker or Controller

A trafficker or controller here is anyone who plays a role in the transnational movement of a woman for the purpose of commercial sex. Many different roles have been identified in the literature on trafficking, including recruiter, transporter, trafficker, brothel owner, and pimp. As will become clear in this report, in the Chinese context at least, many more roles are involved in the transnational movement of Chinese women in particular. We will use the terms used by our female subjects, and by the sex ring operator subjects we interviewed, when we refer to these various functionaries (i.e., chickenhead, agent, mommy, escort agency owner, fake husband, jockey, etc.). We will use the term “sex ring operator” as a generic term to refer to all the people who facilitate the transnational movement of Chinese women.

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

20

Organized Crime

In this report, only certain groups will be referred to as organized crime groups. This means that we are going to use a more restrictive definition than the one put forth by the United Nations in the UN Convention on Transnational Organized Crime, that defines an organized criminal group as “a structured group of three or more persons existing for a period of time and acting in concert with the aim of committing one or more serious crimes or offenses . . . in order to obtain, directly, or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit” (UNODC 2006: 6). Using this U.N. definition would result in classifying many of the groups that are engaged in the transnational movement of Chinese women as organized crime groups. But drawing on our many years of extensive research on organized crime in Asia and the United States, we have come to the conclusion that, at least within the Chinese or Asian context, only the following groups should be considered as being true organized crime: (1) U.S.-based tongs (i.e. On Leong, Hip Sing, Tung On, etc.) and street gangs (i.e. Ghost Shadows, Flying Dragons, Fuk Ching, etc.); (2) Hong Kong-based triads (i.e. Sun Yee On, 14K, Wo Shing Wo, etc.); (3) Macau-based triads (i.e. the 14K, the Water Room, etc.); (3) Taiwan-based organized gangs (i.e. United Bamboo, Four Seas, Celestial Alliance, etc.) and jiaotou groups (i.e. Fang Ming Kuan, Nyo Pu, etc.); (4) China-based mafia-style gangs (i.e. the Liu Yong group in Shenyang, the Li Qiang group in Chongqing, etc.); (5) Thailand-based jaopho; (6) Singapore-based tangpai; (7) Malaysia-based Chinese gangs (i.e. 390, 18K, Dragonhead, etc.); and, finally, (8)Japan-based yakuza groups (i.e., the Yamaguchi-kumi, the Inagawa-kai, the Sumiyoshi-kai) (see Chin 1990, 1996, 2003; Hill 2003; Chin and

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

21

Godson 2006; and Finckenauer and Chin 2006, for a discussion of all the groups listed above and other similar organized crime groups). It is our experience that the majority of government officials and law enforcers in Asia and the United States agree with us on this point.

Sex Trafficking and Organized Crime

Although not at the same level of intensity as some other sex trafficking controversies, such as whether or not all prostitution should be considered a form of sex trafficking, or about just how big a problem human trafficking is, there has as well been a fair amount of discussion and debate about whether this is a criminal business of organized crime (Williams 1999; Shelley 2007). The nature of this discussion revolves around a contention by some skeptics that certain special interests advocate for a big organized crime role to hype interest and gain attention (Kyle and Dale 2001). If it seems, a particular crime can be associated with the “mafia,” people and politicians will take it more seriously (Chin 1999; Finckenauer 2001). On the other side, those who argue that organized crime is very much into human trafficking cite the scale and sophistication of some of the cases (Farr 2005; Shelley 2007). The ways the trafficking is carried out suggest the hand of professional criminals and not “mom and pop” amateurs, they say. The latter especially focus on the violence and corruption that is often involved – factors which are indeed hallmarks of organized crime.

What would be signs of organized crime involvement? On one level, the criminal organizations involved in organized crime generally make use of corruption and violence, and they often attempt to gain monopoly control over whatever criminal enterprises they

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

22

are engaged in (Jacobs 1999). Their corruption is not low-level, “nickel and dime stuff,” but instead bribes and payoffs that extend into the upper reaches of law enforcement and politics. Likewise, violence is used purposely to establish credibility and reliability, in order that the actual use of violence becomes only a limited necessity – reputation alone is enough to intimidate and strike fear into its targets (Finckenauer 2007).

Organized crime is the province of criminal organizations that have a degree of criminal sophistication – their crimes are planned rather than impulsive; they make use of technology; they have accounting and legal expertise available, etc. These organizations usually have a structure that has a stable division of labor – different members have specific roles and jobs. There is self-identification with the organizations through such means as wearing colors, swearing oaths, etc. And, as indicated, the organization has the authority of reputation. The more of these sorts of characteristics a criminal organization has, the greater capacity it has for wreaking harm of all kinds, including economic, physical and societal. Such groups are made up of professional criminals who operate continuously over time and over crimes.

We are not suggesting that it is only these particular criminal groups or others nearly identical to them that we would have to find to conclude that human trafficking is really an organized crime problem. But we are suggesting that whoever the traffickers are, they have to have more (rather than less) of the kinds of characteristics outlined above for us to reach that conclusion.

