Freeing Women Sex Workers from Discrimination in the World of Work and in their Daily Lives
- Details
Interview with Liana, Director of Manuwani Indonesia by Dewi Nova
|
|
Manuwani joined the women's movement in taking action at the Women's March on 7 December 2024 in Jakarta - calling on the Indonesian government to abolish discriminatory policies.This short interview was conducted in commemoration of International Sex Workers Day, celebrated every June 2nd.
Manuwani Indonesia is a sex worker organisation currently organising street sex workers in East Jakarta and sex workers in harbour cafes in North Jakarta, Indonesia.
Can you start by explaining why it is important for sex workers to organise?
Sex workers are people who have a profession – providing sexual services. Therefore, sex work is work. Everyone works to earn money to support their families, and sex workers are no different.
Women, in patriarchal cultures like Indonesia, are consistently left behind. This disadvantage is even worse for marginalised women, such as women sex workers. Women sex workers have unique experiences compared to other sex workers. This is because:
First, before choosing to become sex workers, women have less access to education than men. In poor families with limited resources to send their children to school, girls are often forced to give way to boys, who are given priority in education. This early discrimination prevents women from accessing many jobs as men. Even when women and men both work as sex workers, they are placed in different classes. Men with higher levels of education can become sex workers with better incomes. This situation is inversely proportional to women sex workers, who are mostly sex workers with very low incomes.