Unintended Consequences of Intimacy: Political Economies of Peacekeeping and Sex Tourism

Abstract

This article assess whether peacekeeping economies are disposed to become sex tourism economies. It argues that, like sex tourism economies, peacekeeping economies are to a greater or lesser degree dependent on the exploitation of women's and girls’ sexual labour. The article examines some of the gendered roles and relations that are established or reinforced by peacekeeping economies, and whether these will likely continue beyond the life of the peacekeeping operation. It argues that the similarities between peacekeeping and sex tourism economies are indicative of a possible link between foreign military presence and sex tourism, but also that the UN's position as a political, humanitarian and development actor gives it a special responsibility to prevent this happening.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Earlier versions of this article were presented at the 2008 British International Studies Association annual conference, Exeter (15–17 December) and at the 2009 International Studies Association annual conference, New York (15–18 February). The article draws upon fieldwork in Haiti and Liberia in October and November/December 2007, respectively, for a project funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on UN approaches to sexual exploitation and abuse in peacekeeping operations.

Notes

See, e.g., Coco Fusco, ‘Hustling for Dollars: Jineterismo in Cuba’, in Kamala Kempadoo and Jo Doezema (eds), Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition, New York: Routledge, 1998, pp.151–66. Informants attached to the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) who had also worked in the previous UN mission to Haiti in the 1990s said that while international–local sexual relationships were common in the earlier mission, it was then seemingly more common for international women to have a Haitian boyfriend than vice versa. However, they indicated that, comparatively speaking, it was less common to see international–local relationships, and speculated that such relationships – besides being less accepted by the mission – were now less frequent, more overtly transactional and more covert.

As evident in a 2007–8 Campaign to Prevent Transactional Sex/Prostitution, run by the Conduct and Discipline Team in New York in cooperation with mission-level units.

See Kathleen M. Jennings, Protecting Whom? Approaches to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in UN Peacekeeping Operations, Oslo: Fafo, 2008; UN, ‘Secretary-General's Bulletin: Special Measures for Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse’, UN doc., ST/SGB/2003/13, 9 Oct. 2003; UN, ‘A Comprehensive Strategy to Eliminate Future Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations’ (Zeid Report), UN doc., A/59/710, 24 Mar. 2005.

UN policy, as expressed in the Secretary-General's ‘Bulletin’ (see n.3 above), is ambiguous. There is no blanket prohibition against sexual relationships but they are strongly discouraged, on the presumption that they are exploitative. While there is seemingly scope for the UN's ban on transactional sex to be applied to transactional relationships, it remains unclear how staff or investigators should distinguish between a genuine and a transactional relationship. See Jennings (see n.3 above).

Julia O'Connell Davidson, ‘The Sex Tourist, the Expatriate, His Ex-wife and Her “Other”: The Politics of Loss, Difference and Desire’, Sexualities, Vol.4, No.5, 2001, pp.5–24. ‘Fetishization’ is my term, not Davidson's.

This and the following section draw in part on material presented in expanded form in Kathleen M. Jennings and Vesna Nikolić-Ristanović, UN Peacekeeping Economies and Local Sex Industries: Connections and Implications, Brighton: MicroCon, 2007. Gendered relations can be defined as ‘interactions between and among women and men that are characterized by negotiation, bargaining and exchange between different actors with different access to economic and social power’; see Paul Higate and Marsha Henry, ‘Engendering (In)security in Peace Support Operations’, Security Dialogue, Vol.34, No.4, 2004, p.482.

Michael Carnahan, William Durch and Scott Gilmore, Economic Impact of Peacekeeping: Final Report, New York: UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, 2006; Elisabeth Rehn and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Women, War and Peace: The Independent Experts’ Assessment on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Women and Women's Role in Peace-Building, New York: UNIFEM, 2002; Higate and Henry (see n.6 above).

Rehn and Johnson Sirleaf (see n.7 above).