Some previous investigations hint at what is likely to be the conclusion. For example, relying upon a variety of information sources, Jahic (2009) said that while it is frequently assumed that organized crime figures run the trafficking business, there is little

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

23

evidence that trafficking is actually centrally and tightly organized. The plausible counter argument is that trafficking organizations are instead loose and rather fluid networks. This will be one of the issues we will be addressing here.

II. Research Methods

Research Approach and Rationale

Research Sites

We included ten research sites in our project; eight in Asia and two in the United States. The eight Asian sites are Hong Kong, Macau, Taipei (Taiwan), Bangkok (Thailand), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Singapore, Jakarta (Indonesia), and Shenzhen (China), and the two U.S. sites are Los Angeles and the New York City metropolitan area (See the attached Map of Southeast Asia). We selected these sites first because of reporting in the media, government reports, and popular books that there are large numbers of Chinese xiaojies in these locations (Lim 1998; Lintner 2002; Brazil 2004; Yang 2006); next, because we had visited some of these cities in 2003 and 2004 for a research project on transnational organized crime, and saw that many Chinese xiaojies were present there (Finckenauer and Chin 2006); and thirdly because we happened to have good connections in these cities and were thus confident that we would be able to recruit and interview xiaojies, sex ring operators, and other key informants at each location.

We were well aware that Chinese women were also reportedly going to Australia, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea and some countries in Western Europe and the Middle East to engage in prostitution. We excluded those sites because we did not have the same access there, and because we were limited by time and

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

24

resources. We do not claim that the research sites selected for this study are a representative sample of all the sites where there may be Chinese xiaojies. We do, however, believe that there is sufficient variability among the sites to give a relatively good representation.

Data Sources

Among the major premises upon which our research approach is based is our belief that the best sources of information about commercial sex and sex trafficking are the very people who are most directly involved in it. These include most importantly, the women who are providing commercial sex services. They are followed in importance by the owners, operators or managers of the venues where those services are being provided, law enforcement and other government officials who are charged with combating sex trafficking, victim services providers who work with sex trafficking victims, and certain local individuals who can be key informants because they have good “street” knowledge and connections. The latter are the kind of people found in nearly every city, such as cab drivers, bartenders, and hairdressers who “know where the action is.”

Between December 2006 and August 2008, we conducted 350 face-to-face interviews with these groups of subjects – xiaojies, sex ring operators, government officials/law enforcers, and NGOs/other key informants (see Table 1). To conduct these interviews, we took three trips to Asia (lasting for a total of seven months), numerous trips to NYC sites, and one trip to Los Angeles.

_____________________

Table 1 about here

_____________________

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

25

Xiaojies

Women who engaged in prostitution are obviously vulnerable research subjects, and commercial sex is a clandestine business. Thus, our approach to identifying and approaching possible interview subjects, and then actually interviewing them, had to be done within these parameters. In the identification process, we excluded any women who were under arrest or were otherwise under the control of law enforcement. As we indicated, we do not believe that such women are representative of the subject population we were seeking, and because of their risk of jail and/or deportation, we would have reason to doubt the truthfulness of any responses they might give. Similarly, we also excluded any women who were being housed or otherwise assisted by various victims’ assistance entities.

Instead, given that the ultimate goal of all sex trafficking is making money, we proceeded on the premise that any sex trafficking victims must somehow be engaged in providing sexual services for money. They must be involved in commercial sex. This means they must be in settings or venues that are discernible to and accessible to potential paying clients. They cannot, in other words, be so hidden as to be inaccessible. We do not deny that accessibility may in some instances be so limited, such as for example in the case of child victims, that we would not learn about them. But child victims were not included in our projected population, and the extent to which adult females may have been so secreted as to make their presence unknown to our various informants is itself unknown.

Keeping with our overall premise, we sought venues where our informants indicated that the word was that sex services were being bought and sold. Depending

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

26

upon the legal status of prostitution in a particular jurisdiction, those venues are more or less clandestine. The venues include the most visible prostitutes, namely the street prostitutes such as those in Singapore, to those who work in front businesses such as massage parlors, bars, etc., to the KTV lounges, to private apartments, to establishments that are purely brothels.

We interviewed between 15 and 18 xiaojies in each site for a total of 164 subjects. All but 15 of these subjects were in overseas locations as shown in Table 1. The 15 interviews in Shenzhen, China were done more informally, meaning they were not asked every question in our standardized questionnaire (see Appendix I). Those particular interviews were conducted mostly for additional understanding of the context of commercial sex, and on the possibility that some of the women might be returned xiaojies from overseas.

The referrals for interviews were made by xiaojies, by various operatives in the commercial sex business, and by other knowledgeable informants. We opted not to use the respondent-driven sampling (RDS) method originally proposed because the requirements for such sampling could not be met. Our xiaojie subjects indicated that they were only vaguely aware of the size of the xiaojie network with which they were familiar, and they claimed to know no sex trafficking victims. Most were also reluctant to refer their friends or colleagues to us because they thought that doing so would be a breach of trust. They would, in other words, be telling us that certain women they knew were prostitutes, and their friends would not like that. We were concerned as well that the serial number tracking system used in RDS would discourage both initial respondents and

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

27

referrals. Finally, the time and resources available for interviewing in each site did not permit a long term commitment to attempting to make RDS work.

