Global Women, Colonial Ports

Liat Kozma

Description

Global Women, Colonial Ports is a transnational history of state-regulated prostitution in the Middle East and North Africa between the two world wars. Beginning with international efforts to eradicate traffic in women and children, Liat Kozma examines French and British policies regarding local and foreign prostitutes in the region and shows how these policies affected and interacted with global migration routes of prostitutes and procurers. In so doing, she reveals how colonial domination mediated global mobility of people, practices, and ideas. Kozma weaves together the perspectives of colonial and local feminists with those of medical doctors, demonstrating that debates on prostitution were globalized and that transnational networks of knowledge and activism existed. She also explores the League of Nations' involvement in this social issue. As a history of the Middle East, the book joins recent scholarship on modern globalization and the integration of the region in global economic, activist, social, and religious interconnectedness.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction

1. The Advisory Committee on Traffic in Women

2. Regulating Bodies, Regulating Spaces

3. Mapping Mobility

4. The Medical Outlook on Regulation

5. Abolitionism

Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• History of the Middle East
• 20th century
• Middle East

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 25 janvier 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438462622
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Global Women, Colonial Ports
Global Women, Colonial Ports
P ROSTITUTION IN THE I NTERWAR M IDDLE E AST
L IAT K OZMA
Cover image: “Group of prostitutes on corner of Kara-Oglan-sokak and Grand Rue Galata,” The League of Nations Archives at Geneva, Box S179.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2017 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production, Eileen Nizer
Marketing, Anne M. Valentine
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kozma, Liat, author.
Title: Global women, colonial ports : prostitution in the interwar Middle East / Liat Kozma.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016007291 (print) | LCCN 2016009109 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438462615 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438462622 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Prostitution—Middle East—History.
Classification: LCC HQ231.9.A5 K69 2016 (print) | LCC HQ231.9.A5 (ebook) | DDC 306.740956—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016007291
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
C ONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1 The Advisory Committee on Traffic in Women
Chapter 2 Regulating Bodies, Regulating Spaces
Chapter 3 Mapping Mobility
Chapter 4 The Medical Outlook on Regulation
Chapter 5 Abolitionism
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
I LLUSTRATIONS Figure 1.1 The traveling commission’s Mediterranean route Figure 1.2 A segment from the traveling commission’s itinerary map Figure 3.1 Migration routes for prostitution Figure 3.2 Group of prostitutes on corner of Kara-Oglan-sokak and Grand Rue Galata Figure 3.3 Demography of prostitutes in Turkey Figure 3.4 Demography of foreign prostitutes in Port Said, 1924 Figure 3.5 Procurer Chaim Blum, Czernowitz police photo Figure 5.1 A cartoon published in al-Lata’if al-Musawwara , 14.10.1926
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
Research for this book was generously funded by the Israel Science Foundation, grant no. 304/11. The book’s publication was supported by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This book was also published with the support of the Israel Science Foundation.
Research for this book was conducted in multiple archives and libraries, and I am grateful to the archivists and librarians who assisted me in each. First and foremost, I thank the League of Nations’ archival staff, and especially Mr. Jacques Oberson, for hands-on advice in situ that introduced me to this topic and to the archive’s rich collection. I also thank the League of Nations’ Archives at Geneva for allowing me to use images from their collection and for kindly scanning them for me. The staff of the National Library of Israel helped me tremendously, particularly in accessing the UN publications collection. I thank the staff of the Wellcome Institute, and particularly Amanda Engineer at the Wellcome archives. The staff at the Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire de Santé in Paris was most efficient in providing access to interwar medical press from French North Africa. The staff of Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand was particularly helpful in tracing sources I would not have thought of. The Women’s Library at the London School of Economics was an equally valuable resource. I thank the British National Archives, the Centre des Archives Diplomatiques de Nantes, the Centre des Archives Diplomatiques La Courneuve, and the Israel State Archives for enabling my access and work.
I thank my research assistants: Yael Segev, for following this project from its very beginning and adding her insights and suggestions; Maytal Mizrahi, for her excellent work in the Israel State Archives and the Zionist Archives in Jerusalem, on which my discussion of Haifa is based; and finally Sasha Schneidmann, for his work on the bibliography.
