Prostitution and the Politics of Venereal Disease
Singapore, 1870–98
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9083103 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jim Warren (0000-0003-0055-6730, corresponding author), James Francis Warren |
| Year | 1990 |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 360-383 |
| Publication date | 1990-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-4634 • E-ISSN: 1474-0680 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0022463400003283 |
| OpenAlex | W1975190175 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 13 |
| References cited | 9 |
Prostitution in Singapore was linked to economic factors in rural China and Japan. Congenital poverty, weak family economies, and rising economic expectations were all part of a set of prevailing conditions that created a vast source of supply of Chinese and Japanese women and young girls for international traffic. Life in both countries was exceptionally difficult in the second half of the nineteenth century. Although China had considerable wealth, most lived a hand to mouth existence in the over-populated rural areas. Poverty in the villages and outlying districts of southeastern China, where many agrarian families lived on the edge of starvation, not only drove women and girls out of the countryside into the ports but acted as a lever on parents already bowed under financial strain. Privation was a handicap which struck hardest at the daughters of peasants and rural labourers. Unable to feed the many mouths they were responsible for, and suffering from chronic economic insecurity, parents sold their daughters to would be benefactors, totally unaware of the future fate in store for so many of them who were taken to Singapore. Poverty and desperate hungry Chinese families were root causes of brothel prostitution in Singapore at the end of the nineteenth century
Agrarian society · Agriculture · China · Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Political science · Politics · Poor relief · Poverty · Rural area · Socioeconomics · Sociology · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Law · Socioeconomic Development in Asia
Mapping the Trafficking of Women across Colonial Southeast Asia, 1600s–1930s
Decoding the imperial “grip” in J.G. Farrell’s The Singapore Grip
Gender and Everyday Life under Colonial Regimes
Women’s Intimacies After Empire
Colonial Prostitution in Burma
Histories of ‘a loathsome disease’
A Feminist View of Social Policy in Some East Asian Countries
Protecting’ Women
Race, sexuality and prostitution in colonial Singapore
John Stuart Mill and the Contagious Diseases Acts
Racialized Legalities
Elias in Singapore
Mother sold food, daughter sells her body
| Unique citing works | 13 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,38 |
| Citation span | 1992 - 2025 (34) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 11 |