Sex Ring Operators/Facilitators

We conducted face-to-face interviews with 76 sex ring operators and others who facilitate commercial sex operations. This group of subjects includes recruiters, sex establishment owners or managers, pimps or intermediaries, drivers, and telephone operators. As with the women, we also interviewed the vast majority of this group in their own settings (see Appendix II for the interview guide).

Government Officials and Law Enforcers

We interviewed 76 criminal justice and other related officials. The majority of the subjects in this group were either police or immigration officers. A small number of judges, prosecutors, customs or coast guard officials, and American officials working for the U.S. embassies in Asia were also interviewed (see Appendix III for the interview guide).

NGOs and Other Key Informants

Finally, we interviewed some social service providers, NGOs, and other advocacy group members who were responsible for serving and protecting trafficking victims. The number of NGOs and service providers who had actually had experience in dealing with women from China was very small. We thus additionally recruited and interviewed in an informal way many key informants who, as previously mentioned, due to their work, leisure activities, or simply residency, have special knowledge and understanding of the

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

28

social organization of commercial sex involving Chinese women in their locales. Taxi drivers who also work as middlemen, businessmen who frequented sex venues, and longtime residents of certain places were included in this group (see Appendix IV for the interview guide).

Fieldwork

To better understand the social organization of sex work, we also conducted fieldwork whenever there was an opportunity for us to do so. For example, we spent time eating with various subjects, normally before or after the interviews. We also spent many hours simply visiting and observing various red-light districts in Asia. Very often, we would ask a pimp who was soliciting business in the streets to take us to where the girls were, simply to have an opportunity to observe these places. After we became acquainted with the owner of a sex venue, and we let the owner know that we were conducting a research project, we also asked the owner to allow us to hang out, just watching the people who come and go and talking to the women who were working there.

In Taiwan, we were able to observe up close how an escort agency works by following the owner of an escort agency for three evenings. This owner also allowed us to ride along with a so-called jockey (a driver) and a xiaojie for two nights. All parties were informed about the nature and purpose of the participant observation and consented to involvement. The rides started around two in the afternoon and lasted until dawn. In the process, we were able to observe the interactions and power dynamics between the xiaojie and her driver, and between the xiaojie and her employer (the escort agency owner). We also spent a number of evenings in Taipei eating dinner and/or drinking

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

29

coffee with a key figure in the sex trade (a woman) and several women who were working for her.

In all these instances, we remained fully aware of the many ethical issues that might arise while doing this kind of ethnographic fieldwork (Ferrell and Hamm 1998; Miller and Tewksbury 2001; WHO 2003; UNIAP 2008). We believe the unique opportunity to gain first-hand knowledge about the inner-working of the sex trade more than outweighed any potential ethical concerns that might have arisen. We are confident that our fieldwork neither facilitated the business of the sex ring operators we were studying nor put our female subjects in harm’s way.

Secondary Data

We collected a large amount of secondary data from government officials and law enforcement authorities at the research sites, including statistics, reports, indictments, and sentencing statements. We also visited the libraries of various universities in the research sites and downloaded thousands of pages of newspaper, magazine, and scholarly articles that were in English or Chinese. When we visited the NGOs and social service providers in these sites, we also collected information about the history, structure, and functions of these organizations.

Data Collection

At the very beginning of the data collection stage, we placed an ad in a Chinese newspaper in New York City, indicating that two college professors were hiring research assistants/interviewers who were familiar with the sex industry. We were hoping that some current or former prostitutes or sex ring operators might call us for the job. Quite a

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

30

few people, mostly women, did call; but once they learned how little we would pay our interviewers and interviewees, they simply chuckled and hung up the phone. A Chinese man who was an immigration consultant in New York had this to say about the challenge in finding prostitutes to us to interview:

I don’t think you will find any Chinese woman who is willing to participate in your study, even if you are willing to pay $500 for the interview. You have to understand that these women are making $300 to $500 a day. Your best chance of getting close to them is to open a massage parlor yourself. You open a store, hire them, and see how they work. There is no other way for you to approach them.

Of course, we were not ready to run a commercial sex venue in order to carry out a research project, so we took the advice of another caller, a Chinese woman who identified herself as a former massage parlor owner: “You really do not need anyone to help you to conduct the interviews or to refer sex workers to you. Because you are a male, all you need to do is call the phone numbers listed in the local newspapers, ask them where they are located, walk in as a customer, and once inside a room with a woman, tell her you just want to interview her. You must tell her she needs not do anything else, and you will pay her the normal charge. I assure you every woman you approach this way is going to talk to you!”

Eventually, we relied on three methods to locate and interview our female subjects. First, in a few cases we found them on the streets. For example, in Singapore, we found most of our subjects in the streets of a red-light district where they were soliciting business and interviewed them in a nearby hotel. We also located and interviewed quite a few streetwalkers in Kuala Lumpur the same way.

