Sex Work in French Mandate and : A History of Representations and Interventions (1920-1946)

Pascale Nancy Graham

Institute of Islamic Studies McGill University, Montréal August 2019

A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

© Pascale Nancy Graham

Table of Contents

Abstract/Résumé iii Acknowledgements vii List of Abbreviations of Archives ix Chapter One: Introduction 1 Regulatory Structures of Sex Work through the Early Modern 8 From Ottoman Administration to the French System: Sex Work as Pathology 25 Implicating the 39 Public Debates and the Creation of “Diametrically Opposed States of Existence” 46 Colonialism and Humanitarianism: Power and Exclusion 57 Primary Sources and Methodology 61 Thesis Overview 66

Chapter Two: The Power of Medicine: Sex Work, Containment, and the New Discourse of Public Health 71 The Insertion of Scientific Vocabulary into the State Apparatus: The “Truth” about Sex Work 75 Research on Sex Work in the Metropole: The “Indispensable Excremental Phenomenon” 78 The Transmission of Knowledge: The Pathologizing of Sex Work Comes to the 85 The Commission of Medical Reports with the Same Old Message under the New Regime 95 Assessing the Risk of Social Contagion in a Rural Context 108 Conclusion 114

Chapter Three: The Paradox of Liminality: Medico-Administrative and Legal Discourses in Defense of Public Health 119 Those Existing Outside the Law: The Paradox of the French System in the Levant 124 Taxation: Discrimination Comes in Different Forms 134 Enforcement and “Porteuses de Ceinture Dorée”: The Complexity of Municipal Rule 143 Evading Criticism: Colonial Power and the Blame Game 155 The Sexual-Infrastructural Demands of World War II 164 Bringing Civilian and Military Authorities Together 171 Not in My Backyard: The Immobility of Sex Work 181 ’s Paternalism and Military Prowess 188 Conclusion 199

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Chapter Four: The Other Side of the Equation: The Rise of Humanitarian Discourses, the League of Nations, and the Armenian Question 205 The Rise of Humanitarianism in the Near East 206 The Armenian Genocide of 1915 and the New Face of White Slavery 212 The League of Nations, Armenian Refugees, and Humanitarian Interventions 227 Conclusion 246

Chapter Five: The Rescue Industry in the Levant: Whose “Needs” Were Being Served? 249 Migration and the “Desperate Victim” 250 Speaking Back to the Metropole: Abolitionism, France, and the Production of Sex Work Literature 255 Campaigns to End State-Sanctioned Sex Work in the Levant 268 The Rescue Industry: Philanthropic Aspirations and Creating “Need” 272 Forging Ties? Local, Regional, and International Alliances 284 Precarity among the Rescuers: The Bourj Mission and the “Beyhum Committee” 295 The League’s Travelling Committee Comes to the Levant 304 , Trafficking, and Servitude 310 Domestic Servants, Working-Class Women, and Moral Failures 313 Conclusion 318

Conclusion: Slipping Through the Fingers of Authority 328 Travelling Discourses: Sex Work Construction under the Mandate in Postcolonial Contexts 335 Continuity and Change 346

Bibliography 360

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Abstract This thesis focuses on the representations of sex work in Syria and Lebanon in French and

English discourses beginning in the nineteenth century until the end of World War II, with a particular focus on how these representations formulated interventions in the Levant during the

French Mandate period (1920–1946). Employing archival sources including French diplomatic and military correspondence, official publications and reports of the League of Nations, contemporaneous newspaper and book publications, and correspondence produced by those working in the region, I reconstruct the history of sex work as it was articulated in these sources and the responses generated by a bourgeoning industry of local, regional, and international humanitarian cooperation attempting to rescue the “victims” of France’s colonial policies. What emerged were two predominant interpretations of what was cast as the “problem” of sex work: it was either a danger to public health or it was a means of enslaving and exploiting women. Both of these interpretations led to interventions on the ground. The resultant gendered and sexualized social order produced power dynamics that hinged on the control of a marginal, largely female, population, whether that control was in the form of incarcerating women suspected of practicing sex work clandestinely or in the form of “rescuing” them from their livelihood.

By first tracing the origins of the “French system” back to the metropole, this thesis establishes the rationale behind, and discusses the enforcement of, the medico-administrative and legal frameworks implemented in the Levant after . While the Ottoman state had certainly tried to control sex work, the regulation of sex work expanded greatly under French bureaucratic and military ascendency. The French colonial state presented its attempts to maintain medical and administrative control over sex workers in Lebanon and Syria as stemming from concerns about the health and safety of the public at large. However, in reality, these regulatory efforts were an integral part of maintaining French military dominance in the region.

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Before long, France’s public health discourses produced counterdiscourses that espoused the cause of “humanitarianism,” which were largely concerned with the trafficking and enslavement of vulnerable populations. These counterdiscourses, which had their origins in the aftermath of

Armenian Genocide and which proliferated after the formation of the League of Nations, reached their zenith in the 1930s. Sex workers in the Levant therefore not only faced interventions from colonial and local bureaucrats, local police officers, and physicians, who wanted to control them, but also from moralists, missionaries, and feminists, who wanted to rescue them. These efforts of regulationists and abolitionists cannot only be thought of as responses to sex work but as constitutive of what made sex work what it was during the French Mandate period.

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Résumé Cette thèse porte sur les représentations du travail du sexe au Liban et en Syrie au cours de la période allant du début du 19e siècle jusqu’à la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, en s’attardant particulièrement au mandat français au Levant (1920-1946). La thèse traite de la représentation du travail du sexe dans des discours tant en Français qu'en Anglais, et explore les liens entre ces représentations et les interventions sur le terrain. Elle présente une reconstruction historique du travail du sexe à travers les archives diplomatiques et militaires françaises, les publications officielles et les rapports de la Société des Nations, les publications d’articles de presse et d’ouvrages contemporains, la correspondance des travailleurs de la région, ainsi que les réponses à ces écrits par l’industrie de la coopération humanitaire locale, régionale et internationale vouée au sauvetage des « victimes » des politiques coloniales françaises.

L’analyse révèle deux visions dominantes de ce qui était considéré, à l’époque, comme le

« problème » du travail du sexe. Selon la première, le travail du sexe constituait une menace pour la santé publique. En vertu de la seconde, il représentait un moyen d’asservir et d’exploiter les femmes. L’analyse démontre que chacune de ces visions prescrivait des interventions différentes sur le terrain, mais qu’elles contribuaient toutes deux à produire des rapports de pouvoir affectant un pan marginal, mais néanmoins significatif, d’une population principalement composée de femmes, que ce soit par le biais de l’incarcération de celles soupçonnées de s’adonner clandestinement au travail du sexe, ou en les « sauvant » de leur condition.

En retraçant d’abord les origines du « système français » au cœur de la métropole, cette thèse reconstruit la logique qui oriente les cadres médicaux, administratifs et légaux, appliqués au Levant après la Première Guerre mondiale. L’État ottoman avait à l’évidence déjà tenté de contrôler le travail et le commerce du sexe, or la règlementation et la régulation de ces activités

v se sont intensifiées sous l'ascendance bureaucratique et militaire française. L’État français colonial justifiait son intention d’exercer un contrôle administratif et médical des travailleuses du sexe au Liban et en Syrie par les risques que ces activités présentaient pour la santé et la sécurité publiques. En réalité, ces efforts de réglementation et de régulation devaient contribuer à maintenir la domination militaire française dans la région. Les discours sur la santé publique en vigueur en France alimentèrent toutefois des contre-discours « humanitaires » portant sur les questions du trafic et de l’asservissement des personnes les plus vulnérables. Ces contre- discours, qui émergèrent dans les années suivant le Génocide arménien, foisonnèrent ensuite dans la foulée de la formation de la Société des Nations, et atteignirent leur paroxysme dans les années 1930. Les travailleuses du sexe du Levant étaient donc confrontées non seulement aux interventions des bureaucrates coloniaux et locaux, des forces de police locales, et du corps médical qui, tous, souhaitaient contrôler ou réguler leurs activités; mais aussi aux actions des moralistes, missionnaires, et féministes, tous soucieux de les secourir. Ces actions de la part des régulationnistes et des abolitionnistes ne sont pas de simples réponses au travail du sexe, mais bien des éléments constitutifs de ce qu’il fut durant le mandat français.

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Acknowledgments Over the course of nine years that it has taken to bring my thesis to fruition many people have contributed to making this scholarship a reality. First and foremost, I would like to thank

Professor Laila Parsons of the Institute of Islamic Studies (IIS), whose guidance and input enabled my ability to finish what I started. Professors Mary Bunch and Alanna Thain from the

Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies (IGSF) provided invaluable mentorship and encouragement. The administrative staff at both IIS and IGSF have been critical in helping me navigate systems and I am particularly indebted to Adina Sigartau for her amazing skills.

Furthermore, I cannot overlook the help of Michael Helfield who edited my work.

Moments along the way in the development of my thesis have surprised me and that includes the generosity of other scholars around me. First, Christine Lindner, for during her time at the Near East School of Theology in she provided the seeds of what became my thesis topic. Graham Pitts provided both companionship and access to archives while conducting my research in Lebanon. And Catherine Batruni, who provided me with copies of her archival research from the Women’s Library in London.

I would also like to thank all of those who, through their friendship and rallying cries, have supported me in so many ways. Katy Kalemkerian and Shirin Radjavi, who provided me with endless hours of conversation over thali lunches and second-hand shopping. Perhaps one day we will use our doctorates to open a thrift store. Marianne Filion and Anouk Bachman, who started out as single-mom comrades and became so much more. Jean-Sébastien Marcoux for occupying the liminal space that constantly kept me and my two very energetic boys entertained.

Jonathan Martineau for his amazing wit and reading companionship. Marcie and Peter Maynard who always welcomed me when I came back to New Hampshire to get some peace of mind.

Tonia Adjovi for her patience, love, and friendship while spending countless hours watching my

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(sometimes challenging) children. And to my other friends, Mónica Rosales, Marti Miller, Dima

Ayoub, Michelle Ohnona, and Hussam Ahmed, your words of wisdom and humor helped immensely.

Most importantly, I am grateful to the love and encouragement from my family. My sister

Nicole who, when I was around ten years old, told me never to become an astronomer because I would never make any money. Uncle, who never missed a birthday. To Olivia, Ulysses, and

August, I hope that my long path in various academic settings showed you that realizing accomplishments occasionally take an unexpected amount of time. Thank you for providing the motivation in my life. And, finally, to my parents, Danielle and Stuart, who (to their detriment at times) reared four very strong girls and always placed value on education. It is to them that this thesis is dedicated.

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List of Abbreviations of Archives

AAUB Archives of the American University of Beirut ANEST Archives of the Near East School of Theology ASHD Archives Service historique de la Défense CADN Centre des Archives diplomatiques de Nantes CANL Centre des Archives Nationales du Liban WLA The Women’s Library Archives

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Chapter One

Introduction

“It is not enough to punish the trafficker or the pimp. It is still necessary to think of the victim, to send her back to her country of origin if she has been expatriated, to reeducate her and to raise her morally if the police could not come to her aid until well after her hiring, when she has become, like it or not, a prostitute . . . There are two ways to fight the evil: to heal the sick and protect those in good health. Certainly, healing is good, prevention is best . . . [W]e will draw a line of action to follow: a moral prophylaxis against and the trafficking of women [and] a sanitary prophylaxis against venereal diseases.” — Salim Haider, La Prostitution et la traite des femmes et des enfants1

This thesis is about how sex work in the Levant was represented in French (and some English) discourses from the late nineteenth century up until the end of World War II, and how these discourses connected to interventions on the ground to regulate and control sex work.2 More specifically, the thesis focuses on how sex workers came to be represented by vested parties operating in the Levant during the period of the French Mandate (1920–1946) and how the various interpretations of the “problem” of sex work materialized in the form of medical and humanitarian acts and interventions.

I begin my inquiry within the French metropole, not to assign “privilege to one territorial site,” but to understand where the particular form of regulation over sex work emerged that then came to influence colonial policies.3 The medicalizing discourses originating in France, validated by medical “experts” allied with state interests, constructed sex work as a public health concern that threatened national (and military) stability. The government interventions that these discourses produced were introduced into Lebanon and Syria under the Ottoman administration,

1 Salim Haider, La Prostitution et la traite des femmes et des enfants (Paris: Les Éditions Domat-Montchrestien, 1937), 347, 349, 367. Haider wrote these words in his law thesis while studying in Paris before returning to his home region, Mount Lebanon, to work as a judge during the French Mandate. 2 This draws upon Nancy Fraser, Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), 166. 3 See Antoinette Burton, “Introduction: The Unfinished Business of Colonial Modernities,” in Gender, Sexuality and Colonial Modernities, ed. Antoinette Burton (London: Routledge, 1999), 4.

1 and then were expanded on greatly once direct French colonial rule took hold in the region. After establishing the rationale for and administration of the medico-administrative and legal framework of sex work in Lebanon and Syria, I discuss how counter-discourses were produced and constructed reality in the Levant under the auspices of “humanitarianism.” The League of

Nations was directly implicated in this process by granting France the authority to implement its regulationist policies in Lebanon and Syria—France tightly surveilled and took punitive measures against sex workers—and by serving as a conduit for the further entrenchment of abolitionist discourses that constructed sex workers as those who needed to be saved from exploitation—exploitation that was the direct result of the French system.

In fact, as I will demonstrate, the Armenian Genocide led to the first large-scale humanitarian intervention to save women and children from widespread exploitation and trafficking in the Levant. This conduit of intervention, first established prior to the French

Mandate, became official practice under the auspices of the League, which demanded that the

French colonial government provide protections for vulnerable populations. The threat posed by trafficking sustained traction in the Levant and expanded beyond the scope of Armenian refugees once the Mandate authority adhered its Levantine territories to international conventions against the trafficking of women and children in the 1930s. Syria’s and Lebanon’s adherence to these agreements generated momentum in the rescue industry, which reached its zenith in that same decade before the outbreak of World War II diminished its activities and created a resurgence of regulationism in the French colonial states. It is within this context that I will now turn to how these two competing representations of sex workers—the first insisting that they be regulated and the second insisting that they be rescued—first came about in the metropole and how they subsequently came into being in France’s Levantine “dependencies” abroad.

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In Paris in 1802, under the auspices of Napoleon Bonaparte, sex work went from being regulated in a piecemeal fashion to being more tightly controlled for the sake of protecting military interests. This regulationist framework, which came to be known as the “French system” and which came to be validated by medical literature emerging in the 1800s, was based on the argument that uncontrolled sex work was a public health threat: prostitutes, if left unchecked, would propagate syphilis, gonorrhea, and soft chancre among the general public.4 These concerns extended to France’s holdings overseas, including its possessions in the Levant. As

Alison Bashford adroitly observes in her work on colonial medicine, “a healthy Empire was an ambition of colonial officials . . . in which ‘public health’ itself was being institutionalized at home and in the Empire. . . . Medicine, public health, nursing, and the clinic were themselves instruments and sites of colonial governance. These fields of expertise and practice put into place institutions, therapies, and sanitary infrastructures.”5 This new “medico-administrative” knowledge of regulationism, which represented sex workers as having the potential to destabilize a prospering nation, was transferred from the metropole to the Levant in the late 1800s at the invitation of Ottoman officials. It was soon transformed into strict regulatory structures once

4 While my thesis interrogates the French system that existed in Syria and Lebanon, I am aware that, as Phillip Howell points out, there existed a variety of forms of regulationism. He employs a more expansive definition of regulationism as a system “which, no matter what the legal framework, effectively tolerate[s] and contain[s] prostitution within limits usually defined by police or other regulatory bodies.” He elaborates further on the gendered component of regulation/regulationism as “measures introduced at various times, in various places, to control the perceived dangers of uncontrolled female prostitution—principally, public disorder and the propagation of sexually transmitted diseases.” Phillip Howell, Geographies of Regulation: Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth- Century Britain and the Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 5–6. He succinctly sums up regulationism in three words: identification, inspection, and incarceration. The system that transpired in the Levant and that was exacerbated through the League of Nations added more components to these elements, primarily financial penalties in the form of fines and of expulsion for practicing “illegally.” These components, as will be seen, existed in different forms under the Ottoman Empire. 5 Alison Bashford, “Medicine, Gender, and Empire,” in Gender and Empire, ed. Philippa Levine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 112. There is a wealth of scholarly literature on sex work and the British Empire. Noteworthy contributions to the field include Philippa Levine’s Prostitution, Race and Politics: Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire (New York: Routledge, 2003), Howell’s Geographies of Regulation, and Ashwini Tambe’s Codes of Misconduct: Regulating Prostitution in Late Colonial Bombay (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009).

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France claimed the Lebanese and Syrian territories under the League of Nations (henceforth referred to as the “League”) after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.6 Insisting that solving the “problems” associated with sex work was a medical imperative, male colonial and medical bureaucrats (including military personnel) in the Levant created institutionalized “solutions” during the Mandate period that were based on the French system of administration. They registered prostitutes with local police and enforced stringent sanitary control by threatening fines and incarceration for those of did not conform to regulations. These “solutions” that were enacted through regulationism met with fierce criticism from oppositional groups, which posited that the “problems” of sex work were, in fact, produced and exacerbated by the “solutions” enacted through the French system that specifically targeted women and provided official sanction to morally reprehensible practices.

The construction of this regulationist discourse on prostitution, which emerged in the nineteenth century, was hindered by the construction of an opposing abolitionist discourse emanating from early feminists and (largely Christian) moralists. The juxtaposition of these two discourses resulted in the creation of what Jo Doezema terms “discourse masters,” whereby those who were in power and/or had a certain amount of power were the ones in a position to shape how the topic of sex work was framed.7 In this case, two ways of viewing sex work, the regulationist and the abolitionist, constructed their own major discourse: the first focused on disease, and the second focused on trafficking.

6 The term “medico-administrative” is borrowed from Michel Foucault, “The Politics of Health in the Eighteenth Century,” in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: Vintage Books, 2010), 283. 7 Jo Doezema, “Now You See Her, Now You Don’t: Sex Workers at the UN Trafficking Protocol Negotiations,” Social and Legal Studies 14, no. 1 (2005): 64. Doezema argues that more attention needs to be given to the power of knowledge production when it comes to trafficking, both with regard to how such knowledge came into being and with regard to how it influenced policy responses. She uses the term “discourse masters” to encapsulate those who are able to “shape the meaning of phrases like ‘trafficking in women.’”

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Opposed to the creation of norms perceived to be endorsing sexual exploitation and state- sanctioned vice, abolitionist groups first organized on the national level in Britain and France in the nineteenth century before eventually expanding into the international arena at the turn of the twentieth century.8 The focus of their cause at this time was the plight of vulnerable White women and girls being exploited for the benefit of unscrupulous profiteers.9 The new era of abolitionism commencing in the early twentieth century sought to expand definition of the term

“trafficking” to all women and girls, and thereby to leverage the inception of the League in 1920 to further push their anti-trafficking agenda. What ensued was the rise of a new class of

“experts” who served to counteract the proponents of regulation.

Yet what ended up happening was the entrenchment of two discourses on sex work that both saw it as a danger to the public: the regulationists argued that it was a medical threat, and the abolitionists argued that it was a humanitarian threat. These two vocal groups further normalized patterns of social exclusion of an already marginalized subgroup (sex workers and, as will be seen, working-class women), separating those who were in possession of social, economic, and human (intellectual) capital from those who lacked such privileges and skills.10 A sex worker’s “worthiness” for intervention garnered attention through public debate, which served only to further marginalize those women from the working class who became not only the

8 As Stephanie Limoncelli argues, these groups were polyvocal and sometimes held competing “solutions” to the “problem” posed by the regulation of sex work. See her book, The Politics of Trafficking: The First International Movement to Combat the Sexual Exploitation of Women (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010). 9 The International Abolitionist Federation and the International Bureau for the Suppression of the White Slave Trade both had their roots in 1870–1880 Britain as part of the response to the Contagious Disease Acts (CDAs). For an excellent examination of race, gender, and sexuality in colonial prostitution, see Levine, Prostitution, Race and Politics. 10 Jeff Handmaker and Claudia Mora, “‘Experts’: The Mantra of Irregular Migration and the Reproduction of Hierarchies,” in The Role of “Experts” in International and European Decision-Making Processes: Advisors, Decision Makers or Irrelevant Actors? ed. Monika Ambrus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 265.

5 object of surveillance but of reform as well.11 Yet even when masked in compassionate terms, such discourses led to the reproduction and normalization of sex work as a “problem” in need of a remedy. At all points, sex workers occupied the liminal status of “the other” with the pathological characterizations of being simultaneously familiar and different and of being neither legal nor illegal (hence, “tolerated”). They inhabited the space of being ordinary and extraordinary, pitied and feared, and were therefore to be rescued and rehabilitated.

The resultant gendered and sexualized social order produced power dynamics that hinged on the control of a marginal, largely female, population, whether that control was in the form of incarcerating women suspected of practicing sex work clandestinely or “rescuing” them from their means of making a living.12 Prior to investigating how this social order materialized in the

Levant, I will briefly investigate the history (and historiography) of sex work in the Ottoman

Empire, with an emphasis on Syria (as Lebanon and Syria were collectively referred to at the

11 According to a League survey of sex workers, 47 percent of them held prior occupations as domestic servants and 12 percent worked in factories, a reason why all working-class women were suspected of being potential prostitutes. This point will be examined in Chapter Five. League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Enquiry into Measures of Rehabilitation of Prostitutes: Social Services and Venereal Disease. July 1, 1938. Geneva, Switzerland: 38. The report pathologizes the phenomenon as a matter of domestic servants leaving home at a young age to live with strangers. They are therefore unsupervised by relatives, unable to find constructive activities in their leisure time, and living in an environment “more luxurious than their own,” which drives their quest for material items (42). 12 The League of Nations characterizes those sex workers who became known to authorities within the French system as being “commercially unsuccessful . . . whose lives are known [due to their traces in the public record] while their more prosperous and more intelligent sisters escape notice or record.” League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Enquiry into Measures of Rehabilitation of Prostitutes: Social Services and Venereal Disease. July 1, 1938. Geneva, Switzerland: 10. This thesis focuses on the gendered dynamics of female prostitution. It does not address . While there are some traces in the colonial archives that it did in fact exist, there is not enough material available at the moment to fill an entire study. The main form of male prostitution that I found came in the practice of pederasty, and I found some information on rescue attempts by the Civic Welfare League (CWL) in Beirut in their Basket Boys project, which will be discussed in Chapter Five. As Ronald Weitzer argues, the oppression paradigm employed by abolitionists erases the male and transgendered sex workers by casting the “victims” as exclusively women and girls and the customers as male. Ronald Weitzer, Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business (New York: New York University Press, 2011), 11–12. Colonial regulation, in addition to that of the metropole, used the same construct by labeling the sex worker as exclusively female and the patron as exclusively male. It was not until 1931, when the regulation became law in the Levant under Charles Debbas, that male prostitution became recognized. Prior to that, punitive measures were taken by the authorities against those having sex with minors. There were also prohibitions against sexual relations between men.

6 time), in order to form the background against which the “problem” of sex work was simultaneously constructed and dealt with.13

While not immense, there is a surprising amount of evidence, albeit fragmented, about the selling of sexual services on the provincial level under the Ottomans prior to the turn of the nineteenth century. What emerges it that, overall, there was a tacit understanding that commercial sex was permitted as long as it did not draw too much public attention. Particularly, sex work served as a sexual outlet for the military, a revenue source for the state, and a convenient scapegoat when moral outrage reached its zenith—not unlike what we will see happen under the French. Yet of critical importance, and what will become apparent in this thesis, was the emergence of three important processes in the nineteenth century as French policy infiltrated the region: medicine took precedence over—but did not replace—morality; regulatory practice shifted from the locality to the state (even though the French colonial authorities attempted to maintain the illusion that it was not so); and an increasingly strong wave of internationalism formulated a more dynamic environment for discourses on commercial sex. In the nineteenth century, debates on sexuality exerted ever-increasing power on and control over women’s bodies. Medicine, as an emerging profession of “experts,” served as a critical rallying point for those calling for greater controls over sex work.14 While increasingly divergent opinions emerged over the course of time—that is, into the twentieth century—the identification of prostitution with disease persisted. The consideration and presentation of sex work as a pathology emerged through the medical establishment’s reinforcing of the state’s position on

13 Present-day Palestine, Israel, and Jordan were also part of Syria under the Ottoman Empire, but are outside the scope of this inquiry. 14 Foucault notes the rise of doctors into academies, which allowed them to leverage their abilities to exert social power. Foucault, “The Politics of Health,” 283. He argues that the rise of statistics in the early nineteenth century problematized health and sickness (274). Academies inserted themselves into this discourse, along with the state, religious groups, and charitable organizations.

7 controlling sexuality, and it was sustained through abolitionists’ drive to rescue sex workers from their “degraded” position. Before outlining my methodology and sources and providing a chapter overview, I will provide the historical context for the main focus of this thesis. This historical context also contains a discussion of the important secondary sources in the field that examine sexuality in the early modern Ottoman Empire.

Regulatory Structures of Sex Work through the Early Modern Ottoman Empire

The historically situated regulatory structures imposed upon sex workers in the Eastern

Mediterranean through the early modern period provide a critical context for understanding its transformation during the years leading up to the French Mandate. The fundamental concern here is the social, political, and legal considerations in the region with regard to sexual labor and the framing of the regulations (and the subsequent tensions they created) as long-standing and not something that was simply imposed upon the local population by the French. Regulatory practices have varied over time and location, and sex work has oscillated between being tolerated

(despite technically being unlawful) and being outright prohibited. Sex work in the Eastern

Mediterranean can be seen in its historical evolution as relatively integrated into the fabric of society because it served the public interest, which more accurately meant that it maintained social stability through protecting the military’s interest and, by extension, that of those in power.15 It was predominantly the political will of the ruler that served as the determining factor

15 This claim of “public interest” can be seen in the works of Elyse Semerdjian and Abdul Karim Rafeq, whose research demonstrates how Ottoman officials effectively normalized sex work through their implementation of an improvisational regulatory system. They did not abolish the practice outright. Therefore, it can be viewed as tacit acceptance of prostitution’s social function. For example, Semerdjian argues that the flexibility in enacting punishments against prostitutes, as opposed to what was prescribed by shari‘a, allowed the courts to take into consideration the “standards and norms of specific communities” as “the application of a more local interpretation of the law.” Elyse Semerdjian, Off the Straight Path: Illicit Sex, Law and Community in Ottoman Aleppo (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2008), 94. Semerdjian links this “public interest” to, in fact, military and political interests: prostitution was often linked to the military, and officials would want to “appease the troops” (136). Therefore, keeping prostitution from being banned meant that the “public” was served through social stability and the prevention of military unrest that could be brought about due to its prohibition. In this respect, by permitting sex

8 as to whether the selling of sexual services was tacitly “legal” or whether periodic banishment was appropriate as means of preserving the religious and social order.

It is important to understand not only the historical regulatory measures that were enacted in the region and their applications, but also the purposes that these regulations served. While the focus in this historical background section will primarily be on the eighteenth century, this is not to suggest that the practice of prostitution spontaneously arose during that time period. The rationale for selecting such a period is to articulate the conception of regulatory prostitution in a specific discourse that had its origins in structures established prior to France’s influence and to situate how this discourse shifted under the primary period of investigation in this thesis. To accomplish this, I will review the regulation of sex work in the early modern period in the

Ottoman Empire until the 1800s, including the governmental usage of fiscal administration, neighborhood regulation, and financial and physical penalties to understand where and how prostitution was practiced immediately prior to the French incursion into the Levant.

work to operate meant that it served an overarching social function that exceeded its moral distastefulness. This point is validated by Rafeq, who illustrates that the mid-eighteenth-century Damascene governor refused, at the behest of notables, to curb the increasing presence of prostitutes so as not to antagonize the military operating under him. Abdul Karim Rafeq, “Public Morality in the 18th Century Ottoman ,” Revue du monde musulman et de la Méditerranée 55–56 (1990): 189–90. Furthermore, sexual outlets for single men, whether for the military or migrant traders, preserved the social order by protecting “innocent” women from sexual solicitation. Rudi Matthee, “Prostitutes, Courtesans, and Dancing Girls: Women Entertainers in Safavid Iran,” in Iran and Beyond: Essays in Middle Eastern History in Honor of Nikki R. Keddie, ed. Rudi Matthee and Beth Baron (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers Inc., 2000), 131. Ebru Boyar argues that gypsies held a marginal status that permitted them to openly operate as sex workers and were, at times, taxed in , Edirne, and Sofia; when punished, it was not for prostitution but for “creating social disorder and sedition.” Ebru Boyar, “An Imagined Moral Community: Ottoman Female Public Presence, Honour and Marginality,” in Ottoman Women in Public Space, ed. Ebru Boyar and Kate Fleet (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 198. Therefore, as long as gypsy prostitutes operated within socially acceptable norms associated with their marginalized status, authorities permitted them to practice. But this was a complicated notion, as permitting prostitution was also perceived to be linked with potential social upheaval that would be detrimental to the “public interest.” Boyar gives the example of a case in 1628 Istanbul when the objections brought before the court were not focused on the woman practicing prostitution, but on the fact that her presence would create upheaval within the community through the potential sexual enticement of respectable individuals (203). The sheer reported number of four thousand existing in 1610–1611 Istanbul validates the general acceptance of their presence rather than their condemnation (210). Sometimes prostitutes held political capital, as was the case in Damascus in 1743 when some were invited to a wedding celebration held by the treasurer of the city, and others achieved public fame elsewhere (214). Boyar contends that prostitutes, during the Ottoman period, were “shielded and empowered by networks of power, profit and protection” (215).

