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Editorial Contacts. Offices Worlwide. Course Adoption. Contact Form. As activists from the Global Network of Sex Work Projects write on their webpage, sex work is not specifically mentioned in the ILO recommendation, but they refer to the discussions during the drafting process and to subsequent meetings concerning HIV to emphasize the labor approach of the Geneva organization.
Sex work, however, remains in limbo in international labor law. In spite of its recognition in some national legal contexts e. Germany, New Zeeland, and the Netherlands and the increased worldwide activism of sex workers from the s onward, the ILO has never advocated the legalization of prostitution.
Furthermore, it highlights the divisions within the ILO that make the recognition of prostitution as a form of work difficult. The analysis unfolds in two sections. In the first part, I take the reader on a conceptual tour from antiquity to the present, and provide some theoretical insights that might help to demonstrate why prostitutionβparticularly femaleβhas been deemed problematic in most cultures.
Whether society at large is prepared to treat activities such as prostitution as a form of work remains to be seen. The view of prostitution as an evilβa necessary one for some and an unwarranted one for othersβseems to be ubiquitous. According to Allison Glazebrook, the ancients did not make a clear distinction between hetairai or pornai , or between hetairai or adulteresses and women in atypical relationships. This suggests that for males, prostitution was simply perceived as a trade, whereas for women it was considered an identity.
