Focusing on the child, not the prostitute: shifting the emphasis in accounts of child prostitution

Montgomery, Heather (2010). Focusing on the child, not the prostitute: shifting the emphasis in accounts of child prostitution. Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's and Gender Studies, 8 pp. 166–188.

URL: http://appweb.cortland.edu/ojs/index.php/Wagadu/ar...

Abstract

Child prostitutes are often portrayed as pitiful victims about whom there can be no discussions of force or choice, agency or empowerment. Detailed ethnographic research, however, paints a very different picture. This article employs findings from several ethnographic accounts, including my own, of Thai children, who, while admitting to exchanging sex for money and other services, utterly reject the term “prostitution’ and saw themselves primarily as dutiful daughters, sisters and children. By focusing on their daily lives, as much as intermittent periods of prostitution, it is possible to present a more rounded picture of the everyday lives of such children.