Asia

Citation:

Petchesky, Rosalind P. 2005. "Rights of the Body and Perversions of War: Sexual Rights and Wrongs Ten Years Past Beijing." International Social Science Journal 57 (184): 301-18.

Author: Rosalind P. Petchesky

Abstract:

The Beijing Platform for Action (1995) and its companion documents – those of the Vienna Conference on Human Rights (1993) and the International Conference on Population and Development (1994) – took important steps toward securing recognition for what we might call human rights of the body. These are affirmative rights relating to sexual expression, reproductive choice and access to health care and negative rights pertaining to freedom from violence, torture and abuse. But ten years later, the violated male bodies of Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, and Gujarat seem to mock certain of Beijing's most basic premises: that women are primarily the victims rather than the perpetrators of bodily abuses; and that, as such, women are, or should be, the privileged beneficiaries of bodily integrity rights. This paper re-examines these premises in the shadow of the “war on terrorism”, religious extremism, and practices of racialised, sexual, and often homophobic violence against men that emerge in wars and ethnic conflicts. In particular it looks at the war in Iraq and how that war configures such practices in both old and new ways. My purpose is not to repudiate feminist visions but rather to challenge the exclusive privileging of women as the bearers of sexual rights and to open up discussion of new, more inclusive coalitions of diverse social movements for rights of the body.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Health, International Human Rights, Peace Processes, Religion, Rights, Human Rights, Sexual Violence, Torture, Sexual Torture Regions: Asia, East Asia Countries: China

Year: 2005

Citation:

Lee, Hye-Kyung. 2003. "Gender, Migration and Civil Activism in South Korea." Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 12: 127-53.

Author: Hye-Kyung Lee

Abstract:

Since the late 1980s, Korea has experienced an influx of migrant workers from neighboring Asian countries. The total number of migrant workers in 1990 was less than 20,000, but rose to 340,000 in 2002. International migration in South Korea shows less extensive feminization than in comparable receiving countries in East Asia. This paper examines why female migration, which accounts for only 30-35 percent of all migrant workers, is less extensive in South Korea, and why domestic work, the major occupation which has accelerated female migration in the region, is not popular in South Korea. It also assesses the current state of migrant and civil society movements providing assistance to migrant women in South Korea. Although the number of these NGOs is small, their activities have highlighted the problems and issues in international marriages and the entry of foreign female entertainers in the sex industry. The paper argues that civil movements for migrant women have contributed to reconsiderations of notions of nationality and citizenship in Korea.

Keywords: immigration, migrant workers

Topics: Citizenship, Civil Society, Displacement & Migration, Migration, Gender, Women, Livelihoods, Sexual Livelihoods, Nationalism, NGOs Regions: Asia, East Asia Countries: South Korea

Year: 2003

Citation:

Puar, Jasbir K. 2005. "On Torture: Abu Ghraib." Radical History Review 93: 13-38.

Author: Jasbir K. Puar

Keywords: prisons, Torture

Topics: International Law, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Rights, Human Rights, Terrorism, Torture, Sexual Torture Regions: MENA, Americas, North America, Asia, Middle East Countries: Iraq, United States of America

Year: 2005

Citation:

Puar, Jasbir K. 2004. "Abu Ghraib: Arguing Against Exceptionalism." Feminist Studies 30 (2): 522-34.

Author: Jasbir K. Puar

Topics: Gender, Men, Sexual Violence, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, SV against Men, Sexual Torture Regions: Africa, MENA, Americas, North America, Asia, Middle East Countries: Iraq, United States of America

Year: 2004

Citation:

Hughes, Donna M., Katherine Y. Chon, and Derek P. Ellerman. 2007. "Modern-Day Comfort Women: The U.S. Military, Transnational Crime, and the Trafficking of Women." Violence Against Women 13 (9): 901-22.

Authors: Donna M. Hughes, Katherine Y. Chon, Derek P. Ellerman

Abstract:

The trafficking of women has been a lucrative moneymaker for transnational organized crime networks, ranking third, behind drugs and arms, in criminal earnings. The U.S. military bases in South Korea were found to form a hub for the transnational trafficking of women from the Asia Pacific and Eurasia to South Korea and the United States.
This study, conducted in 2002, examined three types of trafficking that were connected to U.S. military bases in South Korea: domestic trafficking of Korean women to clubs around the military bases in South Korea, transnational trafficking of women to clubs around military bases in South Korea, and transnational trafficking of women from South Korea to massage parlors in the United States. 

Keywords: military sexual assault, sex trafficking, organized crime, US military bases

Topics: Gender, Women, Livelihoods, Sexual Livelihoods, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Sexual Violence, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, Trafficking, Human Trafficking, Sex Trafficking Regions: Americas, North America, Asia, East Asia Countries: South Korea, United States of America

Year: 2007

Citation:

Huda, Sigma. 2006. "Sex Trafficking in South Asia." International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics 94 (3): 374-81.