9

In reviewing the secondary literature on the monetary structures of sexual commerce, little is known about how sex workers throughout the Levantine Ottoman Empire were taxed, as scant evidence exists. What traces do exist seem to suggest that practices differed regionally, which in turn suggests that financial regulations were made locally and not by a centralized institution.16

In eighteenth-century Istanbul, no taxes were levied, but a local governor of Damascus, As‘ad

Pasha al-‘Azm, was found to be doing so.17 In Aleppo, where members of various guilds are systematically referred to in court records, there is no record of prostitutes possessing guild membership. Elyse Semerdjian speculates that this could be due to the fact that prostitution did not require such affiliations. Therefore, by not being part of the legal guild system, prostitutes were able to avoid both guild-related regulatory structures and the Ottoman taxation system that accompanied them. Semerdjian further posits that this tax evasion might have led to resentment from those who worked in the various guilds.18 Instead, an alternate form of regulatory practice found not only in Syria but in other places ensured sex workers’ compliance with prevailing norms; and these practices included the surveillance of neighborhoods.

The instrumental role of the community in regulating prostitution is evident through the cases brought to local courts based on the accusation of neighborhood residents. This regulatory method is given credence through Article 124 of the Ottoman Penal Code (OPC), which is as follows:

[I]f the community of his (or her) [town-]quarter or of his (or her) village complains that a person is a criminal or a harlot and, saying “He (or she) is not fit [to live with] us,” rejects him (or her), and if that person has in fact a notoriously bad reputation among the people, he (or she) shall be banished, i.e. ejected from his (or her) quarter or village. And if he (or she) is not accepted also in the place to which he (or she)

16 Within the Ottoman Empire, secular codes were developed to supplement shari‘a in matters concerning taxation. See Judith Tucker, Women, Family, and Gender in Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 16. 17 Semerdjian, Off the Straight Path, 100–101. 18 Ibid.

10

moves, he (or she) shall be expelled from the town [altogether]. But [action] shall be suspended a few days to [see how things turn out]; if that person repents his or her former misdeeds and [henceforth] leads a righteous life, very well. If not, he (or she) shall be ejected from there too and be definitively expelled; he (or she) shall leave the town and go away.19

Abdul Rafeq, in his writing about public morality in eighteenth-century Damascus, argues that the neighborhoods’ policing strategies arose due to the weak administrative rule of the period and the instability that emerged because of it.20 Neighborhood solidarity was critical in defending both moral and material interests. According to Rafeq, the qadi (judge) would routinely explain his decision to expel the offending individual(s) from the area where they resided because of “his concern for the well-being of the inhabitants of the quarter at large and his care to ward off mischief directed against them.”21

19 Translation found in Uriel Heyd, Studies in Old Ottoman Criminal Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), 130. However, Rudolph Peters states that shari‘a law only permitted a person to be banished if they were renting, and not owning, the property. If the person owned the property where the alleged crime was being committed, then corporal punishment and/or imprisonment would be the consequence. Rudolph Peters, Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law: Theory and Practice from the Sixteenth to the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 88. While procurers of prostitutes might have had the financial means to own their residence, it would be more likely that a prostitute operating independently out of her home was a renter and, therefore, more easily evicted. 20 Rafeq, “Public Morality,” 180–181. 21 Ibid., 181. Not only was this directed at residences but at businesses as well. Two separate cases in Damascus detail a coffeehouse and a cook who facilitated comingling of the sexes and those of ill repute, resulting in the judge concurring with the plaintiffs that their reputation and interests were damaged by the practice. The coffeehouse was subsequently closed (182–183). The practice of neighborhood policing was not limited to Syria, as Heyd notes that expulsion of prostitutes by those bearing witness before the qadi was recorded in a copy of a fırman of 980/1572 in Mühimme Defteri preceding the recording in Syria by two centuries. Heyd, Studies in Old Ottoman Criminal Law, 130. As defined by Heyd, a fırman is a “command, written decree emanating from or purporting to emanate from the Sultan” and authenticated by a royal sign affixed to the document affirming its adherence to existing statutes and precedents (338). In seventeenth-century Bursa, witness testimony against “immoral women” was an oft-cited practice according to court records. Haim Gerber, State, Society, and Law in Islam: Ottoman Law in Comparative Perspective (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 39. The local citizens would offer their testimony to remove the offending individual(s) from their quarter. As Semerdjian has noted, such accusations of prostitution must be treated with trepidation, since stories could be fabricated in order to remove any undesirable person from neighborhoods. See Semerdjian, Off the Straight Path, 111. While this discussion is based on the use of the courts to prosecute illicit sex, Boyar’s research indicates that neighborhoods in Anatolia would regulate prostitution themselves—outside the reach of the courts—in the form of public humiliation by smearing tar on the outside door of a prostitute’s house. Some of these individuals would appear in court, accusing those responsible of slander and asking for the court’s interference in clearing their name(s). Boyar, “An Imagined Moral Community,” 206–207. This was not only restricted to those who sold their services but also to those who brought such individuals into the area. Gerber, State, Society, and Law in Islam, 38–39. This practice is substantiated in eighteenth-century Constantinople, as seen in the case of a prostitute by the name of Ayşe (called “deli kız” in the police record of 1714, meaning “crazy woman”), who was brought up on charges on the death of a janissary. According to the

11

Neighborhood residents would come as a delegation representing the interests of the quarter, accusing those violating the hegemonic moral code as “damaging the interests of all inhabitants of the quarter” and even going as far as stating that it damaged the interests of those passing by.22 While in Aleppo, the neighborhood imam was usually charged with the responsibility of representing and administering community interests; elsewhere, it was customary for another kind of cadre leader to represent them in court.23 Perhaps not surprisingly, those possessing prestigious titles were prominent in the court registers in Damascus as those heading delegations, particularly hajjis and sharifs, but sometimes religious figures were the culprits themselves.24 In eighteenth-century Aleppo, an administrator of a Sufi lodge by the name of Ibrahim ibn ‘Umar allegedly turned a dhikr (devotional practice) into an orgy and acted as a pimp for his wife and other women. He was expelled from the area at the behest of the

arresting officer, “the residents of the neighborhood are fed up and disturbed by Ayşe’s moral misconduct,” to which an imperial order stated “since the misconduct of the above-mentioned is contrary to our imperial command . . . she will be banished to Bursa in the company of a guard.” This case never made its way through the courts, since no one filed a lawsuit on behalf of the janissary. Fariba Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul: 1700–1800 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 86–87. This case ties into several issues regarding prostitution, including the role of the neighborhood, the ability to bypass the court system (a regulatory measure that will be discussed below), the role of the military, and the practice of banishment. Another record dates back to 1695, when an investigation was carried out in the Constantinople neighborhood of Katib Husrev concerning a woman by the name of Şehbaz Hatun, who was accused by her neighbors of gathering unrelated men in her household. She subsequently lost custody of her child and was banished to a fortress on the Gallipoli Peninsula (91). This case is significant in that it showed not merely that a woman could be prohibited from returning to her neighborhood, but that she could be forcibly imprisoned, which appears to be an infrequent punishment in the Ottoman Empire for prostitution. While I focus in this discussion on the Hanafi School of law, as it is the preeminent legal force in the Ottoman Empire, the schools of law differed slightly regarding the application of banishment. According to Peters, if the person is not a muhsan (in the Sunni tradition, a muhsan is a free adult Muslim who has, at some point, been entitled to legitimate sexual relations through marriage), they can be banished for a year according to all legal schools except for the Hanafi. Malikites and Shi‘ites only permit this punishment for men out of fear that women forced to live outside the domicile of a male relative might lead a debaucherous life. In the other legal schools, a banished woman must be accompanied by a male relative at her own expense to serve as a guardian. Peters, Crime and Punishment, 34, 60–61. 22 Rafeq, “Public Morality,” 181, 183. 23 Abraham Marcus, The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity: Aleppo in the Eighteenth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), 325. 24 Rafeq, “Public Morality,” 191–194. Rafeq does state that nine imams represented their quarters in eighteenth- century Damascus but does not state in what capacity. He further states that out of the 161 people possessing “dignified titles” who were charged with being “mischievous” persons, a considerable portion (30) were possessors of the titles hajji, sayyid, or shaykh (188–189).

12 surrounding residents in 1768.25

Neighborhood regulation of immoral acts and deeds was written into the law: residents were permitted to defend their interests by filing civil suits against offenders; the law also used community enforcement as a mechanism for the state to penalize residents for failing to appeal to the courts in these matters. According to Leslie Peirce, “[s]everal clauses in the law book of

Suleyman . . . held individuals, urban neighborhoods, or whole villages liable for crimes committed on their property if they could not find the guilty party.”26 This practice was seen in

Aleppo, where fines were instrumental to the neighborhood regulation of prostitution, as the government was using resident enforcement strategies to compensate for its insufficient policing strategies.27 To execute this policy, the government would fine the community for any lapses in their reporting of criminal activities and any failures to root out the perpetrators. Most often, this came in the form of community members requesting the offending neighbor(s) to rectify the offensive behavior and then turning them over to the authorities if such methods failed to cease their engagement in prostitution.28 Repeated infractions by sex workers sometimes resulted in their wholesale removal from the area.

25 Marcus, The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity, 224, n.7. 26 Leslie Peirce, Morality Tales: Law and Gender in the Ottoman Court of Aintab (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 90. The articles of the OPC cited in Peirce’s text pertain almost exclusively to theft (and murder, to a lesser extent), but the same premise can be used as a rationale to hold communities responsible for all activities taking place in their quarters. According to Article 93, even watchmen and guards were held accountable for illegal activity that transpired under their watch. 27 Marcus, The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity, 116–118. For example, relatives and landlords were fined for not securing a perpetrator who was of interest to the authorities. 28 This effort in community suppression could also contribute to the underreporting of activities involving prostitution. This practice of holding neighborhoods accountable for not reporting sexual offenders appears to be at odds with the legal doctrine of encouraging those to not testify against illicit sexual relations, though it may be that the infractions were not due to the illicit relation itself but the other social ills that are associated with it. So while the legal manuals of Mehmet II (r. 1444–1446, 1451–1481) and Selim II (r. 1512–1520) both state that failure to report adultery to the qadi was not punishable but failure to report a theft incurred a ten akçe fine, it may be that either customary laws changed or were applied differently in eighteenth-century Aleppo. For the laws, see Boyar, “An Imagined Moral Community,” 202. Furthermore, it can be that the failure to report only became an issue when the offending person(s) became of interest to the state on other grounds, so that prostitution per se was not at issue.

13

The banishing from a neighborhood of those engaged in illicit sexual relations was rooted in the idea of protecting the public interest and, perhaps to a lesser extent, in the idea of rehabilitating the offending party.29 Banishing the offending prostitute and/or her consorts from a given area was an attempt to incapacitate the individual(s) from further partaking in such behavior.30 Colin Imber’s review of kanunname (the OPC) led him to the conclusion that judicial structures instituted the practice more as a method to preserve order vis-à-vis public morality and less as a method to punish prostitution.31 Peirce asserts that the jurists’ deliberate maneuvering around fixed penalties dictated under shari‘a allowed the possibility for corrective measures to be taken that would redeem the offending individual(s).32 The discretion granted to the qadi to issue punishments under fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) means that creative measures were likely taken in order to prevent offenders from repeating their crimes. This can be seen in two independent decisions regarding prostitution: one where a young male was sentenced to house arrest in his parents’ domicile and another where a woman was forced to live among “pious people” while the residence where she practiced her trade was “bricked up.”33 The idea of using guardianship in order to secure proper conduct among prostitutes was not uncommon, as its use is attested in sixteenth-century court records from Bursa, where a woman was repeatedly warned by her neighbors to correct her behavior before she was remanded to the custody of her brother

29 Peters contends that rehabilitation is the main justification for use of ta‘zir, but the secondary literature makes less references to the rehabilitating component than to the punitive measures and the securing of the moral integrity of a neighborhood. See Peters, Crime and Punishment, 31. 30 Al-Marghinani disagreed with the usefulness of banishment, since it would eliminate someone’s financial means and have the effect of driving a person further into prostitution. See Colin Imber, Studies in Ottoman History and Law (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1996), 188. Marcus cites a case when an immoral woman was banished from her neighborhood only to be banished from the new neighborhood where she sought to reside once residents became privy to her prior conduct. Marcus, The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity, 117–118. This was permitted under Article 124 of the OPC, which allows the neighborhood of relocation to expel a person based on their prior wrongdoings. According to this law, at that instance the person(s) involved in the illicit activities would be banished from the town altogether. 31 Imber, Studies in Ottoman History and Law, 188. 32 Peirce, Morality Tales, 333. 33 Peters, Crime and Punishment, 32.

14 through the mechanism of siyasa (administrative justice).34

In reality, prostitutes would more likely resume their practice elsewhere or eventually return to the area to practice in the same locale, which calls into question the “rehabilitative” nature of the rendered punishment. Prostitutes were banished by Damascene “heads of quarters” in 1749 under the order of the Governor, As‘ad Pasha al-‘Azm; soon thereafter, the prostitutes resumed their work and the Governor decided to regulate their practice by instituting a monthly fee instead.35 As Abraham Marcus contends regarding Aleppo during the eighteenth century, prostitution was a service whose demand exceeded its public scorn; while neighborhoods actively sought to punish local offenders, those culpable would merely go to another district.36

Sometimes, rather than create a prophylactic barrier between neighborhoods through banishment, the courts imposed fines directly on the prostitutes themselves.37

The discretionary imposition of fines by the qadi on those engaging in prostitution is reflected in the Ottoman court records.38 Peirce argues that the application of financial penalties

34 Boyar, “An Imagined Moral Community,” 187. In this practice, the qadi would refer matters concerning public order to the local representative of the Ottoman sultan (i.e., governor or pasha) to administer the punishment. To do so, the judge would write up the statements regarding the infraction(s) without issuing a sentence. The sentence itself was to be dictated by the government administrator. See Heyd, Studies in Old Ottoman Criminal Law, 209– 212; and Peters, Crime and Punishment, 76–77. This practice was promulgated under Article 88 of the OPC. During the time of Selim II (r. 1512–1520), records indicate that men in the company of prostitutes were forced to marry them. Boyar, “An Imagined Moral Community,” 221. While Boyar contends that this was deemed a punishment for the patrons and served as a deterrent to seeking out such services, it could have also functioned as a way to set prostitutes on a corrective path to rehabilitation. Boyar also states that those marrying prostitutes could have done so acting as their procurer and wanting to keep their workers out of prison. He states that Selim II issued an order in 1568 stating that those who chose to marry prostitutes could do so but must leave Istanbul or face imprisonment themselves if they remained within the city (221). 35 Rafeq, “Public Morality,” 183. Note that this was a decision of a governor, not a qadi; therefore, a different rationale and interest could be at play, since the judge would not benefit from permitting the presence of prostitution in return for monetary compensation in this type of compensation structure. While Marcus states that the qadi’s salary was primarily obtained through the collection of court fees and dues, there is nothing that indicates that the judges profited off of government fines. See Marcus, The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity, 106. 36 Marcus, The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity, 328. He goes on to further state that this is an example of Aleppo’s failures to create its ideal regarding moral behavior, despite its ongoing efforts at supervision. 37 The method of imposing fines on those found involved with prostitution was also put in effect, in addition to banishment, as an added punitive measure. 38 According to Heyd, the imposition of fines for criminality was previously unknown, as it was not dictated in shari‘a. He states that the fuqaha (jurists) considered it an innovation and characterized the practice as officially

15 is an example of the conscious decision on the part of the courts to allow for rehabilitation instead of the fixed penalties prescribed for zina (sexual relations outside marriage) convictions.39 A scholar in the Hanafi School of Sunni Islamic legal reasoning, Abu Yusuf, regarded the fine as a “deposit guaranteeing the offender’s future proper behavior,” which appears to substantiate Peirce’s claim. While this jurists from this school of thought were in the minority when it came to Islamic legal opinions, in a fatwa the Hanafi mufti Ebu’s-Su‘ud employed Abu Yusuf’s claim, arguing that a judge or governor could utilize fines at their discretion, substantiating what was put into practice in the Ottoman kanun (Ottoman codified administrative law).40 The regulatory imposition of fines was codified in the kanun in the fifteenth century under the OPC, which established a progressive fine structure to replace fixed penalties that could not be implemented.41 Rudolph Peters refers to this process as a “fiscalizing” of offenses, a process that augmented ta‘zir or the number of discretionary punishments.42 These

sanctioned bribery. This idea shifted among the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century ulema (Islamic scholars) in the Ottoman Empire. Interestingly, a fırman (edict) from the late sixteenth century suggests that the practice of imposing fines arose from the increased criminality in Bursa, where shari‘a standards could not be met and that therefore other measures were enacted to penalize criminals. See Heyd, Studies in Old Ottoman Criminal Law, 280–283. 39 Peirce, Morality Tales, 333. Peirce uses taxation as an example of political and social context imbedded in the courts. Sultan Selim I’s lawbook concerning fines for adultery was modified by his son, Suleyman, to include the statement “provided the sharia punishment is not applied.” Peirce states that, in doing so, Suleyman was reminding executive state officials that the kanun was “a religiously grounded legal system, with moral imperatives that transcended the mundane details of jails and fines.” 40 Peters, Crime and Punishment, 33. Ottoman bureaucrats in addition to legal scholars asserted that the collection of fines was a violation of shari‘a and a source of corruption (i.e., bribery and abuse). See Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 163. 41 Article 1 states: “If a person commits fornication and [this] is proved against him—if the fornicator is married and is rich—one thousand akçe shall be collected[from him], provided he does not suffer from the [death] penalty” (emphasis my own). One of the versions of the article under Suleyman specifies: “If a person is seen committing fornication [and this] is proved against him in accordance with the shari‘a.” See Heyd, Studies in Old Ottoman Criminal Law, 95. 42 Peters, Crime and Punishment, 74. Ta’zir is a discretionary punishment permitted under Islam for offenses not addressed in the Qur’an. According to Peters, this practice of imposing a fine depended on the number of lashes one received for committing a violating act. Heyd cites Guillame Postel’s 1549 work De la république des Turcs, which states that fornication, as opposed to other categories like theft and retribution, was punishable by both lashings and fines. See Heyd, Studies in Old Ottoman Criminal Law, 277. In its first section, “On Fornication and Other [Offences],” the OPC provides precise details on the imposition of punitive fines based on a multitude of factors: marital status, gender, class (i.e., wealth based on material assets), enslavement, age, sexual orientation pertaining to the act, religion (Muslim vs. non-Muslim), and the nature of the crime committed. For example, Article 4 states: “If fornication is committed by a girl, the fine [imposed] on her is exactly the same as that [imposed] on an unmarried

16 fines were apparently converted to a form of regular taxation in some areas based on the premise that prostitutes constituted repeat violators of the law and that monthly taxation was a more expedient method of collecting state revenues, as seen in the aforementioned case of As‘ad Pasha al-‘Azm in Damascus.43

The implication of leveraging fines and taxation against prostitution was the legal system’s tacit acceptance of the practice of prostitution. Yet the state did retain its power to regulate sex work in a discretionary manner whenever societal interests were perceived to be threatened.

Imber concludes that prostitution was determined to be legal under the Ottoman Empire since the sixteenth century and that it was regulated through the use of fines and banishment. A more accurate depiction would be that prostitution was transformed from being solely a criminal activity to also being a civil offense. In a sense, it received a more expansive treatment that allowed for both provincial authorities and the inhabitants they governed to initiate proceedings based on perceived harm. It can be argued that the nuanced nature of prostitution gave it a more liminal status in the eyes of the law. It was criminalized but took on a civil nature, as neighborhoods could bring offending parties to the courts and request restitution in the form of banishment, as highlighted above. Imber sums up the idea that prostitutes were prosecuted as violators of civil law when he says that “[e]nforcement of the code is not a matter for the legal

man.” Article 9 elaborates: “If a person enters [another] person’s house with intent to commit fornication, he shall, if he is married, pay the fine [imposed] on a married [fornicator]; if he is unmarried, he shall pay the fine [imposed] on an unmarried [fornicator].” 43 In Istanbul, Edirne, Filibe, and Sophia, gypsy women who violated shari‘a, were to pay an established amount of one hundred akçes per month according to a 1530 law book. Imber, Studies in Ottoman History and Law, 188–189. The practice was exercised by the muhtasib in the Ottoman Empire, who were found to be collecting daily fines from shopkeepers based on the premise that repeat offenses were being committed. Heyd, Studies in Old Ottoman Criminal Law, 233–234. This practice of collecting revenues based on the presumed guilt of repeated offenses could be seen as exploitation or a method of tacit acceptance of illegal practices, which could work to the offending parties’ advantage, for it permitted them to ply their trade virtually unfettered. According to Heyd, such arrangements were illegal according to the kanun.

17 institutions of the state, but for private individuals.”44 It did, in fact, become a civil issue when the law shifted to allow private individuals to file complaints with the courts—as stated in

Article 124 of the OPC—but it was still well within the confines of a criminal activity requiring court intervention. As James Baldwin’s review of Ottoman jurists’ records suggest, “Ottoman

Hanafi jurists . . . excluded prostitution outright from fixed penalties, but they did not consider prostitution to be legal.”45 Furthermore, Imber limits criminal offenses pertaining to prostitution to procurement, though evidence suggests that this was not the case.46 The authorities deemed procurement punishable by lashing, fines, public humiliation, and/or corporal punishment, all of which were inflicted on the prostitutes themselves as well.47 As Judith Tucker found in Sultan

Suleyman’s version of the OPC, “a recurrent offender, such as a habitual prostitute, incurred stiffer penalties of flogging, ridiculing in public, or banishment. The law specified that a prostitute could have her face blackened or smeared with dirt and be led through the streets sitting backwards on a donkey, holding its tail instead of its reins.”48 Yet, sometimes, the idea of

44 He argues, in effect, that the system ceased to be based on authoritarian law—enforceable through the courts— and ceded to customary law based on societal norms and expectations. 45 James E. Baldwin, “Prostitution, Islamic Law and Ottoman Societies,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 55, no. 1 (2012): 128. 46 Imber appears to later contradict himself or, at a minimum, add a modification to his assertion later in his text when he adds: “The kanunname, on the other hand, treats as an offence, but not prostitution, unless it gives rise to public complaint.” Imber, Studies in Ottoman History and Law, 201. Imber’s assertion regarding legality is most likely due to the fact that the kanunname of Selim I lists pimping as a zina crime and, subsequently, Suleyman I lists several laws criminalizing procurement. Conversely, few laws are mentioned that pertain to the prostitutes themselves. See Elyse Semerdjian, “Gender Violence in Kanunnames and Fetvas,” in Beyond the Exotic: Women’s Histories in Islamic Societies, ed. Amira El-Azhary Sonbol (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005), 186–187. For example, Article 75 states that “[a woman] for whom procuring is patently committed or [a person] who practices procuring shall have his [or her] forehead branded.” Translation by Heyd, Studies in Old Ottoman Criminal Law, 75. 47 According to Imber, “[t]he kanun while accepting that prostitution is legal, makes procuring an offence. The punishment for a ‘woman’ who practices procuring is chastisement and a fine of one akçe for each stroke . . . a ‘person’ who practices procuring [is] liable to the same fine and, in addition, exposure to public scorn. A third clause punishes the procurer or procuress and, apparently, the woman on whose behalf they act, by branding their foreheads.” Imber, Studies in Ottoman History and Law, 188. 48 Tucker, Women, Family, and Gender in Islamic Law, 196–197. As mentioned above, the use of donkeys by women for transport was witnessed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The humiliation reserved for prostitutes was the added effect of having to hold its tail while sitting backward. Tucker draws the distinction that

18 expediency in rendering and executing decisions in the name of public safety meant that the crime was handled not in the court but by employing ta‘zir through a jurisdiction known as siyasa, which I mentioned above and will now explain in a little more detail.49

While neighborhood inhabitants were a critical component to the social regulation of prostitution, municipal regulation also came in a form of law enforcement known as siyasa. The intervention of an entrusted person to execute decisions based on disturbance of the peace is articulated in Article 125 of the OPC, which delegates the task to someone outside the realm of the neighborhood and the courts.50 Still interfacing with the court system, the administrators of siyasa were not bound by the same restrictions as the qadi and, importantly, they did not require anyone to petition them in order to pursue justice.51 These “community” law enforcement officials, in effect, removed a third party from the equation and allowed the state to act directly in the public’s interest. This practice was also a mechanism that was invoked by the courts at times when conclusive evidence could not be produced but when the plaintiff (i.e., neighborhood residents) was able to convincingly articulate that a person was a habitual offender who constituted a threat to the public interest. In such cases, the enforcement of the punishment was then taken outside the realm of the courts and placed in the jurisdiction of an administrative official (such as a pasha, or governor).52 Perhaps the elusive nature of what constituted a sex

corporal punishments for those convicted of zina were only applied to those who committed repeat or violent offenses. 49 Peters, Crime and Punishment, 31. 50 “If a person is a disturber of the peace [who] is always engaged in mischievous activities and [whom] the Muslims tell to his face that they do not consider him a law-abiding person, the qadi and the subaşı shall take no part [in the proceedings against him]. The person who is entrusted with [the infliction of capital or severe corporal] punishment and [the execution of] the [Sultan’s] order [to impose such a penalty] shall punish [him].” Translation by Heyd, Studies in Old Ottoman Criminal Law, 130–131. Note that the OPC refers to the yasak, who is a watchman or guard who can render immediate judgment (119, 131). In addition, in the cities the yasak were charged with the collection of fines imposed on those convicted of illicit sex. See Peters, Crime and Punishment, 97. The subaşı is the head of police within the Ottoman Empire, as mentioned above in the case of Bursa. 51 Peters, Crime and Punishment, 80. 52 Ibid., 90–91. Peters states that the offending person(s) would usually be labeled a “spreader of corruption,” which was a means to ensure conformity in behavior according to neighborhood norms.

19 worker, including her geographical ambiguity, made the flexibility of enforcement mechanisms essential to the maintenance of the social and moral order.

