(In)Decent Work: Sex and the ILO

Abstract

Abstract:By tracing sex work as it weaves in and out of the actions taken by the International Labour Organization (ILO) from its foundation in 1919 to the present, this article complicates the narrative the ILO tells about itself as well as about the place of what it judged to be prostitution in the making of the larger global labor standards regime. Given the many sections within its permanent secretariat, the International Labour Office, as well as its position as an arena serving diverse stakeholders from nation-states, trade unions, employer associations, and, increasingly, women's organizations and NGOs, the ILO offers a long-twentieth-century history of the tension between intimate labor and the quest for decent work. Thus, this analysis connects to broader discussions of global labor regulation and its relationship to the international political economy. It provides, furthermore, the first contextualized analysis of sex and the ILO over its entire history.