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

31

Second, we located them through referrals to the indoor sex venues where they worked. After we arrived at a research site, we would first find out where the various sex venues were located by asking any professional colleagues, and in some cases friends and relatives, who happened to live and work there. Sometimes these contacts would refer us to individuals who became key informants. In a few cases, we found locations by reading advertisements in the local newspapers, or by asking taxi drivers to refer us to sex venues. For example, when we were in Hong Kong, we visited several so-called one woman brothels and conducted the interviews inside these brothels. We found their advertisements on the internet, called them, and asked for their addresses. After our interviewer entered the premises, he told the woman there he was a researcher and would simply like to interview her. We also used the same approach to find subjects who were working out of small hotels or old residential buildings in Macau and those who ply their trade out of small apartments in New York City. Because women working in the one-woman brothels in Hong Kong, small hotels or old residential buildings in Macau, and small apartments in New York City were most likely to be working on their own, the process of finding them, entering their premises, and asking them to participate in our study was not that difficult because there was no third party involved.

The challenge was when we approached subjects who were working in premises that were owned and operated by someone else. For example, when we tried to interview women in the massage parlors of New Jersey, we had to deal with the fact that these women were working for someone else, and we needed to get the consent of the owners of these massage parlors as well. The same is true with the houses (brothels) in Los Angeles: not only did we need the consent of the women to talk to us, but also the

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

32

consent of the man or woman who owned and managed the house. Certain sex venues in Asia were well-established and had more than a hundred women working there under the supervision of a dozen or so so-called “mammies” or “mommies” (older females who were in charge of the girls). In these large sex venues, it was not possible for us to ask for the opportunity to talk to the owner and obtain his or her consent. As a result, for those particular sex venues, like the spas in Macau and Jakarta and the KTVs (karaoke TV lounges) in Bangkok, we tried to obtain the consent of a mommy or a manager first and then the girl later. Once we began talking to the girl, we told her who we were and what the project was about, obtained her consent, and the interview was conducted in the lounge. At no time did we deceive any of the interview subjects as to who we were and what we were doing.

The third way we found our subjects was through direct referrals. For example, we asked a relative living in Hong Kong to ask her hairdresser to introduce us to a “dancing hall” mommy and we later asked the mommy to introduce some of her girls to us. In Hong Kong, we also were acquainted with a mommy who was soliciting business on the streets for her girls and then asked her to bring her girls to us to be interviewed. In Shenzhen, we also relied on a street mommy to refer several girls to us. The same is true with all the escorts we interviewed in Taiwan and Malaysia. In both sites, we were able to meet a number of escort agency owners through referrals. Once these owners told their staff to support our project, we not only interview their girls, but also to interview the owners and even observe up-close how they conducted their businesses. In no instances, however, did any owners, managers or mommies demand or otherwise require the female

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and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

33

subjects to speak with us or coach the female subjects what to tell us, at least not to our nowledge.

k We also used a snowball sampling method by asking those subjects we found on our own to refer their friends or colleagues to us. We used this method in locating most of our subjects in Bangkok and several in Jakarta. As previously indicated, because of time constraints, and concerns about subject reluctance, we did not employ the respondent-driven sampling approach originally proposed.

Table 2 shows the number of subjects we located using the three approaches by research site. We recruited 17 street prostitutes (11% of the overseas sample of 149), mostly in Singapore and Malaysia. Most Chinese xiaojies in Asia and the United States do not walk the streets; they are most likely to be engaged indoors.

_____________________

Table 2 about here

_____________________

We located 62 subjects (42%) by visiting their venues. We relied on this method heavily in Macau and New York, but less so in Jakarta, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong. The majority of the subjects we found this way were working in brothels, hotels, or massage parlors. We did not use this method to locate women working in nightclubs and KTVs because, first, it is quite costly considering cover charges and other charges; and second, it would have been seen as unusual to be visiting these sorts of places alone and also quite difficult to arrange a one-on-one meeting with a hostess.

Seventy subjects (47%) were referred to us by their employers, colleagues, or friends, and that was how we found most of our subjects in Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia,

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

34

Indonesia, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong. In Taiwan, we relied on an escort agency owner and an agent (a person who fronted the money to bring a Chinese woman to Taiwan) for referrals; likewise in Malaysia, the owner of a large escort agency made referrals. In Indonesia, we were helped by several agents (representatives) and middlemen, and in Los Angeles, by two house owners. A street mommy in Hong Kong referred to us several women for whom she was soliciting business near a park in a tourist area.

Interviews with the women we recruited on the streets were conducted at a nearby coffee shop, restaurant, or hotel; whereas interviews with women we located at their workplaces were conducted in their own environments. For those who were referred to us, we interviewed them at a hotel’s coffee shop or restaurant. In sum, 31 interviews (21%) were conducted in our hotel’s coffee shop, 45 interviews (30%) in a public place outside our hotel, and the rest (49%) in the subjects’ own setting.