The diverse geographical makeup of prostitutes in the Empire is reflected in the blend of local and “foreign” women in the occupation. Like other professionals, prostitutes relocated to where opportunities existed. In eighteenth-century Aleppo, prostitutes came from Damascus,

Hama, Latakiya, Marash, and ‘Aintab, among other places, with most of them being originally from Anatolia.53 In Fariba Zarinebaf’s study of eighteenth-century Istanbul, many female prostitutes originated from the rural outskirts of the city.54 The exact reason for their relocation is unknown, but their migration from small towns to remote locations in that period would not have been a journey that one would have taken lightly. Records indicate that prostitutes positioned themselves among trade and pilgrimage routes, suggesting that they were relocating themselves to areas of increasing demand and accessibility, as these are areas to which they could more easily migrate. As Semerdjian notes, evidence indicates that sites such as Isfahan and Aleppo, sites along the infamous Silk Road, were more prone to increased numbers of prostitutes due to the fact that caravans engaging in international trade were situated along that route.55 Dror Ze’evi makes reference to an edict issued during the time of Ottoman rule that prohibited prostitutes from migrating with the military “as it marched to and from the front.”56 This demand was due to the sudden increase in males, inasmuch as the military personnel, pilgrims, and tradespersons traveling in these areas between the front and the interior were most often single men.57

53 Semerdjian, Off the Straight Path, 111. 54 Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 91. 55 Semerdjian, Off the Straight Path, 103. Likewise, trade routes throughout Safavid Iran were commonplace worksites for the sex trade. Matthee, “Prostitutes, Courtesans, and Dancing Girls,”121–150. 56 Dror Ze’evi, Producing Desire: Changing Sexual Discourse in the Ottoman Middle East 1500–1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 147. 57 For example, Zarinebaf makes the claim that the increase in prostitution was due to “economic difficulties faced by single, divorced, and widowed women.” Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 87. While this is

20

Speaking of the military, the expansion of prostitution in the Ottoman Empire has been tied to the presence of the military.58 The incarnation of a more regulated form of prostitution as seen in the modern period under the French Mandate can be traced back to tenth-century , where an established existed for servicing unmarried soldiers in the interest of protecting society at large from their sexual desires.59 An Italian traveler’s account of sixteenth-century

Aleppo stated that the janissaries, elite soldiers who were approximately 500 in number, were permitted the right to frequent prostitutes and were therefore not subject to the customary fines when a subaşı (police chief) found them keeping such company.60 Similarly, a traveler’s account of seventeenth-century Cairo states that the subaşı were not able to take action against prostitutes who were under military protection.61 In the case of eighteenth-century Damascus, the linkages with the Yerliyya and Dalatiyya mercenaries were evident, as prostitution was found to be more prevalent in the areas where these troops were located. Not only do travelers’ accounts attest to this fact, but court records do so as well, reflecting the fact that military officials were not immune to prosecution if they were found to be associated with sex workers.62 According to one

definitely a contributing element to prostitution, evidence shows that this is not an explanatory reason for why women practiced the trade. 58 As referenced above regarding the prostitution guilds, Mazahéri stated that the “low-quality” prostitutes who applied excessive makeup and put on gaudy displays were those who serviced soldiers and sailors. These women were found in brothels located in the marketplace. Mazahéri, La Vie quotidienne des musulmans au Moyen Age, 65. The association of excessive cosmetics with prostitution carried on into the early twentieth century, when women were chastised for wearing makeup, as in the case of Istanbul. See Boyar, “An Imagined Moral Community,” 196– 197. 59 Matthee, “Prostitutes, Courtesans, and Dancing Girls,” 131. 60 Ambrosio Bembo, The Travels and Journals of Ambrosio Bembo, ed. Anthony Welch and trans. Clara Bargellini (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 59. 61 Evliya Çelebi, An Ottoman Traveller: Selections from the Book of Travels of Evliya Çelebi, trans. Robert Dankoff and Sooyong Kim (London: Eland, 2011), 394. 62 Though the evidence suggests that military patronage also offered prostitutes some protection from prosecution as well. See Rafeq, “Public Morality,” 187–189. From the examination of court records spanning from 1724 to 1760, only one of the 161 people found to be “mischievous persons” held a military title, which is a low number compared to the amount of cases of prostitution that arose from military-dominated areas. Rafeq goes on to state that the governors did not want to risk alienating their troops, who were known to frequent prostitutes. Obviously, this was not an absolute rule, as a prostitute was taken to court in Istanbul in 1579 after being caught drinking with a janissary. Boyar, “An Imagined Moral Community,” 217.

21 court record, a neighborhood coalition of seventeen individuals headed by an imam protested the

Dalatiyya mercenaries’ rebuilding of an inn because they knew the troops would use it for engaging in sexual relations with prostitutes.63

So where were sex workers being procured? Unlike their counterparts in the modern era, most early modern period prostitutes practiced in their homes and not in organized, regulated brothels.64 Yet there were multitudes of other settings outside the home for solicitation. As in the case of the coffeehouse or restaurant, there were public venues for procurement, and most of them were informal in nature. According to Semerdjian, coffeehouses were places in Aleppo where one could procure male prostitutes, for these were locations where “entertainers, dancing boys and coffee servers would solicit patrons.”65 Marcus traces the historical association of coffeehouses with public scorn; they were periodically banned due to their negative associations.

In 1764, the Aleppo governor restricted the operating hours of cafés, prohibiting them from being open after sundown. Three years later, the same prohibition was reiterated, possibly indicating the difficulty in controlling the demands of the various parties involved (which likely comprised those who frequented the cafés and those who wanted their abolition).66 Other public areas of solicitation included gardens and bathhouses.

The records of Damascus and Aleppo both indicate a lack of centrality when it came to prostitution; in other words, there were apparently no “red-light districts,” or quartiers resérvés to use the French term.67 Sometimes, vacant lots and abandoned buildings were used for sexual

63 Rafeq, “Public Morality,” 184. The qadi ruled in the plaintiff’s favor and ordered the inn not to be rebuilt. 64 Ze’evi states that, despite the commonplace nature of prostitution in the Ottoman Empire, formalized establishments were not the norm. Ze’evi, Producing Desire, 147. 65 Semerdjian, Off the Straight Path, 112. 66 Marcus, The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity¸ 232, n.33. 67 This appears to be in contrast with eighteenth-century Ottoman Constantinople, which possessed a red-light district in the primarily Christian quarter of the city called Galata. Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 100. Zarinebaf claims that the red-light district in Galata had existed since at least Byzantine times. The centralized brothels in Galata operated through taverns, which were not permitted to exist in Muslim-dominated neighborhoods,

22 activity. According to Marcus, a Damascene resident by the name of Husayn ibn Abu Bakr paid to have a ruined mosque enclosed and barricaded in order to keep prostitutes and other vagrants out.68 While the geographical diversity of the practice of prostitution makes it difficult to come to any concrete conclusions about where sex work was usually performed, one trend is apparent. In

Aleppo, as in Damascus, the predominant locus of crime was outside the city walls. Semerdjian suggests that this might be due to the fact that cheaper real estate was found outside the citadel: prostitutes resided close to where they practiced their trade.69 She also notes that the city’s military garrisons and major markets held higher clusters of prostitutes. Likewise, Abdul Rafeq finds that eighteenth-century Damascus court records indicate that “places where immoral practices occurred were located outside the city wall where immigrants and troops predominate.”70 He notes that prostitutes were prolific in the city, whether they paraded on the main streets or gathered near public venues like suqs (markets), bakeries, or coffeehouses.71

In sum, when it comes to the regulation of prostitution prior to the nineteenth century, the main idea coming out of the existing scholarship is that sex work was treated with ambivalence.

While the social and legal structures precipitating the French influence reinforced the centrality

reserving upstairs rooms for the trade. Zarinebaf claims that these taverns had male prostitutes, while females operated in the suburbs along the Bosphorus outside the male-confined spaces of taverns (101). In addition, these confessional and gendered divides characterized where services were rendered in Muslim neighborhoods. Constantinople in the eighteenth century witnessed a greater number of Muslim prostitutes practicing from their domiciles, a practice that Zarinebaf argues was rooted in the segregation of the sexes and in moral codes that dictated separate spaces and prohibited them from practicing in taverns and public brothels. This claim seems to be contradicted by other evidence. While it could be true that prostitution operated on a different scale in Constantinople, evidence from other areas suggests that there is a lack of concern regarding public decorum in the matter of prostitution. Zarinebaf states herself that, “in the eighteenth century [the era of concern for her study], the increase in poverty and rural migration into Istanbul led to the spread of commercial sex outside the red-light districts. Muslim streetwalkers practiced their trade openly in public parks, cemeteries, bachelors’ rooms, and even religious seminaries” (87). In addition, it is unclear what Zarinebaf means by “public brothel.” In fact, Muslim prostitutes occupied commercial locations, as a pimp by the name of Şeyh Mustafa was found guilty and convicted of prostituting over two hundred women through a rented shop in the Zeyrek Başı quarter, being banished to Bursa in 1825 for his crime (98). 68 Marcus, The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity, 294. 69 Semerdjian, Off the Straight Path, 112. 70 Rafeq, “Public Morality,” 184. 71 Ibid., 189.

23 of the family and would generally prescribe severe consequences for those who transgressed norms by engaging in illicit sex, prostitution was actually not treated in such a manner. Under the

OPC, and its multiple revisions, prostitution was regarded as more of a civil matter than a criminal one. This situation allowed individuals to charge others with immoral conduct and to seek restitution through the courts. On the one hand, the state maintained that the practice was illegal under the law; on the other hand, the practice wound up being taxed by local authorities and it was even professionalized through guilds.72 More than anything, pragmatism seemed to be the guiding principle, one that was punctuated by the persecution of the profession when religious fervor forced people to portray prostitution as a public nuisance and/or a threat to the social order. The revision to the OPC led to greater consistency in the treatment of commercial sex, yet the discretionary measures afforded to officers of the court gave them leeway when it came to rendering judgment. Those placed in positions of authority whose job it was to regulate prostitution through the Ottoman state were the qadis, muftis, civil administrators, and the municipal law enforcement officers known as the subaşı and muhtasib. Yet, in more practical terms, the OPC elevated neighorhood residents to the position of shadow enforcers of moral conduct as dictated by religious and adminstrative doctrine. Therefore, a prostitute’s neighbor

72 While, as previously noted, Semerdjian speculated that prostitution did not require guild membership in Aleppo, sex workers were involved in guilds elsewhere. In Ottoman Egypt in the seventeenth century, prostitutes were organized within the guild structure under the name “fahise.” Gabriel Baer, Egyptian Guilds, 173. There were two guilds recorded, though the reason for the existence of a separation is unclear. It could be due to the fact that there was a differentiation between the types of prostitutes: those who were considered to be less “vulgar” and who served the upper echelons of society versus those who were considered more “inferior quality” and who served the working-class and lower ranking military personnel. For a description of this bifurcation, see Mazahéri, La Vie quotidienne, 65. In addition, another guild for the youths of Bab al-Luk (Bab al-Luk sibyan) is thought to have represented male prostitutes of the quarter. Baer, Egyptian Guilds, 35. The guild structure was constructed as a means of collecting taxes from professions, mediated by a shaykh. The male and female prostitutes in seventeenth- century Egypt were administered by three shaykhs, representing Old and New Cairo and Bulak. Baer, Egyptian Guilds, 27. Since these guilds were considered to have low social status with little compensation, occupied by those who were impoverished, the taxation received could not have been significant. This might be with the exception of the one guild representing higher-class prostitutes. This process of taxation persisted until Muhammad ‘Ali outlawed prostitution in Cairo and banished it to Upper Egypt in 1834. Elyse Semerdjian, Off the Straight Path, 101.

24 was the most instumental mechanism of regulation through the early modern period. This arrangement was to change, however, in the years to come.

From Ottoman Administration to the French System: Sex Work as Pathology

The review of secondary literature on sex work in the Levant points to the reality that the regulation of sex work did not originate under the French and that regulation of the practice of sex work was not an outright product of colonization. What is imperative to understand when it comes to control over sex work as it existed prior to the nineteenth century is that it possessed both similarities to and differences from the French system devised under Napoleon Bonaparte.

Ottoman officials may have made various attempts to universalize the treatment of the selling of sexual services through the OPC, yet provincial governments exercised local discretion. What materialized as official imperial policy under the Ottomans was hardly uniform, and according to scholars cited above dissonance between law and reality seems to have been the rule and not the exception. The French, in contrast, attempted to transform a nuanced bureaucratic practice into a more rigid, standardized one by inserting a heavy administrative apparatus into the Levant. The

French form of regulatory prostitution attempted to ensure that sex workers were given little leeway in exercising their profession.73 The increasing attempts to establish uniform controls over sex work during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries under French influence led to a

73 There is an expansive amount of scholarship on colonial sex work that covers a variety of locations and empires. A sampling of these works include Barbara Creed and Jeanette Hoorn, Body Trade: Captivity, Cannibalism and Colonialism in the Pacific (New York: Routledge, 2001); Nicole von Germeten, Profit and Passion: Transactional Sex in Colonial Mexico (Oakland: University of California Press, 2018); Liat Kozma, Global Women, Colonial Ports: Prostitution in the Interwar Middle East (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2017); Judith Kelleher Schafer, Brothels, Depravity, and Abandoned Women: Illegal Sex in Antebellum New Orleans (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2009); Tiffany A. Sippial, Prostitution, Modernity, and the Making of the Cuban Republic, 1840–1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013); Christelle Taraud, La prostitution coloniale: Algérie, Tunisie, Maroc (1830–1962) (Paris: Payot, 2003); Louise White, The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); and Trọng Phụng Vũ, Lục Xì: Prostitution and Venereal Disease in Colonial Hanoi, trans. Shaun Kingsley Malarney (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2016).

25 reductionist rendering of the complexities of the occupation, and it removed the practice from a primarily local concern to an international one.

Ottoman officials enacted and expanded the French-style regulation of prostitution to other parts of their Empire in the nineteenth century after already having done so in Istanbul.74 Yet the wholesale adoption of this new regulatory structure over sex work was not immediate, as the first records of its existence in Lebanon do not emerge until almost a century after Napoleon introduced it in France. Although regulationism (i.e., French-style regulationism) was adopted while the Levant was still under Ottoman control, it was only once the French exerted direct control over the region that this transformation had its full effect. Even then it did not transpire without meeting resistance. Once designated as the Mandatory power over Lebanon and Syria by the League, France defended its imposition of regulations as a matter of a sovereign power exerting its rightful jurisdiction over its territorial holdings. But the internationalization that took hold in the nineteenth century ensured a very “public” scrutiny of state control over sex work. In the twentieth century, the League, the same body that bestowed the administrative power and control over the Levant to France, used the forum provided by the Advisory Committee on the

Traffic of Women and Children to criticize the French approach to governing commercial sexual activity. This forum was entangled with the globalized campaign against “White slave traffic,” which subsequently became a movement against the trafficking of women and children. The

74 For studies on the particularities of sex work in Ottoman Turkey and the early Turkish Republic, see Gülhan Balsoy, “Haseki Women’s Hospital and the Female Destitute of Nineteenth-Century Istanbul,” Middle Eastern Studies 55, no. 3 (2018): 289–300; Kyle T. Evered and Emine Ö. Evered, “Syphilis and Prostitution in the Socio- Medical Geographies of Turkey’s Early Republican Provinces,” Health and Place 18, no. 3 (2012): 528–535; Emine Ö. Evered and Kyle T. Evered, “Sex and the Capital City: The Political Framing of Syphilis and Prostitution in Early Republican ,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 68, no. 2 (2013): 266–299; Malte Fuhrmann, “Down and Out on the Quays of İzmir: ‘European’ Musicians, Innkeepers, and Prostitutes in the Ottoman Port-Cities,” Mediterranean Historical Review 24, no. 2 (2009): 169–185; Malte Fuhrmann, “‘Western Perversions’ at the Threshold of Felicity: The European Prostitutes of Galata-Pera (1870–1915),” History and Anthropology 21, no. 2 (2010): 159–172; and Müge Özbek, “The Regulation of Prostitution in Beyoğlu (1875– 1915),” Middle Eastern Studies 46, no. 4 (2010): 555–568.

26 emergence of opposition toward the French system can only be understood by first examining the medicalized discourses produced by proponents of regulationism, as these discourses served as the core rationale behind the French-style regulation of sex work in the Levant.

France cited newly formulated medical knowledge as the reason for the necessity of strictly regulated prostitution, even in light of ample evidence over time that regulatory prostitution did not eradicate venereal disease and that clandestine prostitution persisted despite mandatory registration of those who engaged in sexual commerce. Particularly useful for understanding how regulationism first came into being in the metropole are Jill Harsin’s Policing Prostitution in

Nineteenth-Century Paris and Alain Corbin’s Women for Hire: Prostitution and Sexuality in

France after 1850.75 Harsin helps illuminate the complexity of the regulatory system in her institutional history of sex work, which reflects the continuity of the practice throughout nineteenth-century Paris. Even in the face of mounting criticism for the involuntary detention of workers, Harsin says, the police tried to reformulate the system to appease public condemnation yet did so in a way so as to achieve the same results. Her intricate description of the draconian measures whereby bureaucrats successfully held sex workers “outside the law” through administrative procedures, which were later to be found in the Levant, is highly instructive. I will address these measures in some detail below in Chapter Three. Corbin’s work is valuable because it creates a picture of how people interfaced with the regulatory system throughout

France, including workers, clients, police officers, and medical personnel. The evaluative measures that he uses in the book create a broad picture of what regulation in France looked like, especially on the eve of the twentieth century. Prostitution became a prime target of the

75 Jill Harsin, Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Paris (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985); Corbin, Women for Hire: Prostitution and Sexuality in France after 1850 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990).

27 interventionist approach, as “loose” and “immoral” women were the assumed source of the infections linked to sexual transmission. The medical approach sought quarantine and monitoring as the remedies for this contagion. Fundamentally, presumed concerns over venereal disease informed the state’s response to the infection’s perceived danger. Through its use of public health initiatives and regulations, government administrators used public safety as a means of constructing a gendered discourse about what they felt was threatening sexual behavior and deployed findings from the evolving field of medicine to validate their position.

The medical field’s blatant support of state interests is critical when it comes to understanding how the medical regulation of prostitution evolved under the French system and how it developed in the Levant. While scientists often claim legitimacy through unbiased,

“objective” knowledge, in reality “perceptions and interpretations . . . are mediated through language” and “the biomedical sciences function as a major provider of this language.” In short,

“scientists are actively constructing reality, rather than discovering reality.”76 In my investigation of the relationship between medical science and prostitution articulated in and around the Levant at the turn of the century, I have found this contention to be accurate. Scientific knowledge reified both patriarchal and class assumptions that were pervasive in the nineteenth and early twentieth centries.77 It played an instrumental role in the imposition of social control over women, particularly working-class women.

This new locus of power and control over marginalized women that emerged in the nineteenth century established itself in the early twentieth century under the auspices of the

76 Nelly Oudshoorn, Beyond the Natural Body: An Archaeology of Sex Hormones (New York: Routledge, 1994), 3– 4. 77 See also Catherine Gallagher and Thomas Laqueur, eds., The Making of the Modern Body: Sexuality and Society in the Nineteenth Century; G. Nigel Gilbert and Michael Joseph Mulkay, Opening Pandora’s Box: A Sociological Analysis of Scientific Discourse; and Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud.

28 emerging field of medicine. As Jane Scoular observes, sex work has been historically stigmatized, so this much was not new with the advent of the French system. But “[w]hat does change at this juncture, and what is novel, is not the problematisation of prostitution per se but the nature of its problematisation.”78 The French had long known about venereal disease and had long been concerned about it. Syphilis, for example, was first detected among French soldiers in the late fifteenth century. Yet the acceleration of the spread of the disease thanks to modern modes of transportation; military expansion; and a vast number of scientific and technological advances brought concerns about contamination and public safety to the forefront. New medical institutions were constructed as a result of these new fears, which still operated in tandem with the moral condemnation of sex work. The introduction of modern tactics of identification and containment served as manifestations of power and control by the authorities over sex workers and, to a lesser extent, over the clientele that they served.79

Prior discourses on the types of sexuality that deviated from socially constructed norms focused on their condemnation. As we have already seen above, the Ottoman state promoted the containment of sexual deviance, and this was usually in response to religious-based complaints

78 Jane Scoular, The Subject of Prostitution: Sex Work, Law, and Social Theory (New York: Routledge, 2015), 27. 79 In the interest of public hygiene, the control over venereal disease promoted by the medical establishment was premised on the gendered notion of sexual prowess. Men had the unalienable right to sexual access to women due to their irrepressible sexual urges. Dr. Pusey, professor of dermatology and former president of the American Medical Association and the American Dermatological Association, argued that “[t]he sexual appetite, after hunger, is the dominant influence of man in the whole conduct of life.” In this regard, it was the medical establishment’s duty to treat medically that which could not be eradicated socially, addressing it as an issue of sanitation. See W. M. Allen Pusey, The History and Epidemiology of Syphilis (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1933), 105. If this could not be accomplished through marriage, then it was the duty of the state to sanction prostitution in the name of public health. Practically speaking, this presupposition meant that women did not possess sexual urges and, if they did, it was deviant and appalling. The prostitute occupied this role in order to mitigate the stressor placed on divergent sexualities: she served as the safety valve for male desires. Except, paradoxically, she was not safe. Prostitutes were a conundrum: the venereal disease she transmitted posed a threat to the nation, to its ability to protect its security interests via the soldier, and yet she simultaneously possessed the ability to protect the citizenry from libidinal men. Science inserted itself as the savior that could solve this paradox, cleaning the prostitute of her disease through prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and cure. While early medical literature supported regulatory prostitution, this position evolved over time as mounting evidence indicated its ineffectiveness in controlling venereal disease. The emphasis shifted to prevention through education. This effort was targeted at young soldiers and, increasingly, school-aged children through sexual education curricula.

29 about the violation of morality.80 One need only recall the example I gave above of the man who paid out of his own pocket to have an old mosque enclosed. The new French scientific discourse treated sexual deviancy in a somewhat different manner by adding to the mix medical debates concerning sexual deviancy that spoke about it more in terms of disease and pathology. This medicalizing context is well-illustrated in two books focusing on the British Empire during this time period. Mary Spongberg’s work, Feminization of Venereal Disease, situates this discourse in medical explanations premised on gendered and class-based assumptions of the Victorian period.81 The medical surveillance of sex workers rested on the premise that controlling working- class women’s bodies was the best way to achieve social stability: it was the most effective way to provide an outlet to unbridled male sexuality. Therefore, class-based and gender-based policing strategies were enacted as a means to control sex workers’ lives and livelihoods. Sex workers were a necessary evil, but an evil that needed to be checked and contained.82 This

80 The rise of venereal disease as a medical problem created a dicourse that was tinged with xenophobia. It was most commonly referred to as the “French disease” (yet the French called it the “Neapolitan disease”), or, in the time when half the prostitutes in Safavid Isfahan acquired syphilis, the local authorities labeled it latest-e faringi or “Western fire.” 81 Mary Spongberg, Feminizing Venereal Diseases: The Body of the Prostitute in Nineteenth-Century Medical Discourse (New York: New York University Press, 1997). 82 Under the regulatory system, sex workers had to undergo periodic medical exams and, if found to be infected, they were detained in a hospital until they were deemed to no longer be infected. League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Enquiry into Measures of Rehabilitation of Prostitutes: Social Services and Venereal Disease. July 1, 1938. Geneva, Switzerland: 23. Police and public health authorities wielded control over any discovered clandestine prostitutes, surveilling the actions of those deemed “suspicious.” The implications of this is critical to understanding the class-based contruction of prostitution, as laws in countries did not require authorities to substantiate their claims with any evidence—suspicion was enough. In the case of Hungary, for example, a law of 1927 states that “if a woman has no regular income and is suspected on good grounds of engaging in professional clandestine prostitution is brought before the head of the police or his representative, she shall submit to a medical examination and, if discovered to be suffering from venereal disease, she shall be treated in a public hospital. Any woman who is suspected on good grounds of engaging in clandestine prostitution and who refuses to submit to the required medical examination or who is recalcitrant shall be sent immediately to the hospital” (15, 23). The report claims that the forced reporting of those who sought medical treatment was ineffective. Doctors were shown to be unwilling to report names to authorities, for those who sought treatment and members of the general population were shown to be less likely to seek medical attention if they were fearful of a physician reporting patients. Therefore, controlling the spread of disease through force in the Levant was problematic, as the League’s report acknowledged that “[t]reatment is stated to not always or entirely be confidential in Syria” (26). The mandatory reporting of doctors of patient information to the authorities is demonstrative of the fact that civil liberties were not extended to sex workers under the French system in Lebanon and Syria, since there was no option as to whether to seek medical attention: the doctors, accompanied by the police, came to sex workers’ places of residence. There

30 argument is perhaps best illustrated by Judith Walkowitz’s class analysis of sex work in her book

Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State. She focuses on the double standard set by the ill-fated Contagious Disease Act (CDA) in Britain, which was first passed in

1864. Male patrons of prostitutes in garrison towns were left unchecked, while poor, working- class women became the focus of state intervention.83 This double standard led to the construction by society and by the state of an “outcast group” of prostitutes and working-class women. Meanwhile, those who sought to repeal the CDA engaged in repressive measures through their promotion of chastity and social control.84 The effects of the enactment and the attempt to repeal this law were that sex workers became both moral and medical threats in need of intervention from opposing parties who articulated different constructions of the problem and of the required solution. Likewise, such tensions played out in the Levant.

As demonstrated in the historiography of sex work in the Levant, the authorities exerted control over commercial sex in the Ottoman Empire prior to the direct rule of the region by the

French. Jens Hanssen’s chapter “Public Morality and Social Marginality” in his book Fin de

were even “surprise” visits. According to the above-cited report, medical and social factors prohibited the containment of disease even when “the powers granted to [authorities] are very wide; only if the public cooperates actively can authorities really come to grips with their task [of controlling venereal disease]” (16). But they did not, ironically, give the public a chance to cooperate, inasmuch as they placed women in a predicament of being treated as if they were sex workers regardless of the accuracy of the accusations. This is the situation that existed in France, and it will be examined further in Chapter Three. Any woman who would protest submitting herself to medical inspection on the grounds that she was not, in fact, a sex worker was still treated as one. The gendered power dynamics at play in the French system cannot go unnoticed, as the regulations always mentioned women as the accused and men as the patrons. The League’s report notes that while in some countries men accompanying “clandestine” women can be forced to undergo a medical examination, it was seldom executed if the “man’s position is such as to convince the authorities that he would himself apply for treatment if he were ill” (23–24). The “man’s” word was good enough, especially if he was from one of the wealthier classes of society. 83 As Judith Walkowitz asserts, “medical and police supervision . . . created an outcast class of ‘sexually deviant’ females, forcing prostitutes to acknowledge their status as ‘public’ women and destroying their private associations with the general community of the laboring poor.” Judith R. Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 5. 84 Here, Walkowitz points to the unforeseen predicament of the CDA repeal movement: “Ironically, the publicity associated with the repeal legislation may have reinforced these women’s outcast status, destroying their relative anonymity and rendering their move out of prostitution more difficult.” Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society, 191.

31

Siècle Beirut published in 2005 and his article “Colonial Anxiety, Scientific Missionaries and

Social Containment in Fin de Siècle Beirut,” published in the same year, make an important contribution to our understanding of sex work in the urban, cosmopolitan Beirut that emerged later in the nineteenth century. While sex work is not integral to the overarching argument of Fin de Siècle Beirut, it serves as one of several backdrops that help to illustrate how deviancy evoked elite discourses premised on notions of class and gender.85 His argument points to the social reconstruction of an increasingly cosmopolitan city still under Ottoman control. Hanssen’s article, “Colonial Anxiety,” revolves around the nascent French administration in Beirut and is instructive in its claim that, in retrospect, the reach of French biopower, to use the Foucauldian term, expanded into the Levant through the arrival in the region of “medical missionaries.”86

Hanssen’s claim is important. I will be building on it throughout this thesis. As an initial architect of pathologizing sex work in the Levant, Benoît Boyer serves as a central figure in

Hanssen’s article, which I will draw upon in Chapter Two to illuminate the power of pathologizing discourses on sex work that emerged in the Levant. Hanssen characterizes Boyer’s insertion into Lebanon as a continuation of French colonial presence in the region, which had its origins with the arrival of Jesuit missionaries there in 1831.87 Yet the late-nineteenth-century

Ottoman governor provided the opening for French “biological and scientific intervention” in

Beirut, which would have a lasting influence on what would emerge as a colonial policy of containment.88 Hanssen explains the results of this intervention: “Illness was still a morality tale

85 Jens Hanssen, Fin de Siècle Beirut (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 193. 86 Jens Hanssen, “Colonial Anxiety, Scientific Missionaries and Social Containment in Fin de Siècle Beirut,” Archaeology and History in Lebanon 22 (2005): 53–54. 87 Ibid., 51–52. 88 Ibid., 53–54.

32 in which physical disease followed from an inherent flaw, but the explanation of that flaw had migrated from the metaphysical to the scientific.”89

As Hanssen articulates, the emerging medical discourse did not eliminate the moral one; instead, they operated simultaneously. Government-sponsored colonial medical interventions in the Levant used to be primarily a part of missionary work, whether among the Catholics and

Maronites via the French or among the Protestants via the British and Americans. As John

Gagnon argues, colonial interventions went through stages in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: first they operated through “agencies of religion and proto-medicine” and then subsequently through the presence of permanent (military, government, and commercial) personnel.90 During the Mandate period, the medical interventions traditionally administered through “medical missionaries” (to use Hanssen’s term) morphed into more emboldened, direct

“official” interventions of colonial governance. Religious care was by no means eliminated from

France’s foreign policy directives, but direct medical, military, and bureaucratic directives became more common. All three of these kinds of interventions—medical, military, and bureaucratic—intersected with one another when it came to issues of sexuality and sex work.

Consequently, as Philippa Levine states, “since medicine was a male enclave and prostitution an allegedly female occupation, we cannot divorce these issues from the considerations of gender.”91 One should not overlook that those constructing and enforcing the regulations were

89 Ibid., 55. 90 John Gagnon, “States, Cultures, Colonies and Globalization: A Story of Sex Research.” In Sexuality in the Arab World, ed. Samir Khalaf and John Gagnon (London: Saqi, 2006), 38. 91 Philippa Levine, “Public Health, Venereal Disease and Colonial Medicine in the Later Nineteenth Century,” in Sex, Sin, and Suffering: Venereal Disease and European Society since 1870, ed. Roger Davidson and Lesley A. Hall (London: Routledge, 2001), 161.

