Counter-Discourse, Subjectivity, and De-Stigmatization in Sex Work: The Role of an NGO in Hong Kong

• In Event: Open Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 19: Nonprofits and Civil Society

Abstract

Here is the condensed version:

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Sex work in Hong Kong occupies a legal grey zone. While selling sex itself is not prohibited, the criminalization of related activities leaves female sex workers subject to legal punishment while denied the protections that formal recognition would afford (Wong et al., 2011). This double bind renders them vulnerable to sexual violence, health inequities, and pervasive stigmatization (Amnesty International, 2016). Stigma, in Goffman's formulation, operates as a "spoiled identity" that reduces individuals from complex social persons to single, discredited attributes (Goffman, 1963), and has been shown to shape sex workers' experiences across health care settings and workplaces (Ma & Loke, 2019).

Existing scholarship has largely addressed sex workers' individual stigma management and self-identity negotiation (Choi & Lai, 2021). Comparatively little attention has been paid to how an NGO intervenes at the level of discourse, producing counter-narratives that challenge both stigmatizing representations and the victimizing frames that frequently substitute for them. This paper fills that gap by examining how an NGO's media advocacy and community activities construct an anti-stigmatization discourse that contests dominant governmental publicity and reshapes the possibilities for subjectivity and resistance under criminalization.

The paper employs a qualitative case study of Action for REACH OUT (AFRO), Hong Kong's first and longest-standing grassroots organization supporting the rights of female sex workers, drawing on critical discourse analysis (CDA) of its website, publications, and survey reports (Fairclough, 1992).

The analysis argues that AFRO achieves naturalized destigmatization through two strategies: reframing sex work as legitimate labor, and producing empirical knowledge that grants sex workers epistemic authority difficult to dismiss on moralistic grounds. Together, these construct a subjectivity discourse that positions sex workers as rights-bearing social actors rather than victims or deviants.

This study contends that destigmatization is not merely a psychological project of managing spoiled identities (Goffman, 1963), but a political and discursive undertaking. The Hong Kong case further offers a comparative reference point for considering analogous NGO interventions in mainland China, where sex workers face criminalization and near-total discursive erasure.

Author

• Rouqi YIN, Shanghai International Studies University