Most of the interviews lasted for about an hour to two hours. When we were in Macau interviewing women working out of the lobbies of small hotels, we were asked to complete the interviews in just 30 minutes, the amount of time they would offer a customer per session. Since it was not possible to complete an interview in 30 minutes, we decided to pay for two, three, or four sessions per interview, thereby allowing us to have 60 to 120 minutes to conduct the interviews. For certain subjects, the interviews lasted more than two hours, especially if they were not working that day, or they were in the mood to talk, or we were willing to pay them more money. As will become clear later, we are confident that the money we paid for the interviews was kept by our subjects, and was not taken away by their pimps, agents, or employers.

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

35

Validity and Reliability

A study of this nature poses many challenges in terms of validity and reliability. Our subjects from the sex business risk being ridiculed, arrested, deported, or imprisoned if their identities and activities were revealed to the media or the authorities. Their willingness to participate and the level of their truthfulness may therefore be affected by these concerns. We employed the following strategies to increase the validity and reliability of the data collection.

We were especially aware of the sensitive nature of interviewing women who engaged in prostitution and had explored the field logistics and reliability issues repeatedly during our prior interviews with prostitutes in various Asian cities for another project. To ensure that we would collect rich and reliable data from these subjects, we took a number of precautions. First, we conducted all the interviews face-to-face, one-on-one without the presence of another person. Second, we conducted the majority of the interviews in the subjects’ own settings or in public places with which they were familiar. Third, we employed conversational interview techniques to gain the trust and confidence of the interviewees. Fourth, we did not collect any identifiable information. And last, we told our subjects before the interviews that if they did not want to answer a question, to just say “I don’t know” or “I forget” and we would move on to the next question right away. In fact, some subjects did just that.

Despite these many precautions, we could not have completely avoided or prevented our subjects from giving us misleading or incomplete information. We also realize that interviewing prostitutes inside a sex venue or a public place for a short period of time has its own restrictions in trying to understand transnational sex trafficking. But

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

36

by maximizing the variety of the prostitutes and the sex ring operators we interviewed, and by utilizing other sources of data (e.g., court cases, interviews with government authorities and NGOs, analyzing secondary materials, and especially fieldwork and participant observation), we hoped and believe that we have succeeded in learning much more about the pieces of the puzzle known as the international sex trade.

Ethical Issues

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) (2003: 1), “interviewing a woman who has been trafficked raises a number of ethical questions and safety concerns for the woman, others close to her, and for the interviewer. Having a sound understanding of the risks, ethical considerations, and the practical realities related to trafficking can help minimize the dangers and increase the likelihood that a woman will disclose relevant and accurate information.” WHO (2003: 4) recommends the following ten guiding principles for interviewing trafficked women: “(1) Do no harm; (2) Know your subject and assess the risks; (3) Prepare referral information – do not make promises that you cannot fulfill; (4) Adequately select and prepare interpreters, and co-workers; (5) Ensure anonymity and confidentiality; (6) Get informed consent; (7) Listen to and respect each woman’s assessment of her situation and risks to her safety; (8) Do not re-traumatize a woman; (9) Be prepared for emergency intervention; and (10) Put information collected to good use.” Five years later, the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking (UNIAP) (2008) also developed a guide to ethical and human rights issues in conducting research on human trafficking and recommended seven guiding principles that were similar to the WHO guidelines. This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

37

When we were in the field interviewing our subjects, anticipating that some of them might be transnational trafficked victims, we paid full attention to all the recommendations made by WHO and UNAIP. We did nothing to harm our subjects; we went in with information about various local intervention agencies in case our subjects needed it; we did not collect any identifiable information about the subjects; we asked for their verbal informed consent and we did not pressure anyone to participate in our study; we did not ask any questions that might upset our subjects and let them decide what questions they would answer and to what extent; and, we believe we are putting the information collected to good use. We were especially concerned about the first principle – not to do any harm to our subjects. As a result, we never tried to achieve anything at the expense of or risk to our subjects.

We also did not deceive our subjects. Once our interviewer was alone with a xiaojie, he immediately told her who he was and the purpose of his being there. He then told her the key points in our verbal informed consent statement, emphasizing that (1) participation is completely voluntary, (2) refusal to participate will involve no penalty or loss of benefit, (3) even if consenting to participate, the subject can refuse to answer any question she wishes to, (4) the subject may also terminate the interview at any time, and proceeded only if the subject said that she was willing to be interviewed. Not ONE interview was conducted without the subject’s full consent and understanding of the process.

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

38

Limitations of this Study

As is true with any research, there are limitations; and this study has several such limitations. It is important to point these out in order to give our reading audience a basis for judging for themselves the weight to be given our findings and conclusions.

*We have studied only sex trafficking, meaning we have excluded other forms of human trafficking such as labor trafficking and child trafficking. Consequently, our findings are only relevant to sex trafficking and cannot be generalized to other forms of human trafficking. We fully agree that there is a need to pay more attention to other forms of human trafficking as well (Gozdziak and Collett 2005; Gozdziak and Bump 2008).