33 entirely male bureaucrats and military officials directing the lives of women placed under their control through coercive means.92

The reframing of sexual commerce under the French system meant that the disenfranchisement of sex workers became solidified as they were cordoned off and physically separated from the “general,” respectable population. In the Levant, this came in the form of police surveillance and the production of hospitals and prisons to house those women who were not in compliance with the rules of the new occupying power. Consequently, this new social and political construction of sex work entailed that there were now two categories of prostitutes: tolerated, registered prostitutes and the clandestine ones. This meant that single women became the targets of increasing surveillance, particularly those deemed to be “artists.” In one of the few comprehensive texts investigating French colonial prostitution in the Mediterranean, Christelle

Taraud demonstrates how the regulations imported into contributed to the professionalization of the “prostitutes,” who were drawn from the ranks of women who had been previously working primarily as courtesans, artists, and singers in precolonial times. This professionalization contributed to their marginalization under the regulatory system, and it illustrated “the profound nature of male and colonial domination” under the French.93 The importance of Taraud’s work lies in her interrogation of the nature of French imperial ambitions and her examination of their local implications, especially those that produced and marginalized racialized subjects.

92 Elizabeth Thompson points out that decision-makers were male because France blocked women form working in the Foreign Ministry. Elizabeth Thompson, Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege, and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 67. 93 Taraud, La Prostitution coloniale, 350.

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Race and sex were intricately interwoven into colonial policy on sex work.94 And medicine played a foundational role in this regard, as the threat of venereal disease to the colonial military became the rationale for controlling women’s bodies.95 As will be seen in the Levant, these concerns over sexuality and disease permeated every level of government, from the High

Commissioner’s Office in Lebanon and Syria to the Police Commissioner in Beirut, revealing the attitudes of the colonizer toward the colonized and the metropole’s relationship with local government.96 In the British context, Philippa Levine and Philip Howell take a multifaceted

94 The entire premise of the movement against the trafficking of women and children centered on racialization: the fear of White (read Northern European) women being exploited. The term “White slave traffic” formed a deliberate allegory with the “Black slave trade.” While in 1921 the International Convention against Trafficking in Women and Children dropped “White” from its official declaration, it still remained a primarily White-centered endeavor, both as a preoccupation for those who deserved to be “rescued” and for those self-appointed individuals who were doing the “rescuing.” In Chapter Four, for example, I will show that concerns over racial and confessional allegiances were imbedded in the development of international humanitarian discourses in the Levant and in the formation and operation of rescue organizations that sought to help victims of the Armenian Genocide. Even after “White slave traffic” became officially erased, as a term, from international conventions and the documentation of international bodies, common parlance still referred to it as the “traite des blanches,” as can be seen in numerous archival letters. Furthermore, the League’s reports on trafficking still broke down information according to the categories of “Occident” and “Orient,” which were references to both geography and racialized characteristics. Furthermore, colonial policy on sex work regulated indigenous versus foreign workers in disparate ways, something I will discuss in Chapter Three. For scholarship on race, gender, and empire, see Ann Stoler, Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault’s History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995); and Ann Stoler, Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2002). 95 See the previously mentioned works of Spongberg, Feminizing Venereal Diseases and Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society for more detailed accounts of the history of the sexist sociological and biomedical discourse of venereal disease in England. See also McHugh’s study on prostitution in Victorian society: Paul McHugh, Prostitution and Victorian Social Reform (London: Routledge, 2016). 96 While the Great War and subsequent World War II served as reasons why medical treatment of venereal disease became a principal concern for the state, it would be reductionist to presume that there were no other motivations. The issue of fighting venereal disease and controlling sexual activity, while a central preoccupation during the two world wars—after all, the French Empire relied on healthy male soldiers to carry out its ambitions—it was also a prevalent government concern at other times. As noted by the League, during times of war men who frequented brothels were subject to medical examinations as well as soldiers residing in barracks, yet the practice diminished but did not cease in times of peace. League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Enquiry into Measures of the Rehabilitation of Prostitutes: Social Services and Venereal Disease. July 1, 1938. Geneva, Switzerland: 24. These concerns to control venereal disease in the Levant, for example, preceded World War I, as can be seen in Hanssen’s work (above, footnotes 85 and 86), and I will address them in Chapter Two. What I will also argue is that, in times of relative peace, controlling sex work (in both civilian and military populations) and maintaining public health remained government priorities. To see how this emerged in the Levant in the Late Ottoman period, see the thesis written by Robert Ian Blecher, “Medicalization of Sovereignty, Public Health, and Political Authority” (Stanford University, 2002). The surveillance of the health of military personnel and civilians had started under the Ottomans in the nineteenth century, but it was intensified and systematized once the French assumed administrative control of the Levant. As I intend to show in the forthcoming chapters, when France’s containment policy in the Levant failed to achieve its goal of eradicating venereal disease through regulatory

35 historical approach (e.g., feminist, military, medical, and social) to examining how race, disease, and sexuality were (re)constituted through the evolution of the CDA and its various reincarnations.97 Perhaps not surprisingly, they reveal that the British saw Western medicine and scientific rigor as modern developments to enforce upon their “ignorant,” “unclean,” and

“uncivilized” colonial subjects.98 While the French position on prostitution differed from the

British, their prevailing attitudes toward their colonial subjects did not.99

In her work on colonial North Africa, which I just cited above, Taraud carefully locates the particular effects of regulation on the daily lives of women.100 She demonstrates how the colonial

mechanisms, it reframed the problem. The specific culprits were the women who defied the medical and legal authorities: the clandestine prostitutes. 97 Levine, Prostitution, Race, and Politics; and Howell, Geographies of Regulation. While Luise White’s The Comforts of Home’s focus on colonial Nairobi shifts away from imperial histories, her work is noteworthy due its argument that prostitution evolved as a labor process that responded to family and demographic changes resulting from colonialism. Ronald Hyam, Empire and Sexuality: The British Experience (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992) was an early contributor to scholarship, arguing that imperialism allowed for the expression of sexual desires by colonial men that were repressed in Victorian England. Problematically, he ignores women in his equation (outside of the fact they were treated as objects of colonial desire). Additional useful works on prostitution in British colonial South Asia are Priyadarshini Vijaisri, Recasting the Devadasi: Patterns of in Colonial South India (New Delhi: Kanishka Publishers, 2004); Sumanta Banerjee, Under the Raj: Prostitution in Colonial Bengal (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1998); Samita Sen, Women and Labour in Late Colonial India: The Bengal Jute Industry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); and Charu Gupta, Sexuality, Obscenity, Community: Women, Muslims, and the Hindu Public in Colonial India (New York: Palgrave, 2002). On Nigeria, see Saheed Aderinto, When Sex Threatened the State: Illicit Sexuality, Nationalism, and Politics in Colonial Nigeria, 1900–1958 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2017), and for a broader perspective on deviancy in the British Empire, see Will Jackson and Emily J. Manktelow, eds., Subverting Empire: Deviance and Disorder in the British Colonial World (Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). 98 It is also not very surprising that the historical narrative retraces the policies and debates as they were formulated by the elites and that there is scant documentation from prostitutes themselves. 99 France did not ban maisons closes (places where sex workers lived and operated from) until after World War II in 1946. Studies on the historical significance of prostitution in France are abundant. See Corbin, Women for Hire and Alain Corbin, Les Filles de noce: misère sexuelle et prostitution: 19e et 20e siècles (Paris: Flammarion, 1982). 100 Taraud, La Prostitution coloniale. In addition to Taraud, Ellen Amster published a chapter on race, syphilis, and prostitution in North Africa. Ellen Amster, “The Syphilitic Arab? A Search for Civilization in Disease Etiology, Native Prostitution, and French Colonial Medicine,” in French Mediterranean: Transnational and Imperial Histories, eds. Patricia Lorcin and Todd Shepard (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2016), 320–346. For scholarship on sexuality in , see Isabelle Tracol-Huynh “Between Stigmatisation and Regulation: Prostitution in Colonial Northern Vietnam,” Culture, Health & Sexuality 12, Supp. 1 (2010): S73–S87; Trọng Phụng Vũ, Lục Xì: Prostitution and Venereal Disease in Colonial Hanoi, trans. Shaun Kingsley Malarney (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2011); Sokhieng Au, Mixed Medicines: Health and Culture in French Colonial Cambodia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011); and Micheline R. Lessard, Human Trafficking in Colonial Vietnam (London: Routledge, 2015 ). On French colonial Africa, see Rachel Jean-Baptiste, Conjugal Rights: Marriage, Sexuality, and Urban Life in Colonial Libreville, Gabon (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2014).

36 administration altered the cultural norms and practices in the when such norms and practices were treated with suspicion (e.g., dancers were often treated as “clandestine” prostitutes). Significantly, Taraud shows how the French colonial administration created a hierarchy that placed indigenous prostitutes at the bottom. Shifting to the Levantine context,

Camila Pastor’s article on sex work in Lebanon and Syria, “Suspect Service: Prostitution and the

Public in the Mandate Mediterranean,” places it within the broader context of the Mediterranean during the Mandate period. She argues that “[c]olonial territories became opportunities for military dreams of extralegal social engineering.”101 While she places migrant sex workers in a liminal state as “citizens of a French imperial state in the colonial context, but not quite citizens in metropolitan space,” Pastor does not elaborate on the racialized nature of sex work outside a passing reference to the disparities between indigenous and foreign workers’ regulation under colonial decree.102 I will take on this subject in Chapter Three, and demonstrate the existence in the Levant of ongoing debates about the administration of foreign versus domestic sex workers and how bureaucrats dealt with the administrative complexities posed by what were known as

“capitulations.”

101 Camila Pastor, “Suspect Service: Prostitution and the Public in the Mandate Mediterranean,” in The Routledge Handbook of the History of the Middle East Mandates, ed. Cyrus Schayegh and Andrew Arsan (London: Routledge, 2015), 186. 102 See Pastor, “Suspect Service,” 191. While I do not discuss in detail in this thesis the broader racial implications of colonial policy on sex, I have found several mentions in French documents that there was a perceived prevalence of pederasty among North African troops. As Mariana Valverde has contextualized in the case of North American colonial encounters with indigenous populations, tales of sexual deviancy not only served to legitimize racist practices, they simultaneously generated powerful imagery of degeneracy that could threaten the colonial “social control of desire.” As she states, “any challenges to the sexual norm were thus regarded as challenges to what was and still is grandiosely called ‘civilization.’” Mariana Valverde, Sex, Power and Pleasure (Toronto: Women’s Press, 1991), 148. While carrying out my research, I found out that tales of rape committed by Moroccan soldiers stationed in Germany instilled fear among inhabitants of the Rhineland of “Black” men, when, allegedly, it was White French soldiers who were committing more crimes against women. This found its way into international publications, including the one that I read, The Nation. Lewis S. Gannett, “The Horror on the Rhine Again,” The Nation 113, no. 2931, September 7, 1921.

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While medical practitioners primarily focused on the individual body as the site of investigation, the expanding field of health services broadened their approach. Meanwhile, the emerging field of social science began to assess the phenomenon of “the prostitute” as one that needed to be studied with regard to its immediate context. According to this approach, sex workers’ prevention, development, containment, and potential reformation could be explained through their environment. Therefore, as a way to understand the origins and formation of the prostitute, more comprehensive knowledge needed to be produced by experts in the field. The social effects of science were real and created an undue burden on women by constraining their automomy, undermining their dignity, and subjecting them to universalized patriarchal norms legitimized by “modern” advancements in knowledge. These effects solidified not only under the

French system but also a result of the actions of those who sought to “rescue” and “protect” women from a patriarchal system, including members of the League, feminists, abolitionists, and moralists, all of which relied on social scientific approaches to validate their claims and counteract their opponents, the regulationists.103 In particular, the production of power and knowledge about sex workers and how to contain or reform them became a critical site of struggle between the French metropole asserting its dominion over its mandated territory on the one hand and international and local groups asserting their dominion over sex workers under the guise of humanitarianism on the other. What they held in common was their assertion of authority over the sex worker. It produced a discursive power struggle between a colonial power asserting its dominion and rescue workers harnessing humanitarian rhetoric to “save” all those who “fell victim” to French policies.

103 Instead of reproducing narratives that colonies were simply “acted upon” by the colonizer, I seek in this thesis to show that “both the colonies and metropoles shared in the dialectics of inclusion and exclusion.” Frederick Cooper and Ann Stoler, “Between Metropole and Colony,” in Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, ed. Frederick Cooper and Ann Stoler (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 3.

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Implicating the League of Nations

“The employment, and above all the arbitrary abuse of police force against one sex, which masses together a crowd of women in a vague manner, and often without any proofs against them, under the too elastic name of ‘prostitute,’ is discredited, and can no longer resist the public indignation.”104 Such are the words of Dr. Charles Mauriac in 1896, who was protesting the regulationist system of his home country, France. Yet despite mounting criticism arising under the auspices of the International Federation for the Abolition of State Regulation of Vice, which was founded on March 19, 1875, France’s regulatory structures were not only maintained, but expanded during the following century, as the colonizer extended its territorial hold under the

League’s Mandatory system.105 When the French took hold of the Levant in 1920, there existed two predominant governmental approaches to sex work in effect in the world, and these approaches were antithetical to one another: abolition and regulation. Abolitionists such as

Mauriac believed that sex work was exploitative and operated on a gendered double standard.

They believed that the legal system should criminalize patrons and “pimps,” those responsible for exploitation, rather than those selling sex.106 In contrast, proponents of the regulationist system, where sex work is tolerated yet highly controlled by the government, sought the

104 Association for Moral and Social Hygiene (AMSH), A Doomed Iniquity: An Authoritative Condemnation of State Regulation of Vice from France, Germany, and Belgium (London: Federation for the Abolition of the State Regulation of Vice, 1896), 10. Dr. Charles Mauriac served as a physician at the Hopital du Midi, in Paris, and publicly spoke out against regulation in France as an abolitionist contemporary of Josephine Butler. 105 This is not to imply that the French system did not undergo any changes from its first incarnation under Napoleon, but such debates are outside the scope of this thesis. For a brief summary of the evolution of the French system, see Corbin, Women for Hire. France’s first direct implementation of its policy in the Mediterranean occurred in Algiers in 1831. Taraud, La Prostitution coloniale, 20. 106 Moralists, who favored abolitionism, differed in their rationale and saw sex work as a threat to family, marriage, and social norms. This can be seen in the Maronite Patriarch’s stance and that of missionary organizations operating in the Levant such as the Bourj Mission, which will be discussed in Chapters Three and Five, respectively. Conversely, abolitionists, whose discourses prevailed at the League, saw “sex work [as] the quintessential expression of patriarchal gender relations and male domination.” Weitzer, Legalizing Prostitution, 10.

39 continuation of sex work as a public hygiene imperative.107 So while France exported this practice to Lebanon and Syria initially through the invitation of the Ottoman government, it was the League’s mandate that allowed state repression of sex workers to become the official practice in the region under the colonial authorities.108

The League placed France in the position of administrative ruler over Syria and Lebanon, which provided the French Empire with the authority to formulate and enforce the region’s regulatory structures. In the French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon promulgated on August 12,

1922, the Council of the League of Nations charged France “with the duty of rendering administrative advice and assistance to the population.”109 Syria and Lebanon were Class A

Mandates, which the League evaluated to have “reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the

Mandatory.” Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, signed on June 28, 1919, determined that for the region formerly under the Ottoman Empire:

inhabited by peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world, there should be applied the principle that the well-

107 Decriminalization was not introduced until New Zealand passed the Prostitution Reform Act in 2003. It called for the repeal of laws governing sex work and allowed for it to be regulated under existing labor and health safety standards as “commercial sexual services.” See Parliamentary Counsel Office: New Zealand Legislation, Prostitution Reform Act 2003. http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2003/0028/latest/DLM197815.html. 108 France’s position on the matter is succinctly stated by Robert de Caix, former Secretary-General of the High Commissariat of the French Republic of Syria and Lebanon. In his defense to the Permanent Mandate Commission (PMC) of France’s right to dictate policy and law in the region, de Caix asserted that “the text of the mandate undoubtedly granted the High Commissioner power to make decisions, even legislative decisions. . . . Otherwise, how could the Mandatory power, on accepting the mandate, have undertaken the responsibility of ensuring sound justice? . . . [I]n view of the definite responsibilities imposed on the Mandatory power by the mandate, it was obvious that, if an essential law were not passed by a native government, it must be enacted by the Mandatory government, since otherwise the Mandate would cease to exist.” League of Nations Permanent Mandate Commission, Minutes of the Twenty-Seventh Session Held at Geneva from June 3 to 19, 1935. June 18, 1935. C.251.M.123.1935.VI. Geneva, Switzerland: 85. 109 French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon as published in The American Journal of International Law 17, no. 3 (1923): 177–182. Original text: Mandat pour la Syrie et le Liban, August 12, 1922. C.528.M.313.1922.VI.

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being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilization and that securities for the formance [sic] of this trust should be embodied in this Covenant. The best method of giving practical effect to this principle is that the tutelage of such peoples should be entrusted to advanced nations who by reason of their resources, their experience or their geographical position can best undertake this responsibility, and who are willing to accept it, and that this tutelage should be exercised by them as Mandatories on behalf of the League. The character of the mandate must differ according to the stage of the development of the people, the geographical situation of the territory, its economic conditions and other similar circumstances.110

France actively sought and subsequently assumed this designation of “advanced nation.” It was to become the party responsible for implementing a complex system of controls in Syria and

Lebanon over sex workers in the form of administrative measures first enacted in 1920. These measures were entitled Réglementation de la prostitution and Règlement sur la police des mœurs, both of which I will discuss in detail in Chapter Three.

Once France solidified its control of the Levant through the Mandate, a comprehensive medico-administrative and legal structure unfolded that detailed where sex workers could live and under what conditions.111 The 1932 report on the territories of Lebanon and Syria under the

French Mandate produced by the League highlights how France sought to replicate its control over sex work in the metropole in its colonies. In the words of the report, “the French

Government in the administration of its mandate in these territories consists in applying a system of regulations including the system of authorization for licensed houses and the registration of

110 Covenant of the League of Nations, Article 22, June 28, 1919. 111 As Nessim Znaien acknowledges in his article on sex work in Beirut during this period, the French did not invent regulation during the Mandate period, as the OPC already addressed aspects of controlling commercial sex. Nessim Znaien, “La Prostitution à Beyrouth sous le mandat français (1920–1943),” Genre & Histoire 11 (2012): 7. As acknowledged above, regulations existed under the Ottomans but were consolidated, enhanced, and reformed under the French, as Znaein states. Yet, John Bucknill and Haig Utidjian’s 1913 annotated book on the OPC demonstrates that many articles of the OPC were modeled on articles in the French Penal Code (FPC). John Bucknill and Haig Utidjian, The Imperial Ottoman Penal Code: A Translation from the Turkish Text with Latest Additions and Amendments Together with Annotations and Explanatory Commentaries ... and . . . an Appendix Dealing with the Special Amendments in Force in Cyprus and The Judicial Decisions of the Cyprus Courts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1913). Znaien also draws attention to Catherine Zilfi’s work, which shows how two decrees regarding sex work date back to the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, which therefore predate the nineteenth-century FPC and show evidence of nascent controls over sex work in the Ottoman Empire.

41 prostitutes. In addition to women living in licensed houses, others are allowed to practice prostitution in cafés and brothels, almost under the same conditions as in France.”112 Levine’s assertion that “colonial authorities . . . defined, judged, and ordered local societies in an imperial image” rings true.113 As reflected continuously in colonial administrative correspondence, the

French authorities sought to transplant the policy of the metropole onto the colonial site, in this case the Levant, despite the barriers they faced in doing so.114

On the level of the state, the reproduction of discourses emanating from the metropole in the colony was a sign that the former was exercising power on the latter. State-level perceptions of prostitution were already formulated and determined before they were transferred to the

Levantine colonial site. France had preconceived notions about how to “handle” prostitution, and so it decided to introduce and, in some cases, realign various legal, medical, administrative, military, and enforcement processes and infrastructures. The Ottoman system, at least in French eyes, was broken and ineffective, as evidenced by the former Empire’s lack of control over prostitution and contagion in the nineteenth century and earlier. And the French experience with managing prostitution was where the solution was to be found. Yet it was not merely a matter of

112 League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, Report to the Council. December 10, 1932. C.849.M.393.1932.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 446. 113 Levine, Prostitution, Race, and Politics, 179. 114 Znaien, “La Prostitution à Beyrouth sous le mandat français (1920–1943)” and Pastor “Suspect Service: Prostitution and the Public in the Mandate Mediterranean” place the focus directly on the topic of prostitution under the French Mandate in Lebanon. Ismaël Maatouk’s examination of venereal disease in Lebanon under the French Mandate is another contribution to this research but is only two pages in length. Ismaël Maatouk, “Venereal Diseases in Lebanon during the French Mandate,” International Journal of Dermatology 55, no. 7 (2016): 819–820. While Pastor makes the case that the French administered a particular form of colonial policy that differed from their policy toward prostitution in the metropole, Znaien contends that regulatory prostitution in the colonies was in fact a continuation of French policy at home. Znaien further argues that the French regulated prostitution for two purposes: the health of their soldiers and the collection of tax revenues. As previously argued in this Introduction, prostitution and its regulation were not a colonial invention. Taraud’s work demonstrates that there existed a world of prostitution prior to colonization in North Africa. Taraud, La Prostitution coloniale. Other scholarship touches on prostitution in the Ottoman context. Dealers and buyers prostituting slaves was commonplace across the ports of the Mediterranean. Madeline Zilfi, “Servants, Slaves, and the Domestic Order in the Ottoman Middle East,” Hawwa 2, no. 1 (2004): 1–33; and Madeline Zilfi, Women and Slavery in the Late Ottoman Empire: The Design of Difference (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

42 a metropole introducing new processes into a colony, it was also a matter of asserting national sovereignty. France, as a sovereign nation, had the prerogative to exercise liberal controls within its territories. It often tried to maintain that its policy on sex work was “off limits”—either through its rhetoric or by its delayed actions—to the interference of the League and to that of the emerging international political community. The Mandatory power interpreted its responsibility to those who are “unable to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world” as a reason to enact and apply a policy to control sex work within its territories.115

Although resistance to French regulationism in the Levant reached its zenith in the 1930s, once the colonial authorities finally agreed to have Syria and Lebanon adhere to anti-trafficking conventions, humanitarian incursion into the Levant actually predated the French Mandate. As

Keith Watenpaugh argues in Bread from Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern

Humanitarianism, the Armenian Genocide and subsequent tragedies resulting from it drew in the

League as a site of mobilizations on behalf of human rights.116 The foundations provided by the atrocity that led refugees into neighboring regions created an infrastructure of private and international organizations that would serve as what Watenpaugh characterizes as the birthplace

115 Article 22, Covenant of the League of Nations (Including Amendments adopted to December 1924). (Champaign, IL: Project Gutenberg, N.D.). 116 Other notable works on the Armenian Genocide and subsequent humanitarian relief include Katharine Derderian, “Common Fate, Different Experience: Gender-Specific Aspects of the Armenian Genocide, 1915–1917,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 19, no. 1 (2005): 1–25; Lerna Ekmekcioglu, “A Climate for Abduction, a Climate for Redemption: The Politics of Inclusion after the Armenian Genocide,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 55, no. 3 (2013): 522–553; Suzanne Elizabeth Moranian, “Bearing Witness: The Missionary Archives as Evidence of the Armenian Genocide,” in The Armenian Genocide: History, Politics, Ethics, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), 103–128; Vahram L. Shemmassian, “The Reclamation of Captive Armenian Genocide Survivors in Syria and Lebanon at the End of World War I,” Journal of the Society of Armenian Studies 15 (2006): 113–140; Michelle Tusan, Smyrna’s Ashes: Humanitarianism, Genocide, and the Birth of the Middle East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012); Michelle Tusan, The British Empire and the Armenian Genocide: Humanitarian and Imperial Politics from Gladstone to Churchill (London: I.B. Tauris, 2017); Vahé Tachjian, “Gender, Nationalism, Exclusion: The Reintegration Process of Female Survivors of the Armenian Genocide,” Nations and Nationalism 15, no. 1 (2009): 60–80; and Vahé Tachjian, “Mixed Marriage, Prostitution, Survival: Reintegrating Armenian Women into Post-Ottoman Cities,” in Women in the City: A Gendered Perspective on Ottoman Urban History, ed. Nazan Maksudyan (New York: Berghahn Books, 2014), 86–106.

43 of modern humanitarianism.117 Watenpaugh employs an array of archival sources, including

League publications, private organizations’ papers, victim testimonials, and diplomatic correspondence, to substantiate his claim that the genocide of 1915–1916 produced international responses, primarily from the United States, which created the pathways for international and private organizations to initiate their own modern humanitarian responses to the crisis. These were complicated reactions and, at times, ambivalent reactions. The newly formulated

“humanitarian diplomacy,” complicated by notions of imperialism and colonial domination, was particular to the stateless Armenians. Of particular relevance to this thesis is the role of the

League and, above all, the work of Karen Jeppe and the American-based organization Near East

Relief, both of whom Watenpaugh addresses in his work. While he is not concerned with sex work as a form of trafficking, he does discuss the League’s notion of trafficking when it comes to Armenian women and children and the efforts of rescue houses to recuperate victims of genocide as a matter of resettlement and not assimilation.118 The women and children targeted by the homes will be examined in this thesis, as humanitarian “rescuers” feared their sexual exploitation at the hands of Muslims. Furthermore, their displacement into Syria and Lebanon meant that, while France did not have its Mandates adhere to anti-trafficking conventions until

1930, international organizations were able to intervene in the region in the form of campaigns to

“save” Armenian victims of trafficking, and these campaigns were often framed in confessional terms.

117 Keith Watenpaugh, Bread from Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism (Oakland: University of California Press, 2015), 2. Watenpaugh observes that the scale of the recovery efforts prompted by World War I mobilized “secular, professional, and bureaucratized intergovernmental forms of aid and development” as well as nongovernmental humanitarian organizations, which largely replaced missionaries. 118 Ibid., 28.

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This brings me back to one of my claims, namely, that vested parties in the Levant actively constructed various interpretations of the meaning of sex work. In this claim, I directly implicate the League and other humanitarian groups in the process. I hope to complement Watenpaugh’s argument that the interconnectedness between colonialism and humanitarianism rested on the exclusion of certain groups from power—an exclusion that came about in the aftermath of the

Armenian Genocide and in the subsequent advent of the League. My analysis rests on how this exclusion helped galvanize public support against “White slave traffic.” Particularly important to my argument is the use of testimonials and media accounts to portray human suffering. I will demonstrate how the humanitarian efforts of the League through the Commission for the

Protection of Women and Children in the Near East provided a mode of intervention in Syria and

Lebanon prior to the French having their Mandatory holdings adhere to the League’s

International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children in 1930. The

Armenian Genocide created a distinct path for the discourse on sex work in the Levant. It became the focal point of the new phenomenon of “White slave traffic,” although this term came to be replaced by the more ambiguous “trafficking of women and children,” which effectively held the same meaning.

The paternalistic humanitarian interventions of groups trying to “rescue” deserving individuals commenced with the Armenian refugee crisis, when an influx of women and children fleeing genocide entered the Levant. This created the first “rescue industry” in the region.

Watenpaugh himself states as much: “In sum, the League . . . understood the cause of the

Armenians in the most paternalistic terms possible. The Armenians were a stateless but

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‘deserving’ people, made up primarily of widows, orphans, and young women.”119 The broader

International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children that had been in circulation since 1921 provided another avenue of paternalism that extended the rescue industry beyond the confines of the Armenian Genocide and its aftermath. This expansion of the limits, if you will, of the newly formed rescue industry threatened France’s claims of sovereignty over sex work in the Levant. In Chapter Five, I will illustrate how the dominant discourses emanating from and about Levantine “White slave traffic” shifted from being about Armenian refugees to being about other vulnerable populations once France had its territories adhere to the

1921 convention nine years after its inception. The humanitarian anti-trafficking discourse provided a pathway for a bourgeoning period of cooperation between local, regional, and international groups attempting to rescue the victims of France’s policies, all of whom proposed ways in which to eliminate the exploitation of the vulnerable.

