Sex Work, Immigration and Social Difference

Public discourses around migrant sex workers are often more confident about what migrant sex workers signify morally but are less clear about who the ‘migrant’ is. Based on interviews with immigrant, migrant and racialized sex workers in Vancouver, Canada and Melbourne, Australia, Sex Work, Immigration and Social Difference challenges the ‘migrant sex worker’ category by investigating the experiences of women who are often assumed to be ‘migrant sex workers’ in Australia and Canada.

Many ‘migrant sex workers’ in Melbourne and Vancouver are in fact, naturalized citizens or permanent residents, whose involvement in the sex industry intersects with diverse ideas and experiences of citizenship in Australia and Canada. This book examines how immigrant, migrant and racialized sex workers in Vancouver and Melbourne wield or negotiate ideas of illegality and legality to obtain desired outcomes in their day-to-day work.

Sex work continues to be the subject of fierce debate in the public sphere, at the policy level, and within research discourses. This study interrogates these perceptions of the ‘migrant sex worker’ by presenting the lived realities of women who embody or experience dimensions of this category. This book is interdisciplinary and will appeal to those engaged in criminology, sociology, law, and women’s studies.

Julie Ham is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong. She has published on sex work, anti-trafficking, gender and migration, feminist participatory action research, and activist efforts by trafficking survivors, sex workers and domestic workers. Prior to joining the Department of Sociology, she worked with the Border Crossing Observatory, Monash University; the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW); and with community-based research projects and organizations in Canada, working with sex workers, immigrant and refugee communities, women substance users, low-income urban communities, and anti-violence organizations.