*We studied only Chinese women and the people and processes involved in the transnational movement of Chinese women. As a result, our findings are pertinent to that population, but may not be applicable to the experiences of women from other source countries.

*Our samples of xiaojies, sex ring operators, law enforcers, and NGOs are all small because of time and resource constraints, and are also not fully representative samples. Even though we recruited women with diverse backgrounds in terms of age, marital status, and place of origin; included women from a variety of sex markets (street, massage parlor, brothel, nightclub, etc.); and interviewed women in eight Asian and two American cities, the sample could be skewed in terms of age, marital status, earnings, etc. Women who are younger, single, and capable of making substantially more than the average prostitute are probably underrepresented in our sample, simply because we were

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

39

constrained by our budget to reach them. In other words, what we would have had to offer to pay them would have been quite substantial as our NYC contact informed us.

*The sex ring operator sample is not equally distributed by research site, and the majority of the subjects in this sample are the mommies. Certain other actors such as chickenheads and fake husbands are not included because we did not have the opportunity to approach persons in these roles for a formal interview. This too limits generalizabililty.

*Some of the interviews were conducted under circumstances that were not fully conducive to frank and candid conversations. More than half of the women we interviewed were not through referrals, and some of these women might not actually been willing to tell us the whole truth or story about themselves. Areas for skepticism are with respect to age (many women said they were younger than they actually appeared to be), marital status (married women might be inclined to say they are single or divorced), place of origin (some women could have been unwilling to reveal where they were from or simply gave the name of a nearby big city instead of their actual hometown), and how much money they were making from providing sexual services (the inclination would be to understate this figure). We also believe that many women knew more about their intermediaries and their intermediaries’ operations than they were willing to share with us. This would have been because these persons were sometimes boyfriends or relatives or other persons with whom they had a personal relationship.

*All the interviews with Chinese female subjects were conducted by a male interviewer. Not having a female interviewer could be construed as a weakness because

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

40

female subjects might not be as candid with a male interviewer, or be willing to tell a male interviewer about physical aspects of their work.

*A number of the interviews were conducted in the subjects’ own settings. Some may consider this to be a major limitation because they assume that most subjects would be afraid to tell us the truth while they were under their controllers’ watchful eyes. But many of these women were independent prostitutes, i.e., they worked on their own, and so the question of being watched by controllers was not an issue. We did not find that the nature of the venue had much effect on what the women told us about whether they had been abused or deceived in some way.

*Some subjects were referred to us by their employers, agents, or mommies, and thus there could be a concern that these subjects were instructed by their sex ring operators to tell us that they were willingly engaged in prostitution and that they were not being victimized or exploited by their handlers. But again, we did not find differences in this respect when we compared these particular subjects with others.

*The last issue may or may not be a limitation, but it clearly is a finding. It is the issue that will perhaps (probably) be likely to garner the most attention and controversy. This is the fact that, even though we set out to study the transnational movement of women for commercial sex and its possible links to sex trafficking, and given our best efforts using the approaches described, we were not able to find many transnational trafficked victims who either explicitly told us they were, or who otherwise gave the appearance of or described experiences of being deceived, forced, or coerced into their current situation. One of the exceptions was an underage subject, a 17-year-old streetwalker in Singapore, who was by legal definition a trafficking victim simply

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

41

because of her age. A woman in Bangkok said she was deceived by her aunt who had brought her there, because the aunt did not tell her that as a hostess she would have to sleep with men. This is not to say that some other subjects, more than a few as will be seen, had not been victimized or otherwise exploited at some earlier point during their involvement in commercial sex. We did encounter a number of subjects who can be classified as domestic trafficking victims because they were coerced or tricked into prostitution while still in China.

We believe that seeking subjects by using the approaches likely to be used by potential commercial sex customers is a reasonable and defensible sampling method. After all, the money made from sex trafficking comes from selling sex to such customers. Especially important is the fact that when we asked our female subjects if they knew any sex trafficking victims, they answered no. Only a few had even heard of such cases. Thus, referrals from these subjects, a la the RDS method, would have been highly unlikely to lead us to trafficking victims.

We have already detailed our research approach and rationale, as well as why we rejected the notion of depending upon defined groups of trafficking victims such as other studies have done. Nevertheless, we were made starkly aware of the potential risks we were running in using that strategy very early on in the study. A college-educated, 33-year-old xiaojie from Harbin (Heilongjiang Province, in northeastern China) working in New York City criticized our proposed approach after she was told that we were looking to interview women who were trafficked:

If you are looking for trafficked victims like this, you are never, ever going to find them. If you can find a girl through a newspaper advertisement, that means the girl is not being deceived or controlled,

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

42

because the girl can tell her customers about this. Those who are tricked here are most likely to be locked up, and the brothel owner is unlikely to advertise his business. He is going to do business with only regular customers, and the girls are going to be locked up in a small hotel or an apartment.