Public Debates and the Creation of “Diametrically Opposed States of Existence”120

According to Abraham Flexner in his 1920 publication Prostitution in Europe, “in France . . . a very definite policy is pursued, not because it is laid down in the law, but because it is in harmony with tradition and general sentiment [of the nation].”121 What Flexner failed to acknowledge was the orchestrated campaign by government and medical authorities to influence public opinion regarding the dangers that the public would face if sex work were to go unchecked.122 By bringing sex work under the control of the local authorities, the colonial

119 Keith Watenpaugh, “Between Communal Survival and National Aspiration: Armenian Genocide Refugees, the League of Nations and the Practices of Interwar Humanitarianism,” in The Routledge Handbook of the History of the Middle East Mandates, ed. Cyrus Schayegh and Andrew Arsan (London: Routledge, 2015), 46. 120 Taken from Gretchen Soderlund, “Running from the Rescuers: New U.S. Crusades against Sex Trafficking and the Rhetoric of Abolition,” NWSA Journal 17, no. 3 (2005): 65. 121 Abraham Flexner, Prostitution in Europe (New York: Century, 1920), 104. 122 Flexner published a book in 1920 commissioned by the United States Bureau of Social Hygiene. Flexner was a prominent educator on issues related to medicine and higher education. He became the co-founder of Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study in 1930. Self-evident from the text’s title, Prostitution in Europe surveyed structures of

46 authorities were able to ensure that sex work continued to be governed through mandatory health checks as a matter of public hygiene policy. The outbreak of World War I created an atmosphere of even deeper mistrust and suspicion on the part of the government: there was increased surveillance and more arrests of unregistered sex workers that “threatened” the health of French and colonial soldiers.123 In response to the increase in rates of venereal disease during wartime, the French authorities implemented stricter controls in the form of more rigorous medical surveillance, whereby sex workers forcibly underwent mandatory health checks twice a week— soldiers were to have one every two weeks—in addition to random inspections.124 As will be discussed in Chapter Two, the French military authorities in 1919, frustrated by soldiers’ lack of compliance with medical inspections in the Levant, issued a memo requiring their adherence to the protocol. Soldiers were required to undergo medical inspections, but they were not to be incarcerated if found to be infected. The double standard here was that sex workers and not their

prostitution, including economic (supply–demand), legal (regulationism), and medical (disease) structures. According to Flexner, “the professional prostitute being a social outcast may be periodically punished without disturbing the usual course of society: no one misses her while she is serving out her turn—no one, at least, about whom society has any concern. The man, however, is something more than partner to this immoral act; he discharges important social and business relations, is as father or brother responsible for the maintenance of others, has commercial or industrial duties to meet. He cannot be imprisoned without deranging society.” Flexner, Prostitution in Europe, 108. 123 Corbin, Women for Hire, 335. 124 Neoregulationists, eager to make the case for frequent inspections, depicted women as the most serious threat to public health, inasmuch as their bodies served as undetectable conduits of disease. Dr. Carle’s 1923 speech at the International Congress of Propaganda for Social Hygiene, Prophylaxis, and Moral Education encapsulates the fearmongering that blamed women for threatening public health, a threat that demanded medico-legal intervention as a response. He is worthwhile quoting at length: “The transition to chronicity [emphasis of Carle] is the more serious danger of this disease, first for the woman, then for the spread of the disease, and consequently for society . . . But before coming to this end, too often fatal, female gonorrhea can remain for many years in the state of latency and contagion [emphasis of Carle]. This state of latent gonorrhea, during which the woman has the right to ignore her infection because she does not suffer, or very intermittently, is the surest, most common, most simple cause of the eternal spread of the disease. This indolent latency allows the prostitute to continue her unsanitary job, the worker to ‘frequent’ the little comrades in the workshop or factory, the half-mundane woman or the theater woman to satisfy her lover, the friends of her lover and the friends of her friends, to the woman of the disillusioned world to search for comfort and be offered with affection the [gonorrhea bacteria] her husband has surreptitiously slipped to her.” Dr. Carle, “Bilan de la blennorragie et ses conséquences sociales,” in Congrès international de propagande d’hygiène sociale et d’éduction prophylactique sanitaire et morale, Comité national de propagande d’hygiène sociale (Paris: Comité national de propagande d’hygiène sociale, 1923), 131.

47 male partners were to be incarcerated for being infected with venereal disease.125 The system of identifying, inspecting, and incarcerating sex workers remained in effect through the concerted efforts of medical and government officials who produced the regulatory structures that had been formed in Lebanon and Syria ever since the birth of the Mandate system.126 As Mary Spongberg states, the rationale behind the regulatory system took “for granted that women were principally responsible for the spread of the disease and that it was by controlling the liberty of such women, by branding them either physically or metaphorically, that the disease would cease to be a

125 Peripheral attention was provided to boys and men engaging in sex work, most commonly done so in association with the sexual exploitation of youth. Pederasty is invoked on occasion, as the Police Commissioner of Beirut stated that all men, either adults or adolescents, who lived off of pederasty were doing so of their own free will and that young men could be found working in clandestine houses, while the chief of police in Damascus stated that pederasty was rampant in Syria. Société des Nations, traite des femmes et des enfants extension de l’enquête sur la traite des femmes et des enfants en Orient, Rapport concernant les territoires du Levant sous mandate français (Syrie, etc.), July 31, 1932. 1SL/1/V/22. Centre des Archives diplomatiques de Nantes (CADN), Nantes, France. In a letter from a Damascus advisor to the High Commissioner concerning the protection of children, the author states that the legal advisor to the state of Syria, upon the request of the Ministry of Justice, studied a draft law taking administrative measures against boys who “livrent à la débauche.” Le conseiller du Haut-Commissariat Délègue du Haut-Commissaire auprès de la République Syrienne à Monsieur le Compte D. de Martel, Ambassadeur, Haut- Commissaire de la République française en Syrie et au Liban, Damas, January 6, 1934. 1SL/1/V/1441. CADN, Nantes, France. Later in the decade, the Court of Appeals created a document summarizing the “protection of children” vis-à-vis the judicial system. Using photographs of the children convicted of pederasty, theft, and drug trafficking, the report argued that the physiology of the children made their delinquency apparent. After their release from the Prison des sables, the same prison used to incarcerate sex workers in Beirut, the children, according to the report, should be issued cards so that authorities could surveil their activities, as was done in France. In fact, the entirety of the report argued in favor of replicating the French system in Lebanon. As it stated regarding convicted minors, the courts could “put into practice . . . having proved their effectiveness in France, the same methods . . . in Lebanon. If the courts are not more vigilant, the minors will grow into adulthood and become ‘more disastrous.’” The report focused on recidivists, such as Hassan Abid, who entered the system as a “very young age” with his first conviction in 1934 for theft and pederasty, then in 1937 for drug use, and yet again a year later in 1938 for theft and pederasty. La Cour d’Appel, “La protection de l’enfance au Liban,” Beirut, February 25, 1939. 1SL/1/V/1441. CADN, Nantes, France. This concern for prison reform and for the youth is linked to a larger undertaking through the League. League of Nations Advisory Committee on the Traffic of Women and Protection of Children, Report on the Fourth Session. May 1925, A.22.1925.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 2–5. Under the subheading “The Neglected and Delinquent Child,” the Advisory Committee proposed investigating the “constitution of and functions of the juvenile courts and the various methods of treating neglected or delinquent children.” In 1935, the League’s Child Welfare Committee published a report, in collaboration with the International Penal and Penitentiary Commission, on the “Organisation of Juvenile Courts and the Results Attained Hitherto.” C.484.M.2601935.IV. The authorities in the Mandates blamed indigenous troops for the proliferation of pederasty in clandestine brothels. Le Médecin-général Jude, Directeur du Service de santé des troupes du Levant à Monsieur le ministre de la guerre, 7eme Direction, section technique, section de médecine. March 10, 1933. GR9NN7/1078, Levant et Proche-Orient, Ministère de la Guerre, Direction du service de santé (DSS), Archives Service historique de la Défense (ASHD), Vincennes, France. 126 This characterization of regulationism is extracted from Howell, Geographies of Regulation, 3.

48 problem.”127

A cacophony of voices developed into tensions and polarities both among and within the medical community, international governmental bodies, and humanitarian groups over the gendered implications of sex work. There was a lack of agreement over whether regulationist models were able to create an effective biomedical response to disease and infection, and over time there was mounting opposition toward how the French regulatory system acquired, used, and applied information about female sex workers.128 The development and implementation of various modes of intervention in prostitution through military, government, religious, and feminist missions established new “normative” ways of understanding sexual commerce. These new ways of understanding must not be understood in isolation from one another. They must be seen as interacting with one another and to some extent being dependent one another, though this interdependence rested on the existence of the sex worker as an object and not as a subject.

These new conceptions, which I also refer to as discourses in the following chapters, constructed her as either a source of contagion or as a slave. She was to have no agency nor control over her own body.129

127 Spongberg, Feminizing Venereal Diseases, 1. 128 Stephanie Limoncelli’s informative work on sexual trafficking during this period details how abolitionist groups diverged and how they were not uniform in the means they favored when it came to curbing trafficking. Limoncelli, The Politics of Trafficking. 129 An example of this attitude is reflected in the League’s reports. The League distrusted the accuracy of accounts given by the sex workers themselves, and therefore rendered their self-reporting as being unreliable and suspect. One report stated that the representatives responding to the surveys issued by the League had to use accounts “given by the [prostitutes] themselves, and there is reason to believe that often this was not the true one.” The report characterized the workers as such: “Some prostitutes have a standard life story intended to inspire sympathy and discount their own responsibility. Others enjoy pretending to be more cynical, avaricious, and hard-hearted than they are.” League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Enquiry into Measures of Rehabilitation of Prostitutes. Part I: Prostitutes: Their Early Lives. July 1, 1938, Geneva, Switzerland: 10. Therefore, sex workers were deemed implausible sources of their own stories, but somehow those mediating the accounts were not held to the same scrutiny and were considered to be knowledgeable, objective observers. I would also like to note at this point that I am using the term “she” when referring to sex workers as this gendered discourse was written into official policies. I am not using it as a means to ignore the fact that others engaged in commercial sex.

49

Those possessing the authority and status to have their voices heard left unquestioned a host of assumptions about what defined a sex worker. Feminists at the time were implicated in this problem.130 The iconic status given to the sex worker, prompted by the state’s interventions in sexual exchanges and characterized by the nineteenth-century regulationist proponent

Alexandre-Jean-Baptiste Parent-Duchâtelet (discussed in Chapter Two), created a figure who was constantly defined—and redefined—based on underlying ideologies and on both the personal and professional motives of those in power.131 An entire industry was produced around the issue of sexual consumption. Those engaged in these debates profiteered off women’s bodies and wound up reinforcing authority structures premised on class distinctions.

130 As Joan Scott argues, feminist historians offer an important corrective in the rendering of narratives. While there is no shared identity or collective of womanhood, that experience is defined based on location, class, racialization, colonization, sexuality, and gender. This thesis takes up Scott’s plea to not submit to “essentialist tendencies of feminist politics” and instead demonstrates how positionality proved instrumental to the development of the colonial rescue industry. Joan Scott, Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 5. As Scott writes about the division among French feminists according to class, so too was this reflected in the international and domestic rescue efforts to free sex workers in Lebanon and Syria. Those occupying positions of power (those who were the “saviors”) usually heralded from the upper and middle classes, positions that provided them with the mobility and privilege to embark on philanthropic missions. Politics, medicine, and society constructed (and still constructs) gender. Feminists aligned themselves with and reenacted patriarchal structures in their ideologies and actions. Not only was gender formation constructed relationally in the traditional binary model, but it was constructed in an “intra-gender” manner: a woman was not defined in isolation but deliberately in a relationship contrasting one woman against another. Prostitution gave meaning to differentiation among women, which revolved around respectability founded on class and status. 131 In fact, the League used the work of Parent-Duchâtelet when drawing conclusions about sex workers. League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Enquiry into Measures of Rehabilitation of Prostitutes. Part I: Prostitutes: Their Early Lives. July 1, 1938. Geneva, Switzerland: 21. The social and medical discourses that served as the background to French policy in the Levant were value-laden, differentiating as they did between the respectable and deplorable woman. However, to assume that these principles and mindsets were only detrimental to those engaged in prostitution is inaccurate. They shaped gender relations overall. The prejudices around male privilege and female submission permeated French policy and social interactions. Contempt toward prostitutes was only a manifestation of contempt toward women’s active sexuality. It allowed for public social condemnation, with material repercussions, of women who acted outside the bounds of respectable norms. What these norms may have been does not transcend space and time, as attitudes toward prostitution have attested. For instance, the suspicion of dancers in cabarets as being clandestine prostitutes resulted in the strict monitoring of all artists within the Levant. In contrast, dancing has historically been a legitimate form of entertainment in the region. Michel Foucault argues that there is a “threefold process whereby the feminine body was analyzed . . . as being thoroughly saturated with sexuality; whereby it was integrated into the sphere of medical practices, by reason of a pathology intrinsic to it; whereby, finally, it was placed in organic communication with the social body (whose regulated fecundity it was supposed to ensure), the family space (of which it had to be a substantial and functional element), and the life of children (which it produced and had to guarantee, by virtue of a biologico-moral responsibility lasting through the entire period of the children’s education).” Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality: An Introduction (New York: Vintage Books, 1978), 104.

50

The public debates surrounding sex work simultaneously affirmed prevailing distinctions between those who sold their sexual services and the rest of the population.132 Sex workers, primarily those under the scrutiny of public figures, were seen as young, poor, single, uneducated, and at times difficult to differentiate from other working-class women.133 As the

League noted, without irony, “[t]he difficulty of distinguishing between the professional prostitute and the promiscuous woman who occasionally or regularly supplements her income in this way” presented a problem for those trying to identify who, exactly, a sex worker was.134

Within medicine, the cure came in the form of the diagnosis and treatment of venereal disease: this minimized the threat that prostitutes posed to the “healthy” population. When it came to private rescue organizations, surveys and methodological extractions provided both qualitative and quantitative data. They included demographic information such as the prostitute’s place of origin, class, religion, family status, and other explanatory data points.135 Once the cause could

132 Yet, prostitution was a unique category for women both because many regulations set out to control it and because it managed to evade gendered discourse. Public debate raged over the suitability of women working outside the home and what professions they could take up. Many argued that women should not make as much money as men, and that they should never be in a position of authority over men. The anxieties over allowing women in the workforce were premised, in part, on fears that women’s work would displace men’s work. Not surprisingly, then, prostitutes were secure in their position that this debate would not include them. 133 As Walkowitz indicates, one of the reasons for this indistinction is the historical permeability of the profession that allowed workers to enter and exit the market as needed. What becomes problematic is the construction of all working-class women as “suspects.” Middle-class fears of immorality led to domestic servants being seen as threats, inasmuch as they “brought dangers of the streets into the bourgeois home.” Judith Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 22. Contemporaneous documents indicate that many sex workers came from working-class professions prior to entering into prostitution. The League conducted a survey of 2,519 women that concluded that 47 percent to 56 percent of sex workers had prior employment as domestic servants. League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Enquiry into Measures of Rehabilitation of Prostitutes. Part I: Prostitutes: Their Early Lives. July 1, 1938. Geneva, Switzerland: 38. I will further discuss this issue in Chapter Five. 134 League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Enquiry into Measures of Rehabilitation of Prostitutes: Social Services and Venereal Disease. July 1, 1938. Geneva, Switzerland: 29. 135 Yet, I would also argue, borrowing from Chandra Mohanty, the ability of science to quantify an act leads to descriptive generalizations that lack any cultural or historical specificity. The ability to place “scientific rigor” in the form of statistics, as was done by the French, among others, created a universalizing factor for prostitution that transcended the need for specificity. Structures of power assigned meaning to the practice “on the basis of numbers” in order to create and rationalize policies toward prostitution. Chandra Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses,” in Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, ed. Chandra Mohanty, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 66–67.

51 be diagnosed, then the cure could be provided. Moralists, charitable organizations, and feminists used these methodological approaches when they inserted their “expertise” into the debates.

There were divergent opinions among regulationists and abolitionists as to how to treat prostitution, yet they were unified in their pathologizing of the phenomenon, making the sex worker the subject of study, someone to be explained and understood as a deviant entity from those who sought to investigate her existence.136 Prostitutes were seen and treated as a singularity, a group that was already constituted and fixed in its existence. Little if no attention was given to how the legal and social structures produced and reified disempowerment and alienation, except when it served as a talking point that was used to argue against a political opponent.

The medical and social truths provided at this time about sex work had less to do with the workers themselves and more to do with those in positions of authority of shaping their existence.137 This thesis will chart these binary “truth” discourses generated by regulationists and abolitionists through the investigation of medical and social constructions that drove French policy toward sex work in the Levant and the responses that it produced. “The prostitute” as an entity was constructed and subsequently studied as a “problem” and, therefore, something to be

“studied, explained, and understood, and perhaps their behavior . . . prevented.”138 Riki

Wilchins’s concept of the “production of transgression” can be a useful tool when it comes to

136 The League issued a four-part series on rehabilitating prostitutes, in which it replicated structures employed by the medical and social sciences of “determining” who the sex worker was. Included in this inquiry were “facts describing the woman herself—her age, nationality, civil status and mental level; in part, the facts of her history— her home and the age at which she left it, her education, her employment, her age at first conviction, and the social assistance she received. . . . Replies were received describing 2,659 women in twenty countries.” League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Enquiry into Measures of Rehabilitation of Prostitutes. Part I: Prostitutes: Their Early Lives. July 1, 1938. Geneva, Switzerland: 7. 137 This idea relies, in part, on Riki Wilchins. Riki Wilchins, “Foucault and Disciplinary Society,” in Queer Theory, Gender Theory (Los Angeles: Alyson Books, 2004), 60. 138 Ibid., 61.

52 understanding how the medical, scientific, and feminist communities, international organizations, colonial administrators, missionaries, and public moralists formulated the truths of sex work. The production of the prostitute as the “other” was accomplished through the use of specialized vocabulary, professional procedures, and methods of documentation that translated into socio-medico-administrative and legal structures (I use this cumbersome characterization deliberately to illustrate its complexity and oversight) that alienated prostitutes on the basis of their “deviant” practices.139 The prostitute is not only situated in the popular imagination as female, she is also placed at the bottom of the social scale for the selling of what defines her sex for the gratification of others in order to earn a living.140 The medical field, through its pathology of the act and the body of the prostitute, served to reinforce her low standing, in fact offering a legitimization for her demeaned status through its claim of unbiased, scientific rigor. The power of the language employed by doctors and then used by abolitionists reified the inferiority of the sex worker’s condition. The use of the feminine is very deliberate in this regard, as both medical and abolitionist discourses were premised on gendered notions of sexuality that excluded the

139 These categories are articulated in Wilchins, “Foucault and Disciplinary Society,” 60–61. Stuart Hall’s work on racialization is illuminating in the discussion of prostitution in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Aside from the effectiveness of stereotyping in creating “essentialist, reductionist and naturalizing effects,” there are, according to Hall, four other elements: “(a) the construction of ‘otherness’ and exclusion; (b) stereotyping and power; (c) the role of fantasy; and (d) fetishism.” Stuart Hall, Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (London: Sage, 1997), 257. 140 Often, she is described as “lazy” and not wanting to engage in work, which raises the question of what constitutes work. One detailed report on sex work characterized it as “the laziness with which many women are charged seems to be in part innate, in part acquired by a long divorce from work.” League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Enquiry into Measures of Rehabilitation of Prostitutes. Part I: Prostitutes: Their Early Lives. July 1, 1938. Geneva, Switzerland: 25. At this time, work always referred to the “respectable” professions. The women’s place, when outside the home, remained segregated into occupations defined as appropriate for their gender. Whether working in textiles, tobacco production, elementary-school teaching, or nursing, women were regarded as respectable. In the Levant, as the work of Akram Khater illuminates, the suitability of women for these professions was dependent on their social status. See Akram Khater, Inventing Home: Emigration, Gender, and the Middle Class in Lebanon, 1870–1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001) and Akram Khater, “Like Pure Gold: Sexuality and Honour amongst Lebanese Emigrants, 1890–1920,” in Sexuality in the Arab World, ed. Samir Khalaf and John Gagnon (London: Saqi, 2006), 85–106.

53 male prostitute from dominant discourse and from being the subject of analysis.141 The production of knowledge on the prostitute, which was articulated through “objective” medicine, disseminated legitimized notions to the public that sex workers did not possess agency.

Paternalistic structures were prevalent in both predominant discourses of the time, as for abolitionists and moralists it was a matter of “saving” “these” women and making decisions for them, rather than engaging in any activity that may support these women’s right to self- determination.142 Prostitutes occupied the contradictory space of simultaneously being oversexed women and in a perpetual state of childhood. It was not a matter of women making rational economic choices for themselves. They are paradoxically both powerless and exploited, and yet in possession of power that needed to be constrained, for it was threatening and dangerous—it could corrupt the morality and health of the family and the nation. Such tensions played out in the League and on the ground in the Levant.

As mentioned above, the League provided an important venue for abolitionists to scrutinize, publicly chastize, and intervene in France’s regulationist strategies in the Levant. Liat

Kozma, in her recent work on sex work in interwar North Africa and the Levant, makes a similar argument. As she contends, the League’s authority helped shape colonial policy through the accountability and public scrutiny that it provided.143 While the system of colonial power over sex work that developed in Syria and Lebanon was maintained throughout the French presence in the region, humanitarian interventions contributed to the shaping of specific policies primarily

141 In a sense, prostitution could be seen as a sexually segregated profession and the gendered discourses surrounding it as by-products of “sex-typing.” In the words of Marie Richmond-Abbott, “[w]hen a majority of those in a profession are of one sex, the ‘normative expectation’ develops that this is how it should be.” Marie Richmond- Abbott, Masculine and Feminine: Gender Roles over the Life Cycle (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992), 82–83. 142 Here, I am not trying to make an anachronistic argument, transposing the contemporary debates surrounding prostitution, especially within feminism, onto this time period. The point here is that even the most “well- intentioned” individuals who argued for the abolition of prostitution based on its highly gendered exploitation of women were not seeing prostitutes as mature, rational adults but instead as exploited women. 143 Liat Kozma, Global Women, 14.

54 through the conduit of the League. Yet the approach of protecting women and children from living off the wages of sex work reinforced paternalistic assumptions that these individuals were in need of protection to begin with. Doezema’s articulation of the “myth of White slavery” holds that such tales served the abolitionist cause while distorting reality.144 Moral panics over “White slavery” erupted as a result of the Armenian crisis, when Christian groups stood appalled at the highly publicized sexual exploitation of innocent women and children by Muslims. While care must be taken to not invalidate the atrocities committed during this period, propaganda among rescue groups relied on sectarian divisions to generate support, with newpaper accounts rendering narratives about Armenian “sex slaves” being sold into Muslim households and

Turkish harems. Other renditions of enslavement accounts are also seen decades later, as abolitionists harnessed horror stories about the forcible detention of women and children to make their case against regulated sex work. As Doezma contends, distilling truth from fiction is illusive, and, instead it is more fruitful to carefully examine how such stories came about, their linkages to ideologies, and the political and social contexts that provided for their formation.145

The development of the rescue industry, whereby organizations developed methods to reform sex workers, flourished at the turn of the century and, as will be seen in this thesis, the

Levant did not remain immune to this phenomenon. Once “trafficking” garnered significant attention through orchestrated propaganda campaigns, resources became mobilized “on behalf of the victims.”146 Christian missionaries and those affiliated with American University of Beirut

(AUB) came to see themselves as protectors of women and children, and provided them with

144 Jo Doezema, Sex Slaves and Discourse Masters: The Construction of Trafficking (London: Zed Books, 2010). 145 Ibid., 46. 146 Taken from Soderlund, “Running from the Rescuers,” 69.

55 reformatory housing, orphanages, and retraining in various areas of employment.147 By doing so, they pathologized sex workers and created other means of discplining their subjects. As Laura

Agustin states, “the French sytem envisaged four distinct spaces for the surveillance and discipline of ‘prostitutes’: the house (where sex was sold), the hospital (where venereal diseases were treated), the prison (where wrongdoers were kept) and the refuge (where repentant women were rehabilitated).”148 Abolitionism was not only the domain of foreigners working to save

Levantine prostitutes; prominent feminists like Nur Hamada and political activists like

Muhammad Jamil Bayhum also became involved in the abolitionist cause, in part, because of their feeling that sex work was having a corrupting influence on “Eastern” society. What can be drawn from this fact is that those activists who operated in the Levant in response to the French regulationist system also participated in the surveillence and discipline of sex workers, just in a different way.149 The League’s intervention in the region provided a greater avenue for various groups to openly challenge France’s approach to sex work by expressing it as a matter of moral imperative to protect vulnerable populations and not exploit them. The abolitionists’

147 Elsewhere, she writes that the construction of sex workers (here she focuses on the “third world prostitute”) “is part of a wider western feminist impusle to construct a damaged ‘other’ as justification for its own interventionist impulses” and “serves as a powerful metaphor for advancing certain feminist interests, which cannot be assumed to be those of third world sex workers themselves.” Jo Doezema, “Ouch! Western Feminists’ ‘Wounded Attachment’ to the ‘Third World Prostitute,’” Feminist Review 67, no. 1 (2001): 16. Similarly, Antoinette Burton shows how Victorian British feminists constructed the Indian sex worker as a victim of her circumstances and in need of rescuing by White westerners. See Antoinette Burton, Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women and Imperial Cultures, 1865–1915 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994). 148 Laura Maria Agustin, Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry (London: Zed Books, 2007), 122–123. One pathologizing account of sex work claims that “life histories of the prostitutes reveal . . . an impatience of restraint and discipline.” League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Enquiry into Measures of Rehabilitation of Prostitutes. Part I: Prostitutes: Their Early Lives. July 1, 1938. Geneva, Switzerland: 26. 149 Protocols sanctioned through the League as a result of pressure from abolitionists created more precarity among female travelers as they became suspects and experienced constraints when traveling alone. Additionally, forcing foreign sex workers operating “illegally” to be repatriated under the guise of being “trafficked” (even if the women were voluntarily there) reinforced “gendered border regimes.” Maria Cecilia Hwang coined the term “gendered border regimes” as a way to articulate how migration policies and enforcement mechanisms were constructed on gendered discourses. Maria Cecilia Hwang, “Gendered Border Regimes and Displacements: The Case of Filipina Sex Workers in Asia,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 43, no. 3 (2018): 516.

56 interpretation of sex work provided discourses on commercial sex that countered France’s insistance on public health prerogatives.

Colonialism and Humanitarianism: Power and Exclusion

This thesis builds on existing scholarly literature on colonial histories and on commercial sex.

But it also seeks to reframe the scholarly deliberations on the history of sex work in the Levant by using Carol Bacchi’s question: “What’s the problem represented to be?” For colonial authorities, the “problem” of sex work was that it was a public health crisis; for abolitionists it was a humanitarian and moral one. While there was a degree of variance within both of these camps, all groups treated sex workers as a “problem” in need of a “solution.” An overarching medicalized colonial discourse on sex workers wound up being contested by a counterdiscourse employed by early feminists and moralists: what resulted was the emergence of two competing hegemonies. Both dominant discourses pathologized sex work as something to be reformed, controlled, and studied. The period of history under investigation, from the late nineteenth century up until the end of World War II, marks a period when the voices of sex workers and the rendering of their experiences from their own accounts were virtually absent from the public record. What scant traces remain are mediated ones. As Scoular contends, if such unmediated accounts were available, then they would likely have displaced the more unitary voices projected during this period of time.150

In the absence of such records, this thesis reconstructs discourses in order to investigate how the “problem” of sex work came to exist under the French Mandate—that is, both as a threat to public health and as exploitation of women and children by the state. The latter provided a

150 Scoular, The Subject of Prostitution, 349. But, as Limoncelli contends, the vocal opposition to neoregulationist discourses treating sex workers as diseased bodies occupied a polyvocal movement that sought different remedies to the perceived “problem.” Limoncelli, The Politics of Trafficking. Although, in the end, abolitionists groups like those under Avril de Sainte-Croix, which were organized through the League, largely prevailed (see Chapter Five).

57 disruptive element that culminated in organized resistance to the regulationist system. In effect, the colonial power in the Levant produced medico-administrative and legal structures that controlled the lives of sex workers, while moralists, abolitionists, and the League produced a rescue and rehabilitative industry. This crude binary, in the words of Eilís Ward and Gilian

Wylie, “denies the possiblity of consent or agency to those who sell sex . . . [and] legitimates state responses to the sex trade which are punative and prosecutorial . . . creating ever-more complex positions for those who sell sex.”151 And, as Gretchen Soderlund reasons, while some sex workers might have taken advantage of opportunities to leave the sex industry, others would have perceived “the rehabilitation process itself as a punitive form of imprisonment thereby complicating the captivity/freedom binary asserted by abolitionists.”152 What will we see in Syria and Lebanon is that, while repudiating state measures against sex workers as being exploitative, abolitionists sought state intervention in order to repatriate sex workers against their will under the pretense that they were being or had been “trafficked.” The efforts of abolitionists, which

151 Eilís Ward and Gillian Wylie, “Carceral Feminism, the State and the Sex Worker in a Globalized Era: Whose Power?” in Feminism, Prostitution, and the State, ed. Eilís Ward and Gillian Wylie (London: Routledge, 2017), 157. 152 Soderlund, “Running from the Rescuers,” 65. Soderlund believes that the crusade was a dilemma for abolitionists, as she asks: “Is it intellectually and ethically responsible to call every instance of a practice “slavery” when many women involved demonstratively reject the process of protection and rehabilitation; and when they escape from supposed rescuers who aim to force them out of a life of prostitution (“captivity”) and into a life of factory work or employment in the low-paying service sector (“freedom”)? While records are difficult to find with regard to how sex workers perceived rescue efforts in the time of the French Mandate, traces can be found in League documents that show women who operated elsewhere when banned from practicing, women who resisted “treatment” in rescue homes as seen in the Beirut Bourj Mission, and women who were lamented as being “unsavable.” As the League’s Enquiry into Measures of Rehabilitation of Prostitute outlines, countries were requested to detail “constructive measures which should accompany abolition and, in particular, the rehabilitation of prostitutes who occupied licensed brothels . . . it is essential that measures should be adopted to rehabilitate the women concerned.” League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Enquiry into Measures of Rehabilitation of Prostitutes. Part I. Prostitutes: Their Early Lives. July 1, 1938. Geneva, Switzerland: 5. The League recommended joining social and medical services in order to provide modes of intervention that could rehabilitate young women to “normal life.” Far from being benign in nature, this conjoined effort produced “a direct endeavour to induce the patient to change her way of life.” League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Enquiry into Measures of Rehabilitation of Prostitutes: Social Services and Venereal Disease. July 1, 1938. Geneva, Switzerland: 60. The recommendation further elaborated on the rationale that women were more vulnerable when entering for treatment of venereal disease and were therefore more amenable to reformation (62).