On ‘entertainment infrastructure’ see Simon Carter and Stephen Clift, ‘Tourism, International Travel and Sex: Themes and Research’, in Clift and Carter (eds), Tourism and Sex: Culture, Commerce and Coercion, London: Pinter, 2000, p.11. On using resource flows and the multiplier effect to judge the impact of peacekeeping economies, see Carnahan et al. (see n.7 above), p.v.

Jennings and Nikolić-Ristanović (see n.6 above).

See, e.g., Megan MacKenzie, ‘Reconstructing Women? Post-conflict Security and the Return to “Normal” in Sierra Leone’, paper presented at Canadian Political Science Association Annual Conference, Saskatchewan, 30 May to 1 June 2007; Sarah Martin, Must Boys Be Boys?: Ending Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in UN Peacekeeping Missions, Washington, DC: Refugees International, 2005; Rehn and Johnson Sirleaf (see n.7 above).

See Sandra Whitworth, Men, Militarism and UN Peacekeeping: A Gendered Analysis, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004.

Anu Pillay, ‘Violence against Women in the Aftermath’, in Sheila Meintjes, Anu Pillay and Meredeth Turshen (eds), The Aftermath: Women in Post-conflict Transformation, London: Zed Books, 2001, pp.35–45.

Meredeth Turshen, ‘Engendering Relations of State to Society in the Aftermath’, in Meintjes, Pillay and Turshen (eds), (see n.13 above), p.85.

See, e.g., Donna Pankhurst, ‘Gendered Peace’, in Michael Pugh, Neil Cooper and Mandy Turner (eds), Whose Peace?: Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2008, pp.30–46; Sheila Meintjes, Anu Pillay and Meredeth Turshen, ‘There Is No Aftermath for Women’, in Meintjes, Pillay and Turshen (eds), (see n.13 above), pp.3–18.

Teresa Oleszczuk and Stana Buchowska, ‘The Pretty Woman Syndrome: The Background on Prostitution and Traffic in Women in and from Poland’, in ‘One Year La Strada’, report, Dutch Foundation against Traffic in Women (STV) / La Strada,1996, pp.24–31.

In Monrovia there are also Chinese brothels (which masquerade as sauna or spa facilities or, in at least one case, double as a Chinese restaurant). It is likely that their appearance is related to the influx of Chinese business interests and workers contracted to rebuild Liberia's infrastructure. The Chinese women are probably trafficked. In Port-au-Prince there is evidence of women from the Dominican Republic being trafficked to the capital's brothels and clubs. See Jennings and Nikolić-Ristanović (n.6 above).

Julia O'Connell Davidson, Prostitution, Power & Freedom, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998, p.10.

Ibid., p.78.

Ibid., pp.77–9.

The 2002 UNIFEM report Women, War and Peace has been particularly influential in shaping understandings of women's experiences in and after war through its depictions of extreme depredation and abuse suffered by women and girls. See Rehn and Johnson Sirleaf (n.7 above). Media depictions and NGO reports also tend to focus on the most extreme cases. See BBC, ‘UN Probes Child Prostitute Ring’, 17 Aug. 2006 (at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5260210.stm); Save the Children, ‘No One to Turn to: The Under-reporting of Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by Aid Workers and Peacekeepers’, London, 2008.

Ibid. (all references); BBC, ‘Liberia Sex-for-Aid “Widespread”’, 8 May 2006 (at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4983440.stm).

This is not to imply that Liberian prostitutes and hustlers would not also be interested in love or long-term relationships with clients, only that the relationship aspect is arguably more central to homegirls. Many sex workers also have hopes of ending up in longer-term relationships offering the possibility of marriage and migration. See Denise Brennan, What's Love Got to Do with It? Transnational Desires and Sex Tourism in the Dominican Republic, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004. Although the term ‘homegirls’ was used in Liberia, this does not preclude local men also looking to establish mutually beneficial sexual relationships with international partners.

United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), ‘Report on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse for the Period January to June 2007’, Monrovia, 2007.

Jennings (see n.3 above).

Clift and Carter (see n.9 above), p.6.

Ibid., p.9.

‘Sex in tourism’ also covers non-transactional sexual relationships between tourists and locals, as well as sexual relationships between tourists themselves.