Author: Sigma Huda

Abstract:

Economic and social inequalities and political conflicts have led to the movement of persons within each country and across the borders in South Asia. Globalization has encouraged free mobility of capital, technology, experts and sex tourism. Illiteracy, dependency, violence, social stigma, cultural stereotypes, gender disparity and endemic poverty, among other factors, place women and children in powerless, non-negotiable situations that have contributed to the emergence and breeding of the cavernous problem of sex trafficking in the entire region. This alarming spread of sex trafficking has fuelled the spread of HIV infection in South Asia, posing a unique and serious threat to community health, poverty alleviation and other crucial aspects of human development. Although the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) Convention on Trafficking in Women and Children has been an important breakthrough, most of the countries in the region do not have anti-trafficking legislation or means to protect the victims. Countries of the region should make a concerted effort to treat trafficking victims as victims of human rights violations in all anti-trafficking strategies and actions.

Keywords: globalization, migration, HIV/AIDS, poverty, sex trafficking, human rights

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Economies, Economic Inequality, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Globalization, Health, HIV/AIDS, Rights, Human Rights, Sexual Violence, Sexual Slavery, Trafficking, Sex Trafficking, Violence Regions: Asia, South Asia

Year: 2006

Citation:

Ghosh, Biswajit. 2009. "Trafficking in Women and Children in India: Nature, Dimensions and Strategies for Prevention." The International Journal of Human Rights 13 (5): 716-38.

Author: Biswajit Ghosh

Abstract:

Trafficking in women and children is one of the worst abuses of human rights. But it is very difficult to estimate the scale of the phenomenon as trafficking is closely related to child labour, bonded labour, child marriage, kidnapping and abduction and prostitution even though these phenomena can exist also independent of trafficking. This paper has attempted to analyse the nature, causes, modes and volume of trafficking in a country that has recently become a soft target in the South Asian region for trafficking in persons. India has failed to comply with certain international standards to combat the crime. The paper highlights the need to develop a multidimensional approach and focuses attention on structural factors of trafficking for recommending meaningful stratagems to counter the social evil.

Keywords: accountability, governance, military sexual assault, human trafficking, human rights, child labor, prostitution

Annotation:

In giving examples of the various causes of human trafficking in India, this essay notes that the demand for young girls has increased in Jammu and Kashmir due to the increasing concentration of military personnel in these areas.

Topics: Gender, Women, Girls, Boys, Rights, Human Rights, Trafficking, Human Trafficking, Sex Trafficking Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India

Year: 2009

Citation:

Cheng, Sea-Ling. 2002. Transnational Desires: Trafficked Filipinas in US Military Camp Towns in South Korea. PhD diss., University of Oxford.

Author: Sea-Ling Cheng

Topics: Gender, Women, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Trafficking, Sex Trafficking Regions: Americas, North America, Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Philippines, South Korea, United States of America

Year: 2002

Citation:

Harmon, Louise, and Eileen Kaufman. 2004. "Dazzling the World: A Study of India's Constitutional Amendment Mandating Reservations for Women on Rural Panchayats." Berkeley Women's Law Journal 19 (1): 32-105.

Authors: Louise Harmon, Eileen Kaufman

Keywords: democracy, local government, constitutional design, political institutions

Topics: Gender, Women, Governance, Quotas, Elections, Political Participation Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India

Year: 2004

Citation:

Thomas-Slayter, Barbara, and Nina Bhatt. 1994. "Land, Livestock, and Livelihoods: Changing Dynamics of Gender, Caste, and Ethnicity in a Nepalese Village." Human Ecology 22 (4): 467-494.

Authors: Barbara Thomas-Slayter, Nina Bhatt

Abstract:

Over the past 10 years, Ghusel VDC, Lalitpur District has moved from primarily subsistence agriculture into the wider cash economy aided by the Small Farmers' Development Program (SFDP), which provides credit to farmers mainly for the purchase of buffalo for milk production, and by the National Dairy Corporation, which supports local dairy cooperatives.  Analysis reveals that buffalo-keeping and milk sales are increasing the well-being of many households, while at the same time creating new inequalities in gender roles and responsibilities, greater inequities between Brahmin and Tamang residents in Ghusel, and placing pressures on the ecosystem for increased supplies of fodder and fuelwood. Evidence suggests that there is critical, need for attention to the social, and particularly gender-based, implications of maintaining livestock for milk sales and to the ecological underpinnings of this livelihood system.

Keywords: agriculture, livestock, land

Topics: Agriculture, Caste, Economies, Economic Inequality, Ethnicity, Gender, Gender Roles, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Livelihoods, Rights, Land Rights Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Nepal

Year: 1994