58 will be looked at closely in this thesis in Chapter Five, cannot only be thought of as responses to sex work but as constitutive of what made sex work what it was at the time.153

My core argument about the particular conditions of sex work and sex workers in the

Levant will make use of poststructuralist feminist theoretical ideas.154 While French colonial and military authorities held ambitions of replicating the established structures of the metropole in the East, the mutual engagement of groups and individuals within Lebanon and Syria with one another and with oversight bodies like the League demonstrate that these colonial ambitions were challenged.155 For what occurred was not a mere transplantation of a policy and set of institutions from France to its “dependencies.” Rather, it was a process that was contested and

153 Critical to this construction were the responses to “recalcitrant women” who refused to comply with the directives of the state or of abolitionists. Those sex workers refusing to register themselves with local authorities were labeled “clandestine” and subjected to fines, incarceration, and expulsion. Sex workers refusing “salvation” were deemed “feeble-minded” and manipulative. As Claudia Cojocaru explains, the social purity movement capitalized on misery and degradation, with “abolitionists promot[ing] the image of the helpless and witless, therefore pure and deserving victim awaiting salvation.” Claudia Cojocaru, “Sex Trafficking, Captivity, and Narrative: Constructing Victimhood with the Goal of Salvation,” Dialectical Anthropology 39, no. 2 (2015): 184. Therefore, any reasons for women’s refusal to submit to interventions were met with disdain by those in positions of power. While reasons for women’s reluctance were hard for me to find, in Chapter Three I use archival records to show that some women did so to avoid paying taxes and to avoid having to undergo suspicious treatments in the hospital. As Walkowitz argued in her work, the process of registering as a “prostitute” entailed a greater separation from society, as workers came to be defined by their profession in something that might have otherwise been casual employment. Furthermore, registration meant (1) a lack of mobility, as workers’ whereabouts were strictly controlled and monitored, (2) difficulties getting off the list, as the process was lengthy and far from guaranteed; (3) and prevention from moving to other regions without meeting the approval of the state. Weitzer elucidates: “What is striking about the oppression paradigm is its exclusive focus on the negative. The leading advocates of this paradigm not only deny that there can be anything positive about sex work but also reject the idea that it can be neutral— revolving around everyday, routine work practices. To concede the latter would be to acknowledge the ‘work’ dimension, which they flatly deny.” Weitzer, Legalizing Prostitution, 11. 154 Some of the influential poststructural feminist contributions regarding sex work are Shannon Bell, Reading, Writing, and Rewriting the Prostitute Body (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994); Elizabeth Bernstein and Laurie Schaffner, eds., Regulating Sex: The Politics of Intimacy and Identity: Perspectives on Gender (New York: Routledge, 2005); Doezema, Sex Slaves and Discourse Masters; Julia O’Connell Davidson, Prostitution, Power and Freedom (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998); JaneMaree Maher, Sharon Pickering, and Alison Gerard, Sex Work (New York: Routledge, 2013); and Scoular, The Subject of Prostitution. Here, in my thesis, I engage with Scoular’s 2015 book, The Subject of Prostitution, as she takes an informative social theory perspective that engages with a constitutive approach to law that sees it not as a separate system that creates rules that govern sex work, but as embedded in social relations that “construct the fabric of the modern subject” (19). 155 As Howell contends in his book Geographies of Regulation, regulations on sex work are “products of a singular imperial culture, rather than merely the creations of circumstance and locality.” Howell, Geographies of Regulation, 2. So while my thesis can only focus on one aspect of French colonial policy, it is my aspiration that it can contribute to the broader knowledge of French colonial policy on sex work.

59 negotiated at every turn. My concern is to demonstrate that sex work is not to be understood as a singularity, because its meaning occupied multiple registers based on one’s geographical, sexual, historical, economic, and hierarchical position. Class and gender are critical components of this concept’s articulation, producing different discursive vantage points that require consideration, as these two constructs informed policies and oppositional responses to these policies.156 While evidence on the debates about sex work is abundant, it is reflective of constitutive realities that should not be taken for granted. As Gail Hershatter notes in her work on sex work in twentieth- century Shanghai, historians need to be wary of reading archival fragments as facts, as recovered traces are “not in any simple sense a set of ‘facts’ but the itinerary of their creation.”157 In this thesis, I will illuminate the itinerary of policy formation and reformation in Lebanon and Syria and, in the process, hope to have successfully avoided descriptive labels that will serve to reinscribe essentialist identities. Instead, I will consider the specificity of when, where, and what to reconstruct as part of a history that has not yet been written.158

This thesis will establish France’s continuous pursuit in maintaining medical control over indigenous and foreign women through regulatory prostitution in Lebanon and Syria in the interest of public health and military security. What became a highly intrusive, unflinchingly authoritarian medical regime transformed colonial perceptions of and conduct toward sex work,

156 In reviewing the British Empire and the CDA, Howell contends that the “modern, reformed, and enlightened state” provided the pathway for “translat[ing] and transmut[ing] class and gender privileges into a newly rationalized framework for understanding and policing sexual behaviour.” Howell, Geographies of Regulation, 6. 157 Gail Hershatter, Dangerous Pleasures: Prostitution and Modernity in Twentieth-Century Shanghai (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 12. 158 Liat Kozma’s recently published book Global Women, Colonial Ports: Prostitution in Interwar Middle East overlaps in some aspect with this thesis, as she interrogates how debates on state-regulated sex work became internationalized after World War I and became mediated through colonialism in the Mediterranean. Likewise, she focuses on “multiple sites of enforcement and negotiation.” Kozma, Global Women, 8. Yet due to the breath of her undertaking of establishing the variability that existed in various colonial sites, Kozma devotes only part of her inquiry to the Levant. My thesis will elaborate on areas where her book does not, and in this way it can provide a more comprehensive picture of the Levant at this time. Furthermore, whereas Kozma seeks to uncover the interdependencies of the global and local, showing how they were mutually constituted, I am also interested in how they represented the issue of sex work and the material conditions that it produced.

60 including the discursive responses that it elicited, which held material repercussions for those who were targets of seemingly opposing ideologies. An entire infrastructure was constructed around the problem of how to “deal” with medically and socially infectious prostitutes: academics who based their careers on being the “authority” on venereal disease; colonial and military bureaucrats who used the academics’ expertise to legitimize their administration of commercial sex; and feminists and moralists whose livelihoods were established based on the prevention and treatment of the “fallen” sex worker. They were all implicated in the profoundly intrusive practices associated with controlling women’s bodies.

Primary Sources and Methodology159

In order to get a picture of what sex work looked like in Syria and Lebanon under French colonization, I draw upon accounts documented by interested parties who were in the position to make their voices heard.160 These parties include colonial administrators, military officials, academics, medical doctors, feminists, missionaries, and moralists. And it is important to mention here that these categories were not mutually exclusive. My principal research question is as follows: how did the colonizers attempt to reconfigure sex work in the image of the metropole and how did the international community and regional actors in the Levant respond to this reconfiguration? What becomes clear in this power struggle is that, while sex workers were frequently talked about, they became disregarded when they resisted such interventions. Their resistance to being “reformed” or “registered” often left them categorized as “hopeless,” “feeble-

159 While Lebanon will be the primary focus, Syria’s position under the colonial administration and, at times, the lack of distinction between Lebanese and Syrian colonial policies concerning prostitution, entail its inclusion in the larger historical narrative. 160 While I often use the more contemporary term “sex work” as a legitimate form of income-producing labor, I also use the terms “prostitute” and “prostitution” as those terms existed as common expressions during the time under inquiry. However, I use “sex worker” often in order to remind the reader of, in Kamala Kempadoo’s words, “the social location of those engaged in sex industries as working people.” Kamala Kempadoo, “Introduction: Globalizing Sex Workers’ Rights,” in Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance and Redefinition, ed. Kamala Kempadoo and Jo Doezema (New York: Routledge, 1992), 3.

61 minded,” and/or “recalcitrant.” Unsurprisingly, their unmediated accounts are largely invisible.161 As is often the case with reconstructing histories about marginalized communities, the voices of the marginalized are largely left unrecorded.

My archival investigation took place at several archives located in France. First, I visited the Centre des Archives diplomatiques de Nantes (CADN). The bulk of the files that I found there contain the diplomatic correspondence regarding the regulation and administration of prostitution in Lebanon and Syria. Examples of such files include military dossiers on maisons de tolérance, the incarceration of sex workers and their patrons, instructions regarding public health and the prevention of communicable diseases, police security, and administrative rules regarding prostitution. Second, I visited the military archives at the Service historique de la

Défense (SHD) in Vincennes. The documents that I retrieved there provide detailed accounts concerning the systematic statistical tracking of prostitutes and soldiers for the purpose of disease control, the medical treatment of venereal diseases, military directives regarding the control of prostitution, and information on hospitals and dispensaries serving those infected with venereal diseases. Yet, as Achille Mbembe rightfully acknowledges, those documents found in the French archives fulfill a particular criterion of “archivability” that reflects the work of the state.162 Therefore, I sought alternative discourses to those provided by the French bureaucracy.

Official publications and reports held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France fill in the gaps, for they provide multiple references to the France’s compliance with the League’s directives.163

161 In my archival research, I found numerous accounts of feminists and missionaries speaking on behalf of sex workers. Yet those deliberately tell the tale of the party rendering the account. I found two, short, handwritten notes from one sex worker exiled from Baalbek due to being suspected of operating clandestinely, which I discuss in the thesis conclusion. 162 Achille Mbembe, “The Power of the Archive and its Limits,” in Refiguring the Archive, ed. Carolyn Hamilton, Verne Harris, Jane Taylor, Michele Pickover, Graeme Reid, and Razia Saleh (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer Science+Business Media, 2002), 19. 163 Within this discussion, I will address the debates on the validity of League documents. This includes the “truthfulness” of archival materials (i.e., how statistics can be manipulated and who and what gets counted

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Aside from the details they provide on regulation and on country-specific reports, they also provide information on important individuals who were working in opposition to the trafficking of women and children.164

The tropes of rescuing and rehabilitating orphans, homeless children, young women, and prostitutes are apparent in abolitionist and missionary documents.165 And I examine these accounts in great detail. I have relied upon local responses to prostitution primarily from documents written by abolitionist, missionary, and civic organizations who worked in the region, particularly in Lebanon. This information I was able to find at the American University of Beirut

(AUB), the Near Eastern School of Theology (NEST), the Jesuit Archives at St. Joseph

University, and the Lebanese National Archives.166 Included in these documents are discussions about the Bourj Mission, the YMCA, the Catholic Soeurs du Bon-Pasteur order, AUB professors and students and the Civic Welfare League (CWL), the General Federation of Women’s Club, the Pan Arab Federation of Women, the Society for the Protection of Young Girls, the Union for the Protection of Children in Lebanon, and the Beirut Vigilance Committee. To complement this

versus who or what gets omitted). See Jean-Michel Chaumont, “La Disqualification sélective des sources: introduction à la pratique de la malhonnêteté intellectuelle,” Recherches sociologiques et anthropologiques 39, no. 1 (2008): 71–86; Benoît Majerus, “La concurrence des experts: ou qui a le droit de dire ce qu’est la ‘traite des blanches’ dans l’Allemagne de Weimar,” Recherches sociologiques et anthropologiques 39, no. 1 (2008): 41–53; and Christine Machiels, “‘The Truth about White Slavery’: Présentation d’une enquête réalisée par Theresa Billington-Greig pour The English Review,” Recherches sociologiques et anthropologiques 39, no. 1 (2008): 27– 40. Furthermore, publications made by the League were subject to scrutiny and censorship by participating states. By using the League’s archives, I am not claiming that they are reflective of an unmediated form. They are instrumental in telling the story of how France’s regulation of sex work received condemnations, and how those who opposed France’s position, such as representatives of feminist groups or British delegates, pointed out what was problematic and, at times, unspoken in the various documents in the French archives. 164 One of significant importance was Karen Jeppe, who ran an Armenian refugee orphanage in Syria and published several books in Danish and in German, which were mostly preoccupied with Muslims’ mistreatment of Christians. 165 Since colonial discourse is not only reflected in official state or government documents, I also extracted articles from the abolitionist newspaper Le Relèvement social and the organization Union temporaire contre la prostitution réglementée et la traite des femmes (from the years 1931–1937). I also found the minutes from the Conférence internationale d’hygiène méditerranéenne that took place in Marseille in 1932. 166 In addition to these philanthropic organizations’ reports, the AUB also holds records on Lebanese legislative decrees on public hygiene and the regulation of prostitution, the République Libanaise: Annuaire médical 1925– 1928, and reports from the League.

63 material, I used personal correspondence from members of the abolitionist group known as the

Association for Moral and Social Hygiene (AMSH) found in the British Women’s Library

Archives (WLA).167 Further illumination of the debates came from contemporaneous publications emanating from the Levant, France, the United States, and Britain, such as sources from the institutions Union pour la protection de l’enfance au Liban, the American Armenian

Relief Fund, and the Fédération abolitionniste internationale; the individuals Jean Joussellin,

Archag Tchobanian, Yervat Odian, Léon Bizard, and Louis Fiaux; and the newspapers Revue des

études arméniennes, International Woman Suffrage News, Les Échos de Damas, Revue des

études islamiques, Equal Rights, and Women’s Journal. The vast majority of my primary source materials were written in French and English.168 My efforts in the various archives I visited in

Lebanon to find a significant body of Arabic primary sources on prostitution did not bear fruit. In fact, it was as a result of this lack of Arabic-language material that the thesis came to be mainly focused on French and English discourses on prostitution and the interventions connected to those discourses. Of course, the fact that I was not able to find many Arabic archival sources does not mean that they do not exist. I hope in the future to be able to incorporate Arabic sources into my research.

The ambiguity of the new colonial boundaries in the Middle East is reflected within the archives that I used for my research. You will see that I address in this thesis both Lebanon and

Syria, sometimes giving weight to one area over another, as these territories are sometimes inextricably linked under the French Mandate. Collectively, I will use the term “Levant.”

167 For these documents, I am indebted to Catherine Batruni, who generously provided me with copies of her archival materials. 168 Translations from French to English are my own unless otherwise noted. When citing material in French, I used the conventions extracted directly from the text. Therefore, at times there will appear a discrepancy with contemporary French standards, such as capitalization.

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Elizabeth Thompson personifies the relationship of the newly minted Mandate territories when she says that the “[i]ntermingling of French bureaucracy within Lebanon and Syria [can be] characterized as ‘administratively Siamese twins joined that the head.’”169 French bureaucrats

(usually centralized in the old governor’s palace in Beirut, the Grand Serail) were assigned to the territories at large, disregarding the political boundaries between the two “dependencies” (to use terminology of the League).170

In this thesis, I attempt to avoid portraying sex workers as victims, criminals, or liberated subjects who deliberately subverted colonial policies. As Susan Dewey and Patty Kelly contend, sex work is diverse and complex, and therefore irreducible to such binary categorizations as

“structure versus agency and exploitation versus liberation.”171 As is often the case with reconstructing histories of marginalized communities, the voices of the marginalized are left unwritten. This thesis is not an attempt to provide a voice to the subaltern, since, as Gayatri

Chakravorty Spivak charges, “rather few ingredients for the constitution of the itinerary of the trace of a sexed subject . . . can be gathered to locate the possibility of dissemination.”172 Instead,

169 Thompson, Colonial Citizens, 59. 170 Ibid., 63. 171 Susan Dewey and Patty Kelly, eds., Policing Pleasure: Sex Work, Policy, and the State in Global Perspective (New York: New York University Press, 2011), 2. Dominant competing feminist theories on sex work tend to fall into two groups: those that view it as sexual violence and those that see it in the context of sexual labor. For examples of works in the first perspective, see Kathleen Barry. The Prostitution of Sexuality (New York: New York University Press, 1995); Sheila Jeffreys, The Idea of Prostitution (Chicago: Spinifex Press, 1997); Sheila Jeffreys, The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade (London: Routledge, 2009); Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988); and Melissa Farley, ed., Prostitution, Trafficking and Traumatic Stress (Binghamton, NY: Haworth Maltreatment & Trauma Press, 2003). For examples of works from the second perspective, see Wendy Chapkis, Live Sex Acts: Women Performing Erotic Labor (New York: Routledge, 1997); Jill Nagle, ed., Whores and Other Feminists (New York: Routledge, 1997); and Joanna Phoenix, Making Sense of Prostitution (New York: Palgrave, 1999). More contemporary feminist scholarship, primarily engaging with poststructural theory, moves away from the binary approach to offer more nuanced perspectives. A sampling of poststructuralist feminist approaches is to be found above in footnote 154. 172 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 283. The sex workers themselves are silenced in the historical record just as in Foucault’s observation archives are “documents of exclusion and monuments to particular configurations of power.” Carolyn Hamilton, Verne Harris, and Graeme Reid, “Introduction,” in Refiguring the Archive, ed. Carolyn Hamilton, Verne Harris, Jane Taylor, Michele Pickover, Graeme Reid, and Razia Saleh (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer Science+Business Media, 2002), 9.

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I de/reconstruct the historical narrative as told through the archives to provide context on how notions of sex work came to be constructed and reconstructed through those with the power to influence the sex work debates.

While on the topic of terminology, I decided to use the original French terms when referencing sex work and provide English translations (with the exception of this Introduction).

To omit the original French terms or to give them in a secondary role would be, in my view, to needlessly sacrifice precision and specificity. In the colonial regulations, for example, you have mention of maisons de tolérance, which literally means “houses of tolerance,” which actually clues the reader in to their ambiguous legal status—a meaning that “brothel” alone cannot relay.

I will expand on this point in Chapter Three. Of course, English terms will also be used, but only after the original French term is introduced. The same applies to Arabic and Turkish terms.

Thesis Overview

As I have mentioned above, Bacchi argues that policies constitute “competing interpretations or representations of political issues” and that policy analysis must interrogate what a problem is represented to be. In her words, borrowing from Michel Foucault, “objects of study are no longer problems but problematizations.”173 Furthermore, when examining sex work, one must not consider it, as the target of policy, as existing separately from the way it is spoken about or represented.174 Once the “problem” or, in the words of Nancy Fraser, the “needs” have secured political currency, competing interpretations and programmatic conceptions emerge to secure their hegemonic interpretation. Taking Fraser’s line of thinking one step further, once the struggle for “hegemonic need interpretation” commences, competing discourses fall along an axis where “the focal issues concern politics versus administration and the principal contestants

173 Carol Bacchi, Women, Policy and Politics: The Construction of Policy Problems (London: Sage, 1999), 2. 174 Ibid.

66 are oppositional social movements and the experts and agencies in the orbit of the social state.”175

I will begin the thesis with the topic of state intervention and discuss how institutions of knowledge production worked in collaboration with government to give credibility to the French state’s standing on the issue of sex work. Then I will turn to the social aspect of sex work in order to show how a new needs-based discourse emerged in the wake of government intervention, one that enlisted new global governance when interventions on the national level proved to be ineffective. The discourse shifted from a medico-administrative and legal one to a humanitarian one, with both discourses operating in conflict with one another in an attempt to secure dominance and, ultimately, material change. The hegemonic policy debates that these positions created held material consequences for the target of intervention: sex workers. Largely ignored by both parties except for the purpose of demonstrating their own points (e.g., abolitionists using rescue narratives), the voices of sex workers were, unsurprisingly, absent from this public struggle.176 As Antoinette Burton notes in her scholarship on imperial and colonial histories, written records of the women themselves are visibly absent from the archives.

And this is especially true of those who were considered to be the “marginalized of the marginalized.”177 What traces are left are often mediated ones written by missionaries or humanitarians with their own agendas to advance.

This thesis is divided into two main thematic parts, each of which serves to construct one of the two intertwining approaches to managing prostitution and sex workers in the Levant. The

175 Nancy Fraser, Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), 173. 176 Hershatter terms the convergences of narratives on sex workers as “congealed relations of power” and argues that “prostitutes are brought into history embedded in the histories and the contests for power of those who first fashioned their stories.” Hershatter, Dangerous Pleasures, 11–12. 177 Antoinette Burton, “Archive Stories: Gender in the Making of Imperial and Colonial Histories,” in Gender and Empire, ed. Philippa Levine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 286–288.

67 first part looks at the approach that saw sex workers as a hygiene problem (Chapters Two and

Three), and the second part looks at the approach saw that sex workers as victims of trafficking

(Chapters Four and Five). The first part focuses on the medicalizing discourses on sex work that emerged in the nineteenth century and that served as the foundations for the colonial construction of sex work in the Levant. I argue that those allied with the French state constructed policy on sex work in the Levant around the claim that venereal disease constituted a public health crisis.

The section in this Introduction on regulation situated the debate on sex work by discussing prostitution as it existed under the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries before European intervention in the region. This section provides the background information that is instrumental to Chapters Two and Three. French regulationism was introduced into Asia

Minor and into the Levant in the 1800s: it was all about the necessity of regulating sex work in the interest of public health. This was a new method of conceiving of sex work: it was not much a moral concern as a medical one. The second part shifts the focus to the competing emerging discourse on sex work: humanitarianism. In the humanitarian discourse, used by moralists and abolitionists alike, sex work was a source of human exploitation. In this Introduction, I presented the humanitarian intervention that arose in response to the state sanctioning of sex work in order to provide context for Chapters Four and Five, which discuss the rise of humanitarianism in the

Levant on the eve of the French Mandate period until its end in 1946.

Chapter Summaries

Chapter Two, “The Power of Medicine: Sex Work, Containment, and the New Discourse of

Public Health,” addresses how academics, doctors, and state bureaucrats formulated sex work as a pathology, an area of inquiry that had to be studied in the interest of public safety.

Knowledge produced by academics was used to buttress state policy, which demanded that sex

68 workers be contained so as to protect society against medical contagion. No longer drawing conclusions based on speculation, the medical establishment asserted its authority by harnessing modern advances in science and uniting them with extensive observation. “Empirical facts” replaced “opinions,” as doctors forged new approaches to studying and containing venereal disease. They accomplished this through the use of statistics and through new methods of diagnosing and treating maladies. Their innovative approach was used to treat sex workers and to support commercial sex work policy both at home and abroad.

Chapter Three, “The Paradox of Liminality: Medico-Administrative and Legal Discourses in Defense of Public Health,” explores the medico-administrative and legal structures of regulationism in Lebanon and Syria under the French Mandate. There were two dominant types of attitudes toward (discourses on) sex work prevalent in the world at the time the French intervened in the Levant: abolitionist and regulationist. Abolitionists believed that sex work was exploitative and they criminalized patrons and “pimps” rather than prostitutes. The desired outcome of this approach was to end the practice of regulating prostitutes by state authorities.178

By contrast, regulationists believed that sex work should be tolerated but that it should be tightly controlled by the state. Since 1802, France had embraced this latter approach before exporting it to the Levant later on in the century, where it was to become official state policy under General

Henri Gouraud in 1920. The League permitted regulationism to become the official practice in

Lebanon and Syria by granting France the authority (mandate) to administer laws in the region.

This chapter argues that the regulatory structures in the region were shaped by colonial administrators interested in ensuring sex work’s toleration as a matter of public health.

178 It is important to reiterate here that differences existed among abolitionists, as will be seen in Chapter Five, when tensions developed between Christian moralists in Beirut and members of international abolitionist organizations.

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Chapter Four, “The Other Side of the Equation: The Rise of Humanitarian Discourses, the

League of Nations, and the Armenian Question,” situates the discourses on sex work within the atrocities committed in the early twentieth century. The Armenian Genocide (or, more accurately, its aftermath) provided a pivotal moment for rescue groups to intervene in the Levant.

In the League, humanitarians harnessed the catastrophic events of the Armenian Genocide as a tangible platform to secure protections for women and children in Lebanon and Syria. The growth of humanitarian organizations in the region worked simultaneously to rescue those deemed “precarious” and to apply pressure on the French government to intervene on their behalf. This chapter will focus on how humanitarian efforts on behalf of Armenian women and children became a conduit for international intervention in the Levant before France had

Lebanon and Syria adhere to the International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in

Women and Children in 1930, nine years after its initial signing.

Chapter Five, “The Rescue Industry in the Levant: Whose “Needs” Were Being Served?” will show how groups in Lebanon and Syria worked in opposition to French policy on regulated sex work. Through “humanitarian” interventions, various actors including feminists and missionaries sought to reform sex workers. In addition, various rescue organizations formed in order to save women and children considered to be “at risk” of entering prostitution and to redirect them to other occupations. This phenomenon was comparable to that which had occurred in the aftermath of the Armenian Genocide. This chapter will explore how humanitarian groups, in their efforts to “rehabilitate” women and children in the name of abolishing tolerated prostitution, served to perpetuate the pathology of sex workers.

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Chapter Two

The Power of Medicine Sex Work, Containment, and the New Discourse of Public Health

As elucidated in Chapter One, sex workers in the Ottoman Empire prior to the 1800s were always prone to becoming part of public debate in the wake of a moral crisis or a moral scandal.

No sooner would the news of such a crisis or scandal be spread than Ottoman officials would come to round up sex workers and isolate them from the rest of the population until the perceived predicament abated.179 While the discourse linking prostitutes to scandal and to morality persisted into the nineteenth century, a new discourse started to emerge alongside it, which framed sex work as an explicit public health threat. Venereal disease was no longer constructed in the language of personal hygiene, but came instead to be considered a full-on public crisis warranting state intervention.180 Government officials in Europe argued that sporadic regulation of the sex trade could not contain the risks that prostitution posed to the greater public, and they relied on medical evidence to substantiate state intervention. Primarily driven by concerns over the threat that venereal disease posed to male military personnel, the

179 For example, and as mentioned in the Introduction, in 1749 the governor As‘ad Pasha al-‘Azm banished sex workers from Damascus and subsequently decided, upon their return, to tax them instead. Abraham Marcus, The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), 106. 180 While I use the term “state” throughout this thesis, it is done so with the acknowledgement that, in Hall and Ikenberry’s words, that “the state is a set of institutions” comprising of the personnel under the government’s employ; the institutions that comprise the state are geographically bound (“society”); and it “monopolises rule making within its territory.” John A. Hall and G. John Ikenberry, The State (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), 1-2. For purposes of this thesis, the institutions and those members who represent the institution of the state are largely derived from ministries of health, the High Commissioner’s office, and security enforcement, both in the form of police and military. This chapter focuses on the top hierarchy of the French colonial government in the Levant, with references to the French state as times when noted. Other chapters will bring in other state actors, like the governor of Lebanon. This is to differentiate from municipal governance, which I will discuss in the following chapter, though a lot of interplay exists between “state” and “municipal” control that calls such demarcation into question. In sum, the state is not an autonomous entity but one that is continuously defined and redefined by social forces and it but one node of power in society. As Hall and Ikenberry further note, the “infrastructural dimensions of state power-the ability to penetrate society and to organize social relations-is quite important.” Hall and Ikenberry, The State, 13. This infrastructural component bears particular importance to the restructuring of Levantine society as it concerns sex work. The second half of this thesis will focus on the other expressions of power over sex work that lie outside the colonial state and its institutions.

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Ottoman Empire soon adopted strategies first developed in France to ensure the health of the male military population at the expense of others affected, most significant among which were women. In terms of institutional reform, what ensued included the advent of medical management, bureaucratic oversight, and regulatory enforcement.

This chapter addresses how academics, doctors, and state bureaucrats construed sex work as “pathology” and as an area of inquiry that had to be studied in the interest of public safety.

