Discussion
Women as sex workers are commonly stigmatized, and in the case of Romani women due to intersectional discrimination applies this statement even more. Romani women have been widely orientalised and hypersexualised as objects of desire. During late state socialism, the approach of the state authorities towards sex work was somewhat ambiguous. Even though classified as a (moral) parasitism (příživnictví), it was tacitly tolerated in a grey area but controlled by the state and public security services. This setting began to rapidly change after the Velvet Revolution with the launch of the economic and social transition. Gaining freedom did not mean merely having almost unlimited freedom of expression, but also omnipresent nudity, presented in newspapers, advertisements, or on television. As naked bodies became an integral part of everyday realities, prostitution came forth and attracted higher public attention. Although the paragraph on parasitism was annulled, the sex business was neither legal nor completely illegal. It started flourishing in borderland areas, benefiting from the closeness of neighbouring states and foreign clientele. Sex workers became visible and conspicuous in towns and on the main roads, taking attention away from the sex business structures, traffickers, and pimps staying in the background, partly hidden from the vigilant eye of the public, media, and police officers.
The paper focuses on Romani women in prostitution based on two case studies in two towns in the present-day Czech Republic and Slovakia – Most and Košice. It examines historical continuities and discontinuities, as well as the effects of the political, social, and economic changes on the position of Romani women after the Velvet Revolution. I attempt to answer the following questions: Firstly, what did such changes mean for those women? To what extent did the techniques of vigilance change after 1989? How did the state try to control or regulate sex work in general? How was the monitoring of sex work and trafficking in Romani women limited by the nation-state borders? Were there any significant differences between observing Romani and non-Romani women in prostitution by the media, police, state and municipalities? And finally, where was the Romani sex work located?
