Rhacel Parreñas Illicit Flirtations | sku-16658510

Illicit Flirtations: Labor, Migration, and Sex Trafficking in Tokyo is a hardcover book by Rhacel Parreñas, listed under All Manuals & Guides. In 2004, the U.S. State Department called Filipina hostesses in Japan the world's largest group of sex-trafficked persons. Entries subsequently fell by nearly 90 percent, from more than 80,000 in 2004 to just over 8,000 at the time described in the book.

Parreñas argues that the decline cost thousands of migrants their livelihoods. She worked alongside hostesses in a working-class club in Tokyo's red-light district, serving drinks, singing karaoke and entertaining customers, including yakuza members. She found women who had chosen the work and were not coerced into prostitution, though they remained vulnerable in other ways.

The book challenges the broad U.S. policy of labeling these women as sex trafficked. It argues that dependence on migrant brokers, employer-bound guest worker policies, limits on marriage-based integration and the criminalization of undocumented migrants can increase exploitation.

Parreñas locates the risk of trafficking in how the work is regulated and calls for policy grounded in migrants' experiences. SKU: sku-16658510.