Interestingly and importantly, we believe, she then added: “Of course, I know this happens in China, but I don’t know whether it also exists in the United States.” Our subjects, while denying that they had been forced, deceived or coerced into doing what they were currently doing, also indicated that they knew of no such cases involving other women, although sometimes some had heard of this happening.

No matter how reasonable the criticisms from the above woman about our ways of locating our subjects, we firmly believe in the end that it would be very difficult (albeit not impossible) for sex ring operators to do a lucrative business the way she described: locking up women and accepting new customers only with referrals from regulars. Tyldum and Brunovskis (2005: 26) made the same point when they wrote: “Even women in situations of serious exploitation and abuse can never be totally invisible in the prostitution arena, as their organizers need to sell the women to clients.”

III. Findings

The Women

Background Characteristics

Contrary to the popular image, our data show that indeed a variety of Chinese women from diverse backgrounds in fact go overseas to engage in prostitution. This suggests that there may be more diversity among the parties involved in transnational prostitution than is commonly supposed. Of the 149 women we interviewed outside China, many were

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

43

young, single women, but also a large percentage of them were married women in their 30s or 40s (see Table 3). Most of them were from rural areas, but many also came from urban centers. About 4 out of 10 of them had engaged in prostitution when they were in China.

______________________

Table 3 about here

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Age

Almost all of the Chinese women we interviewed were 20 or older. The average age of our subjects (N=149) was 30.79; only one subject in our sample was a juvenile – a 17-year-old girl we met in Singapore. Forty-four percent of the subjects were between 21 and 30, thirty-nine percent of them were between 31 and 40, and eleven percent of them were 41 or older. A couple of subjects were in their 50s. It is also possible that our subjects were actually older than their reported age, as it is a common practice among prostitutes to under-report their age so that they can be more attractive and generate more business. We do not believe that anyone told us they were older than they actually were.

Education

Most of our subjects either graduated from middle or high school, with the mean years of education being 10. Twelve percent of them had only an elementary school education, 37 percent middle school, 34 percent high school, and 17 percent college

(undergraduate). Taken together with age, these women are both older and better educated than is commonly believed, and both of these factors are related to vulnerability to exploitation. Many subjects said they did not like school when they were young, so

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

44

they stopped attending school after graduating from elementary or middle school and stayed home to do house chores. When they reached a certain age, they went out to work. Some of them just spent time with a bunch of friends every day: singing, dancing, and having fun until they became acquainted with someone who brought them (not necessarily using force, fraud, or deception) into prostitution.

Some dropped out of school because there was a crisis in the family and they had to work to support their families. Some said they did like school and hoped to receive a good education, but that their parents were not very supportive simply because they were girls. Since some of our subjects were from poor families in rural areas, their status as females put them in a precarious position because poor families in rural areas have traditionally preferred to have sons, not daughters. Xiao Zheng (all the xiaojies we interviewed have been given pseudonyms), a 23-year-old from Liuzhou (Guangxi Province, southwest China) told us why she was forced to quit school:

I dropped out of school two months before graduation from middle school because my father was diagnosed with cancer. I am the youngest of six siblings. Actually, I really wanted to continue school. My father was always against my desire to attend school – he said that girls should not attend school. It was my mother who insisted that I go to school. Because of this, my father put a knife to my mother’s neck and demanded that she stop me from attending school.

Some of these women, with relatively little education and/or connections to people of influence and power, ended up working in the manufacturing or service sectors. There, because of low pay and unrewarding work experiences, many changed jobs frequently, until they ultimately entered into prostitution.

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

45

Family

Even though our female subjects came from all over China (a total of 59 towns or cities), many of them were from areas around Chongqing and Changde (Hunan Province) in central China, from Harbin (Heilongjiang Province), Changchun (Jilin Province), and Shenyang (Liaoning Province) in the far northeast, and from the capitol Beijing (see the attached Map of China). Subjects from Hunan Province made up 14 percent of the sample, Chongqing City and Sichuan Province made up 13 percent, and Liaoning Province 12 percent. The three major source areas for xiaojies in China are believed to be Sichuan Province, Hunan Province, and the three provinces in the northeast (Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning). It is important to point out that very few of our subjects were actually born in the major cities mentioned above; they were mostly born in the rural hinterland around those big cities, and it was not unusual for them to travel for many hours by bus or train from where they live to a big city nearby. Moreover, many of them were already living away from home, usually in coastal areas, for a few years before they left China.

Most of our subjects came from poor families. Thirty-six percent of our subjects said their fathers were farmers, 30 percent laborers, and 8 percent of fathers were retired or unemployed. Thirty-six percent of the subjects said their mothers were farmers, 22 percent laborers, and 21 percent were retired or unemployed. Only a very small percentage of our subjects’ parents had professional jobs. There is no doubt that the majority of our subjects belong to very ordinary families with very little power or privilege.

