Myanmar
Violence also contributes to vulnerability. Rape and violence associated with arrest drives sex workers into various forms of employment where they are less vulnerable to police violence but in which none of the protections and rights of legal workers apply. Unprotected sex, when it happens, occurs at the behest of police, clients or sex venue bosses whose power over sex workers is entrenched by the law and by a justice system that sex workers say is indifferent to justice and human rights…477 Sex workers who do not have identification cards have difficulty accessing services, travelling, securing accommodation and changing occupation. Citizenship is a fraught issue in Myanmar where restrictions on the movement of people and state scrutiny of all citizens are famously in place…478 The law is ostensibly vigorously enforced. Police are clearly under instructions to operate a zero tolerance policy towards brothels and street work and there is some evidence that they have quotas of arrests to fill. There are times when sex workers cannot bribe their way out of arrest but can get charges reduced by informing on other sex workers or third parties leading to their arrest as well…479 This facade of vigorous enforcement makes space for widespread corruption simply because jail sentences of one to five years for sex work place a powerful trump card in the hands of poor and ill disciplined police. However, as well as the corruption and bribes being an alternative to incarceration in Myanmar[,] female and transgender sex workers are also arrested and jailed. Only the frequency of arrest and incarceration and the cost of extortion seem to vary in sex workers’ stories. Crucially, female sex workers’ only way of reducing, but not eliminating, their chances of being arrested is to sell sex in a venue controlled by others who provide protection from police. This clearly creates a market for sex business operators – or ‘pimps’ as they are often called. Transgender sex workers do not have that option and are therefore even more exposed to the cycle of extortion, arrest and jail.
“Unprotected sex, when it happens, occurs at the behest of police, clients or sex venue bosses whose power over sex workers is entrenched by the law and by a justice system that sex workers say is indifferent to justice and human rights.”
Law enforcement is linked to both lack of access to services and to lack of access to safe workplaces. Unprotected sex, when it happens, occurs at the behest of police, clients or sex venue bosses whose power over sex workers is entrenched by the law and by a justice system that sex workers say is indifferent to justice and human rights.480 …Violence clearly emerged as routine and most sex workers experience it as a constant threat. It also contributes to vulnerability in a range of direct and indirect ways. For example rape presents a direct threat to all sex workers mental and physical health. Fear of violence motivates street sex workers to spend less time on the street.
477 Overs C., Win K., Hawkins K., Mynt W., Shein W. (2011) op cit., p.6. 478 Ibid., p.6. 479 Ibid., p.30. 480 Ibid., p.30.
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