Knowledge produced by academics was used to buttress state policy, which demanded the containment of sex workers as a matter of protecting society against medical contagion. With the advent of new research and analytical techniques in the nineteenth century, such as the nascent field of epidemiology and the development of vaccinations, scientists claimed to no longer have to resort to drawing conclusions based on speculation.181 As for the medical establishment, its members asserted their authority by harnessing modern advances in science and by uniting them with extensive observational techniques. Now “empirical fact” replaced “opinion,” as doctors forged new approaches to studying and containing venereal disease. They accomplished this feat through utilizing statistics and new methods of diagnosing and treating these illnesses. Their innovative diagnoses and treatments centered on the commercial sex industry, and these were soon taken up by French politicians and inserted into public health policy and municipal administration—first in the metropole, and then in the Levant.182 One way to understand the politicization of medicine during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was provided by

Michel Foucault, who explained that the “doctor becomes the great advisor and expert, if not in

181 For example, Louis Pasture discovered that bacteria caused infectious diseases in 1861 and John Snow’s work on the cholera outbreak of 1854 in London replaced the miasma theory regarding contagion. Nigel Paneth and Peter Vinten-Johansen, “A Rivalry of Foulness: Official and Unofficial Investigations of the London Cholera Epidemic of 1854,” American Journal of Public Health 88, no. 10 (1998): 1545–1553. 182 I use the term “Levant” to refer to both Lebanon and Syria during the French Mandate period, while reserving the use of “” or “Lebanon” and “Syria” to refer to the individual states.

72 the art of governing, at least in that of observing, correcting and improving the social ‘body’ and maintaining it in a permanent state of health.”183

I intend to show in this chapter that the new medical discourses concerning sex work, which were first developed in France under physician Alexandre-Jean-Baptiste Parent-

Duchâtelet and then carried to the Ottoman Empire’s Levantine territory under the professor and doctor Benoît Boyer, evolved into comprehensive medical practices requiring the continuous surveillance of sex workers by local authorities.184 Doctors leveraged their “expertise” to insert themselves into the governance of hygiene, cordoning off sex workers for the sake of public welfare. This shift constituted a significant departure for doctors, who went from being private practitioners to public consultants, a role that brought with it political prestige imbedded in social hierarchies. Contrary to forming conclusions solely on the basis of “objective” medical techniques and observation, physicians wound up being affected by and then codifying various prevailing stereotypes about sex workers, casting them as a threat to public health and in need of being controlled through governmental regulation. Building upon Carol Bacchi’s theoretical framework, my argument is that sex workers became the objects of scientific study and were consequently problematized by the state in medicalized terms.185

On April 19, 1920, General , acting as the French High Commissioner of

Levant, signed Decree 188. This order became the first order under the French Mandate to regulate public health in the region. It encompassed predictable measures, from minimizing stagnant water to outlining the delivery of public hygiene services. Yet Title VI of the document

183 Michel Foucault, “The Politics of Health in the Eighteenth Century,” in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: Vintage Books, 2010), 284. 184 As Jeffrey Weeks says, succinctly paraphrases Foucault, “modern medicine . . . produced a new object of observation and treatment, ‘the body,’ which was constituted through a host of social practices—military and economic as well as medical—which displaced concepts relying on the old language of humor and harmonies.” Jeffrey Weeks, Making Sexual History (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), 112–113. 185 Carol Bacchi, Women, Policy and Politics: The Construction of Policy Problems (London: Sage, 1999), 2.

73 addressed something less obvious: regulatory prostitution. This three-page section entitled

“Réglementation de la prostitution” outlined official French colonial policy on sex work and that such policy was a matter of public health, safety, and security. France had already begun the process of legislating public health during the period of occupation, at the end of 1918, through establishing hospitals in the “western zone” of the Levant.186 In addition, French-style regulations over sex work were in force by the time France claimed its official stake in the region.187

In central Beirut at this time, over two hundred “public women” occupied forty houses in the designated reserved quarter.188 These women underwent “double surveillance,” since they were constantly being watched by the police and by the medical authorities. Public health inspectors visited the maisons de tolérance to scrutinize the buildings in which sex workers resided and controlled the conditions under which they lived. Moreover, inspectors ensured that each sex worker submitted herself to an examination for venereal disease twice a week at a

186 Direction de l’hygiène et assistance publique de l’État du Grand-Liban, Annuaire médical 1925–1928 (Beirut: Direction de l’hygiène et assistance publique de l’État du Grand-Liban, 1929), 2. (Hereinafter, AM 1925–1928). 187 In a memo dated May 13, 1919, the French undersecretary of state for military health services issued an order to the Levantine troop commanders to increase medical surveillance of the troops and sex workers. At the time, soldiers were required to undergo monthly health screenings for venereal disease, and this order increased their frequency to once every fifteen days. The tone of the memo indicated that the system at the time was not successful at controlling venereal disease among the troops and that some members were evading health inspections. Yet sex workers were ultimately held responsible for the inability to contain the spread of venereal diseases. Extra vigilance was ordered for their surveillance through the presence of a military doctor at the health inspections. Sous-secrétariat d’État du Service de Santé militaire, Services techniques, Section de médecine, “Note pour l’état-major de l’armée– section Afrique,” May 13, 1919, GR9NN7/1078, Levant et Proche-Orient, Ministère de la Guerre, Direction du service de santé (DSS), Archives Service historique de la Défense (ASHD). Vincennes, France. In this report issued by Beirut’s Health Services Department, the surge in venereal disease was a result of women leaving the reserved quarter during World War I and practicing clandestine work. As a result, only fifteen registered brothels remained open during this time. République libanaise, municipalité de Beyrouth, Service sanitaire, “Rapport sur la prostitution,” N. D., GR9NN/1078. DSS. ASHD. Vincennes, France. 188 Haut-commissariat de la République française en Syrie et au Liban, “La Lutte antivenerienne dans les États du Levant sous Mandat Français,” GR9NN/1078. DSS. ASHD. Vincennes, France. Yet, another report authored by the Beirut’s Health Services Department stated that each of the forty houses had three to four rooms that sheltered between ten and twelve women each. This would place the number at 400–480 sex workers. République libanaise, municipalité de Beyrouth, Service sanitaire, “Rapport sur la prostitution,” N. D., GR9NN/1078. DSS. ASHD. Vincennes, France.

74 designated hospital.189 Given this new reality, one can begin to see the transformation from the

Ottoman regulation of sex work to the French regulation of sex work in the Levant. In order to get a better understanding of how this transformation took place, one needs to examine closely some of the comprehensive scientific surveys produced during this period.

As discussed in Chapter One, and as mentioned above, the regulation of sex work existed in the Ottoman Empire throughout the eighteenth century. Beginning in the 1800s, the authorities in the Ottoman Empire—and in Europe as well—asserted a new control over commercial sex through the transmission of medical information validating the profession’s public threat. This information consisted of more than just the potential of prostitution to cause moral damage, as was the primary concern under the Ottomans. It introduced a new element that linked sex workers to disease. Medicine evolved as a new mode of social control, ascending into the realm of state administration and exerting what Michel Foucault terms “medico-administrative” knowledge.190 In order to situate the production of knowledge on sex work in the French colonial context, it is important to understand how certain discourses on sex work emerged in the metropole less than a century prior to being transported to the Levant.

The Insertion of Scientific Vocabulary into the State Apparatus: The “Truth” about Sex Work

The synthesis of medicine and state power in France coincided with the production of comprehensive medical texts on sex workers. The work of Alexandre-Jean-Baptiste Parent-

Duchâtelet (1790–1836) can help us understand the initial development of this new, burgeoning relationship.191 The medical establishment asserted its authority by harnessing modern advances

189 While later regulations in the 1930s acknowledged male sex workers, the terminology always expressed regulation in gendered terms, referring to “girls” and using the pronouns “she/her,” as will be examined in Chapter Three. 190 Foucault, “The Politics of Health,” 283. 191 Another prominent figure in France using newly established scientific methodologies to understand sex work was Gustave-Antoine Richelot (1806–1893). He broke new ground in comparative transnational studies on commercial sex and the rationale for its regulation in his De la prostitution en Angleterre et en Écosse published in 1857.

75 in science and uniting them with extensive observation, distancing itself from prior methods that relied primarily on speculation.192 Grounded in “truth,” doctors elevated themselves to the

“supreme authority in matters of hygienic necessity” by separating defective individuals from the rest of the social body under the guise of asepsis in an effort to rid the population of disease- causing micro-organisms.193 In this milieu, French hygienists like Parent-Duchâtelet forged new approaches to learning about venereal disease, using their newfound methods to make recommendations on containing sex workers in the interest of public health.194 Through the use of statistics and pioneering methods of diagnosing and treating maladies, medical professionals forged the links that justified increasing state control over the sex trade.195 They translated old fears around corrupted morality into new fears around death and disease using the language of science.196 Their innovative approach, which focused on commercial sex, buttressed the

Richelot translated medical texts from English to French, including John Hunter’s Treatise on the Venereal Disease, which was first published in 1786. In the text, Hunter proclaimed that his self-experimentation proved that gonorrhea and syphilis were the same disease, a “fact” proven by his scientific method that was invalidated over fifty years later. 192 According to Mary Spongberg, doctors in the eighteenth century began considering precise medical connections between women and disease. Prior to this time, the medical establishment “suggested that women were blamed for transmission as those describing the disease merely borrowed from the Aristotelian language of generation. That is, women, being mere vessels, conceived the disease in much the same way they conceived a child.” Advancements in the medical understanding of gonorrhea and syphilis in the nineteenth century “[e]nhance[d] the notion that women’s bodies were a pathological terrain. Science appeared to confirm misogynistic assumptions.” Mary Spongberg, Feminizing Venereal Disease: The Body of the Prostitute in Nineteenth-Century Medical Discourse (London: Macmillan Press, 1997), 4–5. 193 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), 54. 194 It is important here to highlight the class distinctions that influence the divide between sex workers and those “experts” dictating their regulation. According to Charles Bernheimer, Parent-Duchâtelet commenced his study at the request of a Parisian philanthropist seeking to “gather information about the habits, tastes, and backgrounds of prostitutes so as to help them repent and reform.” Charles Bernheimer, Figures of Ill Repute: Representing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 14. Given this motivation behind the 1836 study, the prominent public hygienist shifted his focus from sewers to sex workers not out of benign interest but under the influence of reforming sex workers for religious purposes. Furthermore, Parent- Duchâtelet undertook his investigation not only in the interest of France but in the interest of “all civilized governments” (15). Parent-Duchâtelet himself came from the French noble Duchâtelet family. The discovery of germ theory and public health advances in the wake of the Industrial Revolution gave rise to the scientific era of medicine and “hygienists” extolling the benefits of good hygiene and sanitation. It is within this context that those like Parent-Duchâtelet rose to prominence. 195 Dorothy Porter, Health, Civilization, and the State: A History of Public Health from Ancient to Modern Times (New York: Routledge, 1999), 65. 196 Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 55.

76 metropole’s and, subsequently, Lebanon and Syria’s public health policy. Therefore, General

Gouraud’s “welcoming [of the Levant] to France’s colonial family, which included the occupying army” meant, by extension, also accepting the full accoutrement of sex services that the militarized state demanded, including medical oversight of sex workers.197

While the French constructed regulationism in defense of (and because of) their military interests, they no longer cast this policy as being in the (self-serving) interest of protecting the state, but instead recast it as seeking to protect the entire social body.198 Yet, in doing so, they managed bodies in a gendered fashion that explicitly prioritized dominant perceptions about men’s sexual behavior. It is assumed that men were there to act on their sexual “needs” and women were there to meet these needs through service to men. Therefore, as France expanded its empire into Lebanon and Syria, the imperial project expanded what Philippa Levine calls its

“fundamentally masculine enterprise” in the form of regulationism.199 As Levine argues in the context of the British Empire, “regulation and management of sex were key to maintaining and perpetuating the idea and the practice of [colonial] superiority.”200 By inserting medicine into colonial administration, France legitimized itself as protector of the Lebanese and Syrian people, whose (supposed) lack of hygienic discipline allowed disease to flourish under the Ottoman

Empire.

197 Elizabeth Thompson, Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege, and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 39. Thompson draws attention to the fact that the inception of French rule in the Levant was under a military general, as were the two subsequent High Commissioners of the Levant (42). This emphasis on military control ensured the adoption of French gendered policies based on the assumption that the military’s sexual gratification was central to successful governance. 198 As Foucault notes in the History of Sexuality, sovereigns waged wars no longer in their name but on behalf of entire populations. It marked a shift in modern power from the “juridical existence of sovereignty” to the “biological existence of the population.” Michel Foucault, “Right of Death and Power over Life,” in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: Vintage Books, 2010), 259–260. In effect, it enlisted everyone to a cause that was cast in their self-defense, not in defense of those in power. 199 Philippa Levine uses this description of the British Empire as one being about masculine sexual dominance and power and feminine passivity. Philippa Levine, “Sexuality, Gender, and Empire,” in Gender and Empire, ed. Philippa Levine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 137. 200 Levine, “Sexuality, Gender, and Empire,” 137.

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One needs to begin with the medical publications that originated in the metropole in the nineteenth century to understand how state interventions in the name of public health developed in the colonies during the following century. These are interventions whose objective extended beyond the mere protection of armed service members to the protection of the entire civilian population. All this transpired at the cost of sex workers being construed as a threat to public safety through their diseased bodies. These reports vilified workers as the conduits of social contagion, which were derived from their “pathological female sexuality.”201 Thus, only the state and its experts, who were led by Parent-Duchâtelet, could protect the public from their pollution.

The rise of male doctors in the academies, influencing the state apparatus, simultaneously reified and influenced the problematization of sex work.202 This dominance of Western biomedicine enshrined the gendered body into public health policy and therefore, as Alison Bashford argues, can be said to have “managed gender itself.”203

Research on Sex Work in the Metropole: The “Indispensable Excremental Phenomenon”

Working out of Paris, Parent-Duchâtelet began his research into the links between disease and sex work in 1828.204 His method of examining commercial sex and its consequences entailed the combined use of police archives, field research, and hospital and prison records.205 First

201 Spongberg, Feminizing Venereal Disease, 40. 202 Foucault notes the rise of doctors in academies that leveraged their abilities to exert social power. Foucault, “The Politics of Health,” 283. He also argues (274) that the rise of statistics in the early nineteenth century problematized health and sickness. Academies inserted themselves into this discourse along with the state, religious groups, and charitable societies. 203 Alison Bashford, “Medicine, Gender, and Empire,” in Gender and Empire, ed. Philippa Levine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 113. 204 The term “disease” used here constitutes both moral and physical illness. Parent-Duchâtelet set out to comprehensively understand how the public prostitute arrived at her profession and what constituted her being. The fear underscoring his text is over the temporal nature of sex work and the workers’ reabsorption into society. Ultimately, he concluded that there were no physical characteristics that set sex workers apart from respectable women. And herein was the real threat. For a larger discussion on this matter, see Alain Corbin, Women for Hire: Prostitution and Sexuality in France after 1850 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), 3–9. 205 Like other academics in the emerging medical discussions of sex work, Parent-Duchâtelet was granted the voice of authority based on his pedigree. He served as a Paris city council member for hygiene, was a member of the Royal Academy of Medicine, and practiced medicine at the famous Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital.

78 disseminated in 1836, De la prostitution dans la ville de Paris, considérée sous le rapport de l’hygiène publique, de la morale et de l’administration (Prostitution in the City of Paris,

Considered in Terms of Public Hygiene, Morals and Administration) is a 624-page medical- anthropological volume that served as a template for how to conduct comprehensive public health studies.206 His strategic documentation of the regulations enacted by the government and the quantification of their effects through the use of statistics was a practice that would come to characterize reports on the Levant later on in the nineteenth century.

The use of data was of the utmost importance in the growing field of public health. Parent-

Duchâtelet stated that the use of descriptive terms such as “a lot,” “often,” “sometimes,” and

“very often” were not sufficient due to the breadth of their semantic range and the many ways in which they can be interpreted.207 He forged a path forward for sex researchers by quantifying information on sex work and produced a volume that would become, according to Mary

Spongberg, “the canonical text of the study of prostitution in nineteenth-century Europe. Parent’s methodical analysis of the bodies and lifestyles of prostitutes set the pattern for subsequent studies.”208 In Parent-Duchâtelet’s words, “I made great efforts to arrive at numeric results under all the points that I undertook to deal with. . . . It is only by means of this method that science is advanced and the administration is offered the means of working with confidence [to achieve perfection] . . . this method, which I shall call statistics, has been applied for some time to

206 There are various additions of the book that will be used in this chapter. In addition to the one mentioned, it was also produced in two volumes published in 1857, which together amounted to over seven hundred pages. The mere title of his book indicates the intended scope of his influence: he wanted to reach public hygienists and administrators. 207 Jean-Baptiste Parent-Duchâtelet, De la prostitution dans la ville de Paris (hereinafter, DPVP) (Paris: Chez J. B. Baillière, 1836), 22. 208 Spongberg, Feminizing Venereal Disease, 37. Corbin notes that Parent-Duchâtelet developed investigatory techniques such as questionnaires, precise cataloguing, and fact-checking. Corbin even credits him as the pioneer of bar graphs for statistical purposes. Corbin, Women for Hire, 16–17.

79 medicine.”209 Due to his successful use and application of statistics in the context of medical research, Parent-Duchâtelet foresaw the broad adoption of data analysis in other disciplines as a means to thoroughly understand and address sex work.210

Correct in its predictions, Parent-Duchâtelet’s work soon became the authoritative text for discussing disease and sex work.211 Premised on the common scientific understanding that numbers illustrated the truth, he derived his conclusions from rigorous, quantifiable tracking and observation, which made him seem to his readers as an objective arbitrator of scientific information. The results of his studies distinguished sex workers as unique entities and their transmission of syphilis as being the greatest threat to humanity:212

Of all the diseases that may affect the human species by contagion and that have the greatest repercussions on society, there is none more serious, more dangerous, and more to be feared than syphilis. In this respect, I am not afraid to be contradicted when I say that the disasters that it brings outweigh the ravages of all the plagues that, from time to time, have brought terror into society.213

209 Parent-Duchâtelet, DPVP, 22–23 (1836). 210 Here Mary Poovy’s work on the construction of the modern fact proves helpful. As she surmises, in “nineteenth- century texts, as in most texts that purport to describe the material world, even the numbers are interpretive, for they embody theoretical assumptions about what should be counted, how one should understand material reality, and how quantification contributes to systematic knowledge about the world. Such figures, which simultaneously describe discrete particulars and contribute to systematic knowledge . . . [are] the modern fact.” Mary Poovy, A History of the Modern Fact: Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), xii. 211 In the Annales de l’hygiène publique et de médicine légale, the excerpt states that Parent-Duchâtelet’s book was read by administrators, doctors, and magistrates. “De la prostitution dans la ville de Paris annonce.” Annales d’hygiène publique et de médecine légale 2, no. 7 (1857): 478. This text is also found in the foreword of the revised 1857 edition of his book. 212 There is a dissonance in his text over the characterization of sex workers. For example, he simultaneously establishes them as distinct from society in their mannerisms, intellect, and upbringing, and yet he says that they are physically indistinct from respectable women. 213 Parent-Duchâtelet, DPVP, 33 (1836). Levine shows that while the urgency of venereal disease took precedence over other communicable diseases, this idea was not uncontested. She quotes Charles Taylor at the end of the nineteenth century saying that the issue with syphilis was not the epidemics that cause mortality but the prolongued morbitity and its associated costs. Philippa Levine, Prostitution, Race and Politics: Policing Disease in the British Empire (New York: Routledge, 2003), 42.

80

Therefore, to contain this threat, sex workers needed medical controls and state interventions, often at the municipal level, as I will demonstrate in Chapter Three.214

Parent-Duchâtelet affirmed many prevailing stereotypes of his time. These included portrayals of sex workers’ infantile behavior and intellect, their propensity toward alcoholism, and their laziness, just to name a few.215 At the start of his chapter on how sex workers’ health was affected by the nature of their profession, Parent-Duchâtelet asserted that “syphilis and scabies are the only illnesses that are particular to prostitutes.” In his view, sex workers’ divergent moral characteristics, in addition to their physical ailments, justified their containment from the general population. Violent and ill-tempered, prostitutes possessed vices particular to their nature.216 In this manner, Parent-Duchâtelet established that sex workers were, as a group, distinctly separate from the population due to their unique mannerisms, propensities, and diseases. While affirming widely held convictions at the time, his findings ascribed the root causes of sex work to poverty, which is an argument that set him apart from his contemporaries.217 Poverty will become an important issue in future reports pathologizing sex workers, such as those disseminated by the League, which will be examined in Chapter Five.

214 Most famously, Parent-Duchâtelet stated that “prostitutes are as inevitable in a great urban center as are sewers, roads, and trash heaps. The attitude of the authorities should be the same in regard to the former as they are in regard to the latter.” Parent-Duchâtelet, DPVP, 626 (1857). 215 Almost a century after Parent-Duchâtelet’s publication, the same ideas were in circulation. In his text on sex workers in Europe commissioned by the United States Bureau of Social Hygiene, Abraham Flexner states that “[m]oral idiocy, covetousness, aversion to work, vanity, inclination to steal, libidinousness may be acquired as well as native traits.” Yet, in the introduction, John D. Rockefeller states that “Mr. Flexner was absolutely without prejudice or preconception. . . . He had no previous opinion to sustain; he was given no thesis to prove or disprove. He was asked to make a thorough and impartial examination of the subject and to report his observations and conclusions.” See Abraham Flexner, Publications of the Bureau of Social Hygiene: Prostitution in Europe (New York: The Century Co., 1920), vii–ix, 70. The claim of objectivity and scientific rigor are persistent themes that are in contradiction to the adjectives employed to describe sex work. 216 Parent-Duchâtelet, DPVP, 477 (1836). 217 He argues that insufficient salaries are, in part, the reason why women must engage in sex work. He uses the seamstresses’ low-wages as an example, arguing that it is not surprising that they would work in a trade that would earn them higher wages. He goes on to blame men for taking jobs that are better left to the other sex. In this proclamation, he accuses men of leading effeminate lives employed in cafés, shops, and boutiques. Parent- Duchâtelet, DPVP, 103–104 (1857).

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Medical professionals like Parent-Duchâtelet produced the evidence that states needed to support the containment of sex workers, though they were already being contained through municipal bylaws. As France regulated prostitution in 1802, it welcomed any “prestige and professional approval” to justify the inscription of sex workers that was already in place.218 De la prostitution dans la ville de Paris illustrated with its use of statistics and charts the level of contagion among sex workers and provided legitimacy for their containment in the interest of society. Parent-Duchâtelet declared that there was a serious risk of illness among sex workers and that there was a large risk that they would infect the general population. But it is significant that he did not show any concern for the health of the workers themselves while formulating a plan for disease control.219 Additionally, he marveled at municipal governments’ ability to surveil their populations. While not an advocate for the quartier réservé (a district of registered maisons de tolérance), he supported methods to keep sex workers cordoned off from the rest of society.220 This included regulated, “closed” brothels and hospitals designated for the treatment of venereal diseases.

While he was concerned with the “biological contagion” of venereal diseases arising as a result of commercialized sex, Parent-Duchâtelet also emphasized the social contagion of vice.

For him, sex workers marginalized themselves through their morals and habits. Therefore, as

Alain Corbin states, “authoritarian marginalization is justified by a de facto marginality that is

218 Spongberg, Feminizing Venereal Disease, 37. 219 Parent-Duchâtelet, DPVP, 275 (1857). Yet he also says, with some dismay, that “in spite of so many excesses” sex workers are not more prone to common diseases than “common women who have children and work in their household” (279). Parent-Duchâtelet established the practice of considering the physiognomy of sex workers, including inspecting their vaginas and anuses to determine whether there were innate differences that set them apart from “respectable” women. He determined that there was no difference. 220 According to Corbin, Parent-Duchâtelet did not endorse the creation of quartiers réservés because he believed that they encouraged illegal prostitution within their confines. Corbin, Women for Hire, 10.

82 prior to it.”221 Restricting “these women” with governmental surveillance allowed society to tolerate their existence. Once these workers were confined, argued Parent-Duchâtelet, close municipal supervision would be able to provide the necessary containment of their excessive and degrading manners.222 Furthermore, “[b]y categorizing prostitutes in a ‘scientific’ manner,

Parent[-Duchâtelet] enabled doctors to present a clinical solution to the problems arising from prostitution.”223

Parent-Duchâtelet’s work is a clear example of the political power held by scientists in directing and affirming state policy toward commercial sex.224 Sex workers possessed medical and social diseases that, to him and other public hygienists, were reviled and feared by their society. In the third edition of his book, which was released in 1857, government officials provided updates and additional documentation. They granted the use of their names on the book’s cover, affirming the close and now official relationship between Parent-Duchâtelet and

Parisian authorities.225 These signatures also validated the book’s credibility and ensured that it would be consulted in order to help formulate public policy on sex work going forward. The

221 Alain Corbin, “The Regulationist Argument,” in Prostitution, ed. Roger Matthews and Maggie O’Neill (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003), 5. 222 Corbin argues that Parent-Duchâtelet was advocating the establishment of laboratory-style conditions to “facilitate observation and experimentation . . . in order to supervise and control. . . . This primacy of observation makes his book the antithesis of a utopia and one of the masterpieces of empirical sociology.” Corbin, Women for Hire, 16. Parent-Duchâtelet, when discussing the detention of sex workers, remarked that “everyday observation shows us that prostitutes are for the most part true children, and that they should not be considered, in terms of intelligence, as ordinary culprits. . . . The result is that they are more sensitive to the deprivation of frivolous and insignificant objects than to an extension of detention, and even to personal suffering, of which they may be accustomed.” Parent-Duchâtelet, DPVP, 123–124 (1857). 223 Spongberg, Feminizing Venereal Disease, 37. 224 The expertise provided by academics was supported by their official backing. “The official position occupied by most of the scholars who have lent us their help, the work which they have published, the reputation they enjoy, guarantees their sufficient competence” on sex work. “De la prostitution dans la ville de Paris Annonce,” 480. 225 M. A. Trebuchet and M. Poirat-Duval, whose names appear on the cover of the third edition, were Parisian government officials. Trebuchet served as the Head of the Health Department and as Secretary of the Health Council, while Poirat-Duval was the chief of the prefecture’s vice squad. The editor’s introduction states that Parent- Duchâtelet “has taken rank among the most conscientious investigators of our era. . . . The work of which we publish in the Third Edition has been accepted . . . as establishing the law in this important area.” Parent-Duchâtelet, DPVP, v (1857).

83 preface of the subsequent edition of the book proclaims that De la prostitution dans la ville de

Paris helped bring about changes and improvements in health and administration throughout the twenty years that had passed by since its original publication.226 Furthermore, Parent-

Duchâtelet’s reach extended beyond the confines of Paris. The book’s editors claimed that his ideas influenced the health and administration policies of other major cities in Europe.227

Translations of his work became promptly available in English (1837) and German (1837) and later in Dutch (1890) and Japanese (1922). Scholars and politicians in the United States and the

United Kingdom often cited it. The ill-fated Contagious Diseases Act (CDA) of 1866 that sought to bring regulated prostitution to Britain and its empire in the name of public health proved to be perhaps the most controversial initiative invoking his name.228 And while it was not translated into Arabic, French officials who circulated throughout the Mediterranean exported the book’s content to the region through his widespread impact on ideas on sex work pathology. In addition, medical practitioners from the Ottoman Empire who received training in France on prostitution regulation brought information back with them when they returned home. At a minimum, this information bore the influence of Parent-Duchâtelet, even if they did not directly encounter his

226 “De la prostitution dans la ville de Paris Annonce,” 478. 227 For the third edition of DPVP, doctors in “high positions” were solicited to submit their data to complete the work set out by Parent-Duchâtelet, who died in 1836. Doctors from across Europe and one in heeded this call, which indicated that there was interest among medical professionals in furthering his work. The submission from the principal doctor in Algeria was credited “with the study of the colony and the knowledge of the manners of its inhabitants” due to the time that he had spent in the country. “De la prostitution dans la ville de Paris Annonce,” 478–479. The insertion of colonial expertise on colonized people is discussed at length in other literature. For the British Empire, see Pratik Chakrabarti’s Medicine and Empire: 1600–1960 (New York: Palgrave, 2014); and for France, see Michael Osborne’s The Emergence of Tropical Medicine in France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014). 228 Parent-Duchâtelet was invoked in defense of extending the CDA of 1866 to the civil population. “I will conclude by quoting the words of the celebrated Parent-Duchâtelet, of Paris, written some years ago: ‘If legislation cannot render men virtuous . . . at least . . . look after the guilty in order to preserve the innocent. I will go further . . . and those who have neglected this important duty have been unfaithful to their trust, and can only be excused by their ignorance of the benefits of sanitary surveillance of prostitution.’” John Brendon Curgenven, The Contagious Disease Act of 1866 and its Extension to the Civil Population of the United Kingdom (London: N. P., 1868), 14.