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

46

Marital Status

Half of our subjects were either married (24 percent) or divorced (26 percent), and 40 percent of them had one child or more. All the married or divorced women became prostitutes only after their marriages. There is a possibility that a very small number of subjects might have lied to us about their marital status, telling us they were divorced when in fact their marriages were intact, or saying they were single when they were actually married. Juan Juan, a 42-year-old married woman from Yingkuo (Liaoning Province, northeast China) who was working as a hostess in Bangkok, explained why: “I am married and I have a good relationship with my husband, but I tell my customers here that I am divorced. Otherwise, why would they give me money? If I say I am married, they will think that I will give all the money they give me to my husband.”

Work Experience

Since many of our subjects came from poor families in rural areas and had limited education, it is not difficult to imagine that they did not have good, high paying jobs in China. But, nearly a third were neither ordinary workers nor unemployed. Instead they did what was considered professional work, or worked for the government or in a private business, or were involved in the entertainment business. The latter is of interest because the entertainment sector has been considered a target for the recruitment of young women with aspirations for glamorous jobs as dancers, singers, actresses, and so on. As previously indicated, the largest portion (41 percent) told us they were already engaged in commercial sex before they went abroad. Let us repeat that this does not preclude the possibility that they may have been victimized earlier. Likewise, it also does not preclude

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

47

the possibility that prostitutes can be subsequently victimized through physical abuse or various forms of deception or coercion when they go overseas. What it does say is that four in ten of these women were at the outset not the typically portrayed victims of sex trafficking.

Choices and Bounded Rationality

In all the instances described to us, we saw that economic factors were a driving force behind the choices the women made. Many had already been the victims of circumstances. Whether they would have behaved differently or made different choices if they had had other options is, of course, unknown. Nevertheless, greater economic opportunity for women in China – and elsewhere as well – would certainly reduce the pressure of economics as a major push factor in prostitution. That said, once they had already entered into prostitution, many of these women were then receptive to or actively sought out the possibility of moving abroad in order to increase their earnings. Again, this suggests that the definition of who is and is not a victim is not as clear cut as might be supposed.

One way to view the process through which these women moved is in terms of what some scholars call “bounded rationality” (see Simon 1982). Originally theorized to explain organizational behavior and various forms of economic and management decision-making, bounded rationality has since been taken up by various social scientists, including some criminologists (see, e.g., Clarke and Cornish 2000; and Miller 2001). The Miller analysis is particularly apropos here because she describes the role of gender inequality as a factor limiting the rational choices of women. She points out that the

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

48

structural inequalities in society certainly shape the choices girls and women have available to them, but that they do nevertheless exercise choice, and are not “simply passive victims of male oppression” (Miller 2001:26).

These and a number of other works addressing bounded rationality attempt to explain decision-making in a variety of contexts. In essence, the theory of bounded rationality posits that when individuals make decisions, they do not do so under optimum conditions that allow them to be completely rational and able to fully weigh all the possible risks and rewards surrounding their decision and choice. There may, for example, be time constraints; there may be a lack of information or there may be misinformation about certain options; there may be peer pressure; certain alternatives may simply not be accessible, and so on. Because they lack information and/or are unable to fully comprehend the information they do have, people are said to “satisfice.” That is, they make what may appear to them to be the best decision or choice given their circumstances at the time. Consequently, their decision making is bounded – constrained or restricted – by their social, physical and situational contexts, and their perceptions of those contexts. The individual assessments of the costs, risks and benefits involved are subjective, which is why in this case different women in the same circumstances might make different choices; and why the same women may make different choices at different times.

In her study of prostitution in China, Min Liu (2010) looked specifically at this issue of bounded rational choice among the prostitutes she interviewed. She concluded that there are a number of factors in contemporary China that effect both the range of options available and the perception of those options by Chinese women. Liu notes that

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

49

attitudes toward sex have become more liberal, with both premarital and extramarital sex being more acceptable. At the same time, traditional Chinese views of women as being subordinate to men have re-emerged, putting women in a less advantaged position than before. In addition, the expanding and omnipresent entertainment venues and countless customers mean the opportunities to work as prostitutes are numerous. And finally, attitudes toward money and wealth have changed dramatically, giving way to much more materialistic perspectives. “The extent to which a woman accepts these liberalized attitudes toward sex, how she views her body, and her attitudes about money are,” says Liu, “the decisive forces determining whether she will enter prostitution, given certain financial circumstances” (Liu 2010: 245). This last point suggests that personal economic circumstances are usually the critical spark for considering sex work as a viable option.

There is another consideration that might enter into the choice to become a prostitute as well, and that is the moral qualms that may have to be addressed. Liu found, for example, that one of the greatest concerns of her subjects was the fear that their friends or families would find out what they were doing. This suggests that they are ashamed of what it is they are doing. Therefore, their choice process would seemingly also be bounded by the force of any moral qualms, and in instances where women choose to act against their deeply held values, they are probably going to have to rationalize and adopt what Sykes and Matza (1957) originally termed “techniques of neutralization” in order to justify their deviant behavior.

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

50

Chinese women have clearly been treated unfairly by both the legal system and the society at large throughout Chinese history. Chinese norms and values put considerable pressure on women through the cultural expectation that a daughter must obey her father, a wife must obey her husband, and