Events

CHAIRPERSON

Prof Brenda Yeoh, Asia Research Institute and Department of Geography, National University of Singapore.

ABSTRACT

In his pioneering study of the sex trade, Ah Ku and Karayuki-san, James Warren situated Singapore as a focal point for immigrant prostitution in Southeast Asia. He cited estimates for 1906 when Japanese karayuki-san numbers peaked, at which time there were 2,086 in Singapore, 970 in Batavia (Jakarta) and 392 in Manila. To understand the Singaporean context, however, it is important to consider what was happening in the other colonies of Southeast Asia. The British, Dutch, French and American administrations each had their own views on the regulation of sex work. Over the next decades, the general trend in the colonies was towards abolition but there was some dispute as to how this should be enforced. The most obvious case of abolition across Southeast Asia was in relation to Japanese women. In 1924 the League of Nations reported that karayuki-san numbers had fallen to 150 in Singapore, 30 in Manila, and apparently none left in Batavia. The campaign to eradicate Japanese prostitution had reached Batavia as early as 1913, some years before Manila and Singapore. During this period there is also evidence of more divergent policies in regard to Chinese women. In the 1924 report on Batavia it was said that Chinese prostitutes were ‘seen everywhere’, though apparently not counted. In Singapore in contrast, the authorities continued to keep records, even though this was a difficult task. In Singapore there were an estimated 1,000 Chinese women registered as prostitutes and an estimated further 1,000 unregistered women. In Manila, no mention was made at all of Chinese prostitution. A later report admitted to a few Chinese prostitutes working in Manila but claimed that strict controls prohibited their entry. Thus neither the Dutch nor the Americans were able to offer any actual figures. The Chinese comparison is important as a reminder that abolition was often targeted at particular ethnic groups. I aim to compare the colonial policies on immigration for sex work in order to form a more complex map of regulation and abolition patterns in the first half of twentieth-century Southeast Asia.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Julia Martínez is an Associate Professor at the University of Wollongong where she teaches Australian and Asian history. She currently holds an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (2013-2017) to conduct research on the history of ‘trafficking’ and women’s mobility in the Asia-Pacific. Her previous publications in this field considered Vietnam as a case study while this new project ranges from the Philippines to Australia. Martínez publishes broadly on Indigenous and Asian labour, trade, and migration history. She is currently completing a book on Houseboys, a transcolonial history of domestic service in the Asia-Pacific (with Lowrie, Haskins and Steel). She is the author (with Adrian Vickers) of the forthcoming The Pearl Frontier on Indonesians in the Australian pearling industry (Hawai’i University Press).

REGISTRATION

Admission is free. We would greatly appreciate if you RSVP Mr Jonathan Lee via email: jonathan.lee@nus.edu.sg