By Charmain Mohamed
China will mark this year’s International Women’s Day by continuing to arbitrarily detain thousands of women and girls in Custody and Education (C&E) centers across the country. In place since the 1980s, C&E is an administrative penalty system targeting commercial sex workers and their clients. In the name of ‘education’ and ‘rescue,’ sex workers and their clients can be detained for periods of six months to two years, without any form of judicial oversight, appeal, or redress. While in custody, women are subjected to forced unpaid labor and compulsory testing for sexually transmitted diseases.
While China has placed extraordinary emphasis on legal reform in recent years, the approach has not been uniform. On November 15, 2013 the Chinese government announced it would abolish Reeducation Through Labor (RTL). This arbitrary detention system, in effect since the 1950s, was used as a form of administrative punishment for “minor offences,” including drug addiction, petitioning, advocating for human rights, or membership of “illegal” religions such as a Christian house church or Falun Gong. While the government dismantles 60 years of RTL, C&E remains in effect.
International experience demonstrates that punitive laws and their implementation have a negative impact on the health and situation of sex workers, and are a contributory factor in fueling the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In China, police use possession of condoms as evidence of sex work. This has led to decreased condom use in what is a high risk marginalized group for HIV/AIDS. Furthermore, C&E is failing to meet the government’s stated aim to eradicate or decrease the number of people engaged in sex work.
Asia Catalyst interviews with female sex workers in 2013 showed that all the women returned to sex work after release from C&E.
The last several months in China have seen ‘vice raids’ across the country aimed at cracking down on sex work. The result, however, has been the public humiliation, arrest and detention of hundreds more–largely female–sex workers. On International Women’s Day, the Chinese government should look towards implementing a less punitive and more holistic approach to promoting and protecting the rights of sex workers. Decriminalizing sex work and abolishing C&E is the natural next step for a government promoting legal reform. Providing voluntary, quality, and evidence-informed health care, including for the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, should already be on their agenda.