On ‘situational’ sex tourists, see Michael Clancy, ‘The Globalization of Sex Tourism and Cuba: A Commodity Chains Approach’, Studies in Comparative International Development, Vol.36, No.4, 2002, pp.63–88. On ‘hardcore’ sex tourists, see Davidson (n.5 above).

Cynthia Enloe, Does Khaki Become You? The Militarisation of Women's Lives, London: Pluto Press, 1983; idem, Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics, London: Pandora, 1989; Thanh-Dam Truong, Sex, Money and Morality: Prostitution and Tourism in Southeast Asia, London: Zed Books, 1990.

David Leheny, ‘A Political Economy of Asian Sex Tourism’, Annals of Tourism Research, Vol.22, No.2, 1995, pp.367–84.

Clancy (see n.29 above).

On the sex tourism industry in the Czech Republic, see Dan Bilefsky, ‘Financial Crisis Tames Demand for World's Oldest Service’, New York Times, 9 Dec. 2008, p.A6 (at: www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/world/europe/09czechsex.html?emc=eta1). Among other factors, Bilefsky identifies the increasing number of stag parties taking advantage of regular cheap flights from Britain and other European countries as an element in the industry's rise.

Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases (see n.30 above).

Ibid.; see also Clancy (n.29 above).

Clancy (see n.29 above), p.80; Leheny (see n.31 above).

See, e.g., Enloe Bananas, Beaches and Bases (n.30 above); Troung (n.30 above); Leheny (n.31 above); Jacqueline Sanchez-Taylor, ‘Tourism and “Embodied” Communities: Sex Tourism in the Caribbean’, in Clift and Carter (eds), (see n.26 above), pp.41–53.

Sanchez-Taylor (see n.37 above), p.42.

For an exploration of the continuity of the sex industry in wartime, peacekeeping and post-peacekeeping Bosnia–Herzegovina and Kosovo, see Jennings and Nikolić-Ristanović (n.6 above).

Here ‘safer’ refers to the generalized climate of security or insecurity in a country or region, not to the risks related specifically to sex tourism.

Dan Milmo, ‘Is Sierra Leone a Suitable Place for a Holiday?’, The Guardian, 20 Feb. 2008 (at: www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2008/feb/20/bmi.sierraleone); United Nations Peacebuilding Community of Practice Network, ‘Consolidated Reply: Burundi/ Tourism in Post-conflict Countries’, list-serv, 4 Aug. 2009.

Davidson (see n.5 above), p.7.

Ibid., p.14.

Ibid., pp.8, 10.

Ibid., p.14.

Whitworth (see n.12 above), p.25.

Clancy (see n.29 above) notes that sex tourism, like other niches of the tourism industry, has become increasingly price sensitive.

Ibid., p.77.

For an incisive gendered analysis of the representational practices associated with peacekeeping, see Whitworth (n.12 above); Sherene Razack, ‘From the “Clean Snows of Petawawa”: The Violence of Canadian Peacekeepers in Somalia’, Cultural Anthropology, Vol.15, No.1, 2000, pp.127–63.

Jennings and Nikolić-Ristanović (see n.6 above).

On the ideology of militarism see Enloe, Does Khaki Become You? (n.30 above); Whitworth (n.12 above).

Sexual exploitation is defined by the UN as ‘any actual or attempted abuse of a position of vulnerability, differential power, or trust, for sexual purposes, including, but not limited to, profiting monetarily, socially, or politically from the sexual exploitation of another’; while sexual abuse is ‘the actual or threatened physical intrusion of a sexual nature whether by force or under unequal or coercive conditions’. See UN (see n.3 above), p.1.

Some national militaries and other international organizations (such as NATO) have also promulgated rules about sexual transactions and/or sex-trafficking. In the case of national militaries, however, the punishment can be more severe, involving e.g. criminal cases brought in military courts, a remedy unavailable to the UN.

Whitworth (see n.12 above), pp.119–49.

Jennings (see n.3 above).

Zeid Report (see n.3 above), p.8.

Jennings (see n.3 above).