I have been fortunate to participate in teams of historians with whom I collaborated on various projects over the last four years. Those friends and colleagues shared their drafts with me and read my own, and I learned a great deal from each and every one of them. On Barak and Avner Wishnitzer, my co-editors at the “Social History Workshop” blog at Haaretz Web site, have been faithful and critical readers. Magaly Garcia Rodriguez and Davide Rodogno, my co-editors in a volume on the League of Nations’ social issues, were extremely helpful in helping me to situate my research in the larger League of Nations history, the history of traffic in women and the history of humanitarianism. Magaly’s critical reading, from the first draft of my book proposal, always pushed my research and argumentation further. I am most grateful for her continuous friendship and constant intellectual challenge. Camila Pastor contacted me at MESA in 2011 and asked if we could work on a joint panel together—three panels and a theme issue later, I am grateful to her for broadening my research horizons. Hanan Hammad and Francesca Biancani, superb social historians of prostitution and marginalized women in modern Egypt, joined us and were also wonderful readers—their insights and their own drafts helped me to no end. Simon Jackson, Secil Yılmaz, and Daniel Lee joined us later—and their insights, friendship, and advice were most valuable.
Several friends and colleagues read parts of this manuscript and offered important advice. Alexandra Garbarini, Hanna-Louise Clark, Cyrus Schayegh, David Shasha, Naomi Levenkron, and Philippe Bourmaud were invaluable, and their suggestions enriched my work. Finally, Leigh Chipman and Ami Asher helped me to polish my English and produce the final version of this text, and Noga and Ori Kozma helped me review the bibliography.
Last but certainly not least, I thank my husband, Gady, for his continuous support and friendship.
I NTRODUCTION
The turn of the twentieth century witnessed massive waves of migration: from the “old” world to the “new,” from European countries to their colonies, as well as within and between African and Asian colonies. In this first era of modern globalization, commodities, ideas, information, and infections circulated the world on an unprecedented scale, with or without their human carriers. The telegraph, steamship, and railway made the world more interconnected than ever before. 1
Many of the migrants riding these waves were prostitutes. East European Jewish women worked in brothels in Bombay, Cape Town, Alexandria, and Buenos Aires; French women in Casablanca, Algiers, and Tunis; Syrian, Italian and Greek women in Port Said and Alexandria. In certain locales, the labor migration of working-class men created a numerical gender imbalance, and thus a demand for prostitution. Colonialism and global war mobilized men, mainly soldiers and sailors. Ease of travel created global tourism and communities of businessmen, merchants, and settlers. And like other immigrants and more legitimate workers, prostitutes circulated the global economy, often following their countrymen. 2
This mobility was accompanied by the globalization and internationalization of policies and controversies surrounding prostitutes. It was global in the sense that similar migration and regulation policies were adopted in multiple locations around the world—and policy makers as well as their critics were very much attuned to the experience of other national and colonial governments. It was international in the sense that such debates were brought before the first international body established to formulate international politics: the League of Nations. These collaborative efforts embodied a belief that only cooperation between different nations would be able to contain the damages of global connectivity. 3
Mobility was global also because historical actors saw it as such. Jewish procurers operated brothels in Istanbul, Alexandria, and Bombay; collected revenue from all three locales; and spent the year traveling between those three cities and their recruitment center in Czernowitz, dreaming of saving up enough money to open up a branch in Buenos Aires or Shanghai. Similarly, the geographic spread of prostitutes themselves can be explained only by taking into account the pogroms of that period, which drove many East European Jews to destitution; poverty in southern Italy; and economic marginalization in the Syrian or Algerian countryside.
Similarly, imperial administrators worldwide carefully studied each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Ideologies and practices traveled within and between metropole and empire. Policies were affected and informed by British and French colonial experience in other parts of Asia and Africa. French policies in North Africa, even personnel, affected French policies in the Levant. When Egyptian medical doctors debated the regulation of prostitution, they looked beyond Egypt’s borders. They cited the opinion of German, French, and British doctors, and then the examples of Cyprus, Gibraltar, and China, in considering the repercussions of abolition. They read League of Nations reports and consulted with British voluntary workers. Th