84 text.229 The influence of Parent-Duchâtelet assured prostitutes’ marginalization within society as the “indispensable excremental phenomenon that protects the social body from disease” that permeated throughout Europe and, soon enough, throughout the Levant.230

The Transmission of Knowledge: The Pathologizing of Sex Work Comes to the Levant

When Egypt’s army overran Syria in the Syrian War in 1831, syphilis spread among soldiers at an alarming rate.231 This outbreak transpired so quickly that the field hospitals established to deal with the problem could not keep up with the demand for treatment. Consequently, soldiers were transported back to Egypt to receive medical attention. As Khaled Fahmy has shown, Mehmet

‘Ali’s administration had already begun systematically tracking the health of soldiers through daily reports. Yet due to the mounting cases of syphilis, field doctors in Syria treating ‘Ali’s soldiers tracked the numbers infected with the disease on amended military health reports, as the ones provided failed to recognize the particular attention the disease exacted. 232

These difficulties in adequately responding to the health crisis in the Levant, in Western biomedical terms, persisted for some eighteen years after the Syrian War. In his 1849 survey of the medical profession in the Levant, Cornelius Van Dyck declared: “Small as is the amount of medical knowledge among the Arabs, at the present day, the means of obtaining it are still more limited.”233 This doctor with the American Protestant Mission also noted with dismay that

229 For example, Ottoman officials in Constantinople sent several doctors to France to receive training on the medical management of regulatory prostitution. In September 1899, the government of Sultan Abdul-Hamid sent a university medical professor to the Conférence international pour la prophylaxie de la syphilis et des maladies vénériennes. See Louis Fiaux, La Prostitution réglementée et les pouvoirs publics dans les principaux états des deux mondes (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1909), 195. Mary Spongberg states that Parent-Duchâtelet’s reputation and authority on prostitution and venereal disease influenced doctors from other countries to call for regulatory systems akin to that of France. Not only did he provide the language that others could adopt, but an “extensive working model of how [regulations] could be done. Spongberg, Feminizing Venereal Disease, 36–37. 230 Corbin, “The Regulationist Argument,” 4. 231 Khaled Fahmy, “Women, Medicine, and Power in Nineteenth-Century Egypt,” in Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, ed. Lila Abu-Lughod (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), 43. 232 Ibid. 233 C. V. A. Van Dyck, “On the Present Condition of the Medical Profession in Syria,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 1, no. 4 (1849): 569.

85 advancements made in Egypt under Mehmet ‘Ali through French-style medical instruction were an exception to the rule when it came to the rest of the region: “The old Emir Beshir sent several promising Syrian youth to be educated in the Egyptian schools and hospitals, some of whom are still pursuing their studies there. Those who have returned have not fulfilled the expectations formed with regard to them, except in the single instance of a young man now practising in

Beirut.”234 Decades later, the establishment of two medical colleges in Beirut rectified this

“dearth” of Western-style medical practitioners: the Syrian Protestant College in 1867 and St.

Joseph University in 1883.235

Out of St. Joseph University arose a prominent figure in public health reform under the

Ottoman administration, the doctor Benoît Boyer. In 1889, Boyer relocated to Beirut after graduating from the Hospice civil de Lyon in 1881, where he served as an intern.236 At

St. Joseph, he served as a professor of therapeutics and hygiene in the Faculty of Medicine until his death in 1897.237 Jens Hanssen argues that the medical faculty’s foundation at the French university “marks the entry of French officials into the realm of governance.”238 It accomplished

234 Ibid., 570. 235 The Damascus Medical School was founded in 1901. See Robert Ian Blecher, “The Medicalization of Sovereignty: Medicine, Public Health, and Political Authority in Syria, 1861–1936” (PhD Diss., Stanford University, 2002), 44–45. 236 It was through his work at the hospice that he published Étude sur la thyroïdectomie in 1884. The medical school in Lyon was known for its training in colonial medicine. Blecher, “The Medicalization of Sovereignty,” 51. Yet Hanssen notes that Boyer differed from his medical contemporaries in that he did not possess a background in tropical medicine. This was usually a prerequisite for being assigned to distant posts. Jens Hanssen, “Colonial Anxiety, Scientific Missionaries and Social Containment in Fin de Siècle Beirut,” in Archaeology and History in Lebanon 22 (2005): 53. It is perhaps not surprising that the selection of Boyer came from Lyon, as the city had a long-standing commercial history with the Levant through the silk trade. See Dominique Chevallier, “Lyon et la Syrie en 1919: les bases d’une intervention,” in Villes et travail en Syrie du XIXe au XXe siècle (Paris: G. P. Maisonneuve & Larose, 1982), 41–87. 237 M. Collangettes, Faculté de médecine, 1883–1908 (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1908), 49. 238 Hanssen, “Colonial Anxiety,” 52. According to Iris Borowy, colonialism served as a pathway for biomedicine to enter state politics. Iris Borowy, Coming to Terms with World Health: The League of Nations Health Organisation 1921–1946 (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2009), 16. See Anne Marie Moulin’s “Patriarchal Science: The Network of the Overseas Pasteur Institutes” on the Pasteur Institute, which was first founded outside of metropolitan France in the 1890s and served to extend the colonial power’s influence and provide opportunities to conduct scientific research. Anne Marie Moulin, “Patriarchal Science: The Network of the Overseas Pasteur Institutes,” in Science and Empires, ed. Patrick Petitjean, Catherine Jami, and Anne Marie Moulin (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic

86 this through positioning “experts” trained in French medicine in colonial society, who provided information on public health. Boyer was one of the individuals who had such expertise.239

It is important to understand the context surrounding Boyer’s insertion into the Levant’s medical environment and its aftermath because it helps us get a clearer picture of the development of French-style medicine and regulatory policy in the region. After the aforementioned wide dissemination of Parent-Duchâtelet’s work in 1836, a prominent discourse surrounding the regulation of sex work in the interest of public health began to emerge in published medical texts. The Levant was not immune to this phenomenon, where Ottoman and

French colonial bureaucracies commissioned studies on the status of hygiene as it pertained to prostitution. Two public hygiene reports in the region, separated by approximately thirty years, are emblematic of the colonial state’s rising concerns about contagion spreading through commercial sex. In hindsight, these studies also marked one of the ways in which biopolitics came to be woven into the fabric of modern society.

By using comprehensive surveys at the inception of the Mandate period, the French colonial bureaucracy showcased its ability to provide strategic responses to fears of impending health and social crises coming as a result of the spread of disease through newly formed

Publishers, 1992), 307–322. According to Robert Blecher, the first Pasteur Institutes established in the Ottoman Empire were in Istanbul (1892) and in Tunis (1893). He goes on to argue that French representatives in Beirut during the Ottoman Empire had limited contact with the Pasteur Institute. Blecher, “The Medicalization of Sovereignty,” 52. While direct contact may not have been frequent, Pasteur’s reach extended into Syria. In his introduction, Benoît Boyer credits Pasteur’s work as having influenced him, referring to his predecessor as the ‘Immortal Pasteur.’” Furthermore, in December 1922 French doctor and head of France’s colonial medical personnel Henri-Élysée-Daniel Escher, discussed later in this chapter, published an article in the Pasteur Institute’s medical journal on the treatment of syphilis. Dr. Escher, “Les sels de Bismuth dans le traitement de la syphilis,” Annales de l’Institut Pasteur 36, no. 12 (1922): 859–872. 239 In his introduction, Boyer positions himself as a French scholar who will bestow his knowledge onto the population of Beirut through the production of his book (which is the focus of this section). “This book, inspired by the works of French scholars and hygienists, which it has the ambition of popularizing, has only one aim: to coordinate all efforts and to show that in hygiene, as elsewhere, goodwill is not enough.” Benoît Boyer, Conditions hygiéniques actuelles de Beyrouth (Syrie) et de ses environs immédiats (Lyon: Imprimerie Alexandre Rey, 1897), iii.

87 ministries of health.240 Toward the end of the nineteenth century, global public concerns mounted over the spread of typhoid, tuberculosis, and venereal disease. Within this context, governmental agencies began issuing reports surveying the health of their citizens and recommending necessary interventions in the interest of public hygiene. Benoît Boyer published the first such report in the Levant in 1897 at the request of Ottoman officials prior to direct

French intervention in the region. His survey of the region’s social and medical hygiene in the late 1800s served as the basis for Les Conditions hygiéniques actuelles de Beyrouth. The second work of note, which will be discussed below, was two volumes in length and produced by the

Lebanese Ministry of Hygiene and Public Assistance under French colonial rule: the Annuaire médical 1921–1924 and 1925–1928. These texts argue for the critical need for public health reform and the tight regulation of sex work in order to contain venereal disease in the interest of maintaining high public hygiene standards.

In 1896, the Ottoman Governor of Beirut, Vali Nassouhi Bey Effendi, commissioned

Boyer to produce a comprehensive volume on the current health conditions of the city and provide recommendations for the remediation of any issues he might find.241 The resulting treatise discusses numerous topics and had sections on such disparate subjects as people’s culinary habits and their causes of death. In its section on morbidity, Conditions hygiéniques not only endorses regulating sex work, but states that the government should take additional measures to the ones that were currently in place. It is likely that Boyer benefited from Parent-

Duchâtelet’s research (which was conducted in France) because of the latter’s notoriety in the field of public health (as it related to the commercial sex trade). In addition, Boyer possessed

240 As both works were published only in French, the first one by a press in Lyon and the second by a Catholic press in Lebanon, the officials they were intended to reach lived within the Francophone population. 241 Jens Hanssen, “Sexuality, Health and Colonialism in Postwar 1860 Beirut,” in Sexuality in the Arab World, ed. Samir Khalaf and John H. Gagnon (London: Saqi, 2006), 74.

88 knowledge of the French regulatory structure that had already been in effect during his tenure.

He wholeheartedly endorsed the metropole’s position on medical surveillance, arguing that such surveillance should be en vigueur for the welfare of the Syrian region. Boyer premised his knowledge on the established rationale of his French predecessor that sex workers’ inherent flaws set them apart from respectable citizens. That sex workers in Beirut operated without adequate surveillance appalled Boyer. As he observed, “about thirty women of the city come at night only, in these establishments, as auxiliaries.”242 Inconsequential to his inquiry were the reasons why sex work existed in the first place and sex workers’ countries or cities of origin, both of which became commonplace discussions in pathologizing texts on prostitution.243

Boyer’s account provides an illuminating picture of prostitution during the late nineteenth century in Beirut: each brothel had, on average, five women. They were young and often from the local area. Others hailed from Damascus, Greece, Tripoli, and Alexandria, while one was from France.244 Boyer also noted an anomalous Greek matron within the group of mostly indigenous proprietors.245 The influence of increased travel throughout the Mediterranean provided for the diversity in origin that will continue into the following decades. What is evident is that the French-style regulatory system found its way into the region at the invitation of

Ottoman government officials, as his text was written in 1897 while the area was still under

242 Boyer, Conditions hygiéniques, 134-135. 243 For Boyer, there was no attention paid to the abnormality of “these” women. It was stated matter-of-factly that they must be contained, a concept that was established by Parent-Duchâtelet. Likewise, the linkage of alcohol with the vices was another contributor the deterioration of public health. When it comes to venereal disease, Boyer treated prostitutes as if they were the contagion. In his work, he did not investigate other modes of transmission or the patrons of the workers. 244 The intermixing of country and city references were extracted directly from the report. 245 Several decades later, a Greek performer by the name of Marika Spiridon arrived in Beirut around the time of World War I and became a well-known madam of “high-class” society. See Samir Kassir, Beirut (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 391.

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Ottoman control.246 This transformed the Levant from its prior, more flexible sociopolitical environment in the eighteenth century—a situation that I discussed at some length in

Chapter One. Yet, for Boyer, the adaptation of the French system under the Ottomans did not quite go far enough.

Boyer noted with alarm the proximity of the commercial sex trade to the greater public.

Inspired by his French training, he recommended cordoning off all sex workers from the rest of society on a full-time basis, thinking that such a measure would be conducive to good public hygiene. In his mind, the current “part-time” system that he witnessed, wherein some prostitutes would reside in their own homes and go to their places of employment after sunset, allowed for disease to prosper.247 Boyer only examined registered sex workers and did not survey clandestine activities due to the fact that, as he claimed, Muslim tradition prohibited strangers coming into the home to conduct investigations. He stated: “I shall speak here only of regulated prostitution, for morals, forbidding all inquiries or visits to women, renders clandestine prostitution very easy and as a result it has flourished.”248 In effect, he blamed this moral sensibility for the fact that

246 Boyer claims that, at the time of his report, the practice of filles en carte (registered prostitution) was no longer in existence in Constantinople due to the city’s inability to control clandestine sex work. Boyer, Conditions hygiéniques, 134. Yet, according to Andrew F. Currier, in his 1891 book entitled Unrestricted Evil of Prostitution, brothels in Constantinople were registered with the municipality and workers underwent weekly medical inspections. Those who were found to carry a venereal disease were “isolated for treatment.” Furthermore, he states that “those who practice prostitution clandestinely are beyond public control . . . there is no evidence . . . that existing laws had succeeded in diminishing prostitution or checking the diseases which are associated with it.” Andrew F. Currier, Unrestricted Evil of Prostitution (New York: Philanthropist, 1891), 12. Several decades later, only 2,171 of the approximately 4,500 sex workers in Constantinople were registered. Clarence Richard Johnson, Constantinople To-Day or the Pathfinder Survey of Constantinople: A Study in Oriental Social Life (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1922), 363. I have been unable to find evidence on exactly when the French system, or its likeness, began in the Levant, only that it appears to have been in place at the time of Boyer’s report in the late nineteenth century. 247 Boyer, Conditions hygiéniques, 134–135. 248 Ibid., 134.

90 clandestine sex work was thriving in the city, for the domicile served as space free from outside intrusion, especially from intrusion from the government.249

Boyer recommended that officials consolidate the medical care that was being provided to the forty-odd maisons de tolérance in the city through specialized facilities in addition to centralizing the locations of the city’s maisons. In short, the “houses of tolerance” would all move into one area, a move that Boyer thought would surely help contain the spread of venereal disease. This solution would allow for constant government surveillance of sex workers and for greater hygienic compliance. He noted that regular medical checkups were being given to sex workers three times per week in the 1890s. The workers, along with proprietors, bore the cost of these visits through paying a monthly tax.250 With the 200 to 225 registered prostitutes in Beirut in 1893, this appears to have been an ambitious medical inspection rate. Therefore, it may have been a measure that existed on paper but that did not get carried out in practice all that much.251

Like Parent-Duchâtelet, Boyer underscored the threat that the untreated and unregulated sex worker posed to the public and the need for state intervention in the interest of the safety and health of civil society. Syphilis occurred with “extreme frequency” in Beirut; there were 632 cases in 1885–1896, according to his study.252 This is 632 cases out of an approximate

249 Conversely, in 1900 Dr. Portucalis wrote a book, La Prophylaxie des maladies vénériennes par la religion musulmane, based on his experience as a practitioner in Constantinople. Here, he claims that the Muslim protection of women in the home, as opposed to the lax morality of Christians in this regard, who allowed them to lounge in public spaces, is the reason why the former have lower venereal disease transmission rates. He states: “Muslims are not habituated like Christians to the life of cafés, concerts, singing, theater, dinners, and debauchery of all sorts.” Dr. Portucalis, La Prophylaxie des maladies vénériennes par la religion musulmane (Paris: A. Maloine, 1900), 10. 250 Boyer, Conditions hygiéniques, 135. 251 The improbability of this rate of inspection is also noted in Blecher, “The Medicalization of Sovereignty,” 92. 252 Gonorrhea was placed as “frequent,” according to Boyer, amounting to 163 cases at the same time. Yet he underscored that this was undoubtedly a low number, as people can seek remedies from pharmacists and fake medical practitioners. He distinguished women’s illnesses separately as 37 cases of gonorrhea; therefore, it is not clear whether the 163 cases that he reported were restricted to men or whether the 37 cases are a subset of the overall number. It is also not clear whether the 37 cases related to prostitutes alone or a combination of women regardless of their profession. Boyer’s methodology was far from clear, as the data that he collected was based on numbers furnished by himself and colleagues in the Faculty of Medicine at St. Joseph. Each person submitted numbers for different years, some of them overlapping, and so this study cannot be construed as comprehensive. For

91 population of 120,000 or a rate of 0.53 percent.253 As a point of comparison, a survey on Turkey during the same period indicated that the syphilis infection rate in the coastal region was as high as 10 percent.254 So his assertion that syphilis posed an enormous threat to the public in Beirut at the time could be interpreted as an overstatement. For Boyer, the rigorous surveillance of sex workers presented the only remedy to the “great dangers of infection.” Workers should be required to go to a specialized hospital, as medical visits to maisons de tolérance proved in his view to be insufficient. He criticized the use of scheduled, routine medical exams at the maisons de tolérance due to the female sex workers’ deceptive nature and ability to avoid inspection when they were infected.255 Boyer uses this condescending patriarchal tone throughout his study, chastising the failures of the Ottoman government to properly regulate prostitution; it was its failure that allowed the disease to spread. For example, referring to the closure of the Syrian

Hôpital des vénériennes in April 1895, he stated: “I can only deplore the closure of this hospital, which, from the point of view of venereal disease prevention, was evidently an excellent institution. It would even be desirable to see this hospital reopened and expanded.”256 Yet Boyer also saw himself as an ally of the state, seeing the administrative authorities’ intervention as being critical to the modern public health transformation that he was advocating.257 While

example, Professor Hache submitted data from a hospital between the years 1889 and 1894, and Professor de Brun submitted for 1885 through to 1894. Professor Hache was credited with providing an overview of morbidity, stating that malaria was the greatest threat, followed by syphilis. Boyer, Conditions hygiéniques, 96–98, 105. 253 Ibid., 1. 254 Fiaux, La Prostitution règlementée, 201. 255 Boyer, Conditions hygiéniques, 136. Another threat, albeit made in passing, was the “Americanization” of the Lebanese, as those returning from the United States brought an increase in the number of cases of venereal disease to this otherwise moral society. He also states that the emigration from America created stressors, as people needed to adjust to the “the radical changes that have occurred in the ideas and the way of living of the population in general” (97, 130). His reference to Muslim morality comes up often in his texts both as a source of impediment to proper medical treatment and as nostalgic longing for its prophylactic effects. He credits Muslim morality as the factor in keeping venereal disease low among the general population, and it was the return of Lebanese from the United States that drove the increase in the number of cases (105, 130). 256 Ibid., 135–136. 257 This alliance with the government was also undoubtedly due to the fact the Ottoman authorities commissioned the text. There was likely to have been an inherent political bias in the text. Yet it is also possible that, due to the

92 surveying the increased rate of gonorrhea, syphilis, and canker sores over the last three years of his study, he stated that he was “convinced that the Municipality of Beirut will reconsider its original decision” of closing the hospital.258 Boyer was resolved to have more governmental control over women. Nowhere in his texts, however, did he mention patrons (who were men) as being a source of disease or recommend that they too need to be regulated.259

What distinguishes Boyer’s Conditions hygiéniques from Parent-Duchâtelet’s De la prostitution dans la ville de Paris is the former’s lack of discussion or concern over the moral implications of commercial sex. Like his predecessor, Boyer did not suggest its eradication in the name of public hygiene and based his conclusions on the sexual double standard that prioritized male sexuality over women’s rights. Yet he departed from Parent-Duchâtelet in his advocacy for increasing medical surveillance through the centralization of maisons de tolérance and medical services.260 As part of Boyer’s recommendations, this intervention must come from above: “In order to give more force to all these sanitary regulations and to ensure their execution, it would be necessary for them to be imposed on the municipalities by an order emanating from the central power, in order to avoid any controversy or ill will.”261

civil administration’s interest in surveying the health of its citizenry, Boyer surmised that there was potential for intervention. He saw the citizenry as being ill-prepared to cope with the economic and social changes of the time, and he thought that it was the government’s obligation to intervene. He wrote: “Le premier rôle dans l’hygiène ainsi définie appartient aux pouvoirs publics. Sans leur concours immédiat: concours moral, financier, concours pénal dans certains cas, nulle réforme ne saurait aboutir.” Boyer, Conditions hygiéniques, i–ii. 258 Boyer, Conditions hygiéniques, 136. 259 As there are no records showing women as patrons, one can assume that it (a) occurred infrequently and (b) did not rise to a level of concern among the authorities. Furthermore, while the French authorities addressed concerns of pederasty and homosexuality, which I will address briefly in Chapter Three, they were not particularly concerned by these issues. 260 Particularly, he noted the utility of hospitals when it came to consolidated care. In Corbin’s assessment of Parent- Duchâtelet, the doctor was more concerned with illegal prostitution than with preventing the public’s engagement with sex workers, and he viewed the quartier réservé in 1830s Paris as a failure. Instead, the establishment of centralized medical clinics for sex worker health inspections allowed for the constant surveillance of the workers, something that the centralizing of brothels could not quite accomplish. Corbin, Women for Hire, 10–12. 261 Boyer, Conditions hygiéniques, 169.

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Boyer linked his hygienic approach to prostitution as part of a civilizing project bringing modern healthcare to the Levant. As such, he called for the expansion of sanitory inspectors’ powers. He reserved moral condemnation for those who refused to embrace the progress made in medicine and those who embraced the regressive customs that inhibit Beirut from entering the modern era.262 By implication, to be modern was to accept the presence of regulated commercial sex as part of the fabric of society. Therefore, in his argument to maintain municipal regulation,

Boyer extolled the benefits that such a prophylaxis as containment would have for native Syrian society. As such, it was the responsibility of the state to mitigate the negative health consequences presented by sex work, as indigenous ignorance of proper hygiene would prevent disease from being adequately contained.263 Confinement demonstrated an acceptable measure, which for Boyer meant having women live in maisons de tolérance and submit to regular examinations in specialized hospitals. It delineated the sphere of commercial sex from the rest of the social order.

Conditions hygiéniques’ longest-lasting interventions included the reinstatement of specialized treatment facilities for venereal disease and the isolation of sex workers from the rest of the population. Even Boyer’s recommendation for unannounced visits to maisons de tolérance came to fruition. Decree 188 of 1920, referenced at the beginning of this chapter, required that

“the doctor responsible for the visit of the prostitutes shall, at least once a month, ensure

262 Like others engaged in the civilizing mission of the Levant, he argued that local customs should be treated as regressive and he prioritized the eradication of “superstitious” and harmful practices that impeded medical progress. Without irony, Boyer stated that he was going to abstain from passing judgment on the Syrian “barbaric customs.” Boyer, Conditions hygiéniques, 163. He did not see members of the public as being able to manage the transition themselves, and it was incumbent upon the authorities to dictate changes in the name of public hygiene: “The mass of the population is resistant to the transformation imposed upon it; it does not understand its importance and considers them most often as intolerable aggravations. The large public of Syria is not yet ready to appreciate all these improvements, which are generally very expensive, and which it considers as luxuries” (ii). 263 Levine demonstrates that, in India in the 1890s, those invested in maintaining regulation espoused the benefits to the local population and that native customs allowed venereal disease to propagate. Levine, Prostitution, Race and Politics, 102–103.

94 unexpected visits” in addition to the regular visits, which occurred two times a week. As Boyer strongly recommended, the treatment of disease ceased to be in the home, at least for sex workers, and the centralization of service through hospitalization came into effect. This was done in the interest of public health, that is, the task that Boyer was charged with advocating on behalf of the Ottoman state and that was carried out by the French administration when the Mandate came into effect.264 Boyer himself said: “If I can contribute, for a modest part, to this magnificent result, my ambition will be satisfied.”265

The Commission of Medical Reports with the Same Old Message under the New Regime

By time that the first Annuaire médical was published in 1921, Boyer’s recommendation for the stringent medical examination of a quartier réservé had become a reality. The swelling of the

French military presence in the region in the 1920s coincided with an outbreak of syphilis. This provided legitimization for state intervention regulating sex work in the name of public health, though Boyer, having died in 1897, would not be alive to see his work bear fruit. Greater

Lebanon, which was declared in 1920 and was the precursor to the modern nation-state of

Lebanon, began to produce the Annuaire médical, which catalogued the Levantine country’s medical system and covered the periods 1921–1924 and 1925–1928. While not a lot is known regarding the production of the texts, the newly created Ministry of Hygiene and Public

Assistance published the documents with the intended purpose of educating the Lebanese public

264 Blecher argues that Boyer saw himself “as an urban citizen who sought to cooperate with the sovereign Ottoman authorities.” Yet, did he see himself as a citizen of France or of the Levant? Blecher articulates that there is ambiguity in Boyer’s positioning, as he allied himself with the French medical establishment, while, at the same time, he “imagines himself a part of a population that has suffered the ravages of epidemic disease.” Blecher, “The Medicalization of Sovereignty,” 67–68. Due to Boyer’s condescension toward local hygiene practices, one can assume that he saw himself as possessing colonial superiority, which set him apart from the ignorant population. 265 Boyer, Conditions hygiéniques, ii. On the following page, Boyer goes on to state, in a paternalistic tone, that the Ottoman administration had the best interest of their population at heart and that “they cannot be blamed for having executed what they considered a good.” In his words, the knowledge of French hygienists and scientists would ultimately generate healthcare improvements for everyone.

95 and foreigners about the services that had been rendered by the Lebanese state since the inception of the ministry. 266 It showcased the medical advances that were made in the region under the French. Whereas Boyer’s Conditions hygiéniques was a treatise on “what to do,” the

Annuaire médical was a treatise on “what has been done.” It reflects the increasing institutionalization of the Levantine medical community and conveyed the state’s ability to harness scientific knowledge at the expense of sex workers.

The Annuaire médical, with each of its two volumes being approximately one hundred pages long, is similar to Conditions hygiéniques in many ways. It contained sections on the region’s climatology and general physical characteristics in addition to the region’s morbidity rates. The texts utilized statistics to highlight trends in mortality and in the spread of contagious diseases. Yet there are key differences in their composition and in their underlying messages.

Boyer’s text provided an elaborate account of the hygiene and habits of the population in order to advance his recommendations on how the state can improve its citizenry’s health. The Annuaire médical was less interested in those details and instead stressed the infrastructural landscape of

Lebanon. In effect, it demonstrated France’s successes in expanding and improving upon the structures that they had inherited from the Ottomans. The preface to the second volume, which covers the period 1925–1928, underscored this point, inasmuch as the phrases “before 1918” and

“since 1918” served to establish the historical timeline.267 The preface depicted the miserable

266 Dr. Joseph Mandour, “Preface,” Annuaire médical 1921–1924, 1–2. 1SL/250/68. Centre des Archives diplomatiques de Nantes (CADN), Nantes, France (henceforth referred to as AM 1921–1924). The limited amount of information on the Annuaire médical is due to the scant details provided within the texts themselves. The title page on the first edition states that it was published by the Ministry of Hygiene and Public Assistance, which was established after World War I with the support of the French. Dr. Joseph Mandour was the director of the Ministry. In the preface to the first edition, Mandour states: “It is necessary that all, rich and poor, know the extent of what has been done, in order to bring their moral help to the immense task still to be accomplished.” He acknowledged the work of Dr. R. Tyan, the head doctor of the contagious disease hospital in Beirut, in compiling the information detailed in the report. 267 This demarcation is explicitly made in the second volume, which covers the period 1925–1928. AM 1925–1928, 1–4. In the initial bulletin of 1921–1924, these contrasts were imbedded in the text. AM 1921–1924, 1–2.

96 state of public hygiene in the region when the French troops arrived. Furthermore, the preface to the first volume, written on February 5, 1925, by Dr. Joseph Mandour, Director of Hygiene and

Public Assistance for the State of Greater Lebanon, related that “[i]t is to France and its good deeds that this country owes its rapid recovery. It is also to it [France] that it [Greater Lebanon] owes the beginnings of our organization of hygiene and public assistance.”268 By this characterization, while Boyer used his French training to recommend improvements in the administration of public health, Lebanese officials in the Annuaire médical blamed Ottoman ineptitude as the barrier to implementing public health reform. The direct authority of the French allowed the centralization that Boyer espoused to finally come into being.269

Both the administrative apparatus and the “brick and mortar” institutions constituted the subject material discussed in the Annuaire médical. With regard to the former, one aspect of the administrative structure highlighted at the outset of the issue published in 1925 was the instrumental role played in the French health establishment by Henri-Élysée-Daniel Escher, the médecin-major (chief medical officer) of the French forces: “He is owed much gratitude from the country [Greater Lebanon] for the distinguished services he has rendered and we hope that he

268 AM 1921–1924, 1. 269 Mandour stated that the former regime, which by inference must be the Ottomans, did not leave in place an effective public health system or education system. This claim supported the case for French intervention in the region, situating it as a positive step in the bringing of medical improvements to Levantine residents. The claims of European advancement in medicine compared to those of other regions has generally been refuted by scholars. Of particular relevance here is Michael Dools’s “Medicine in Sixteenth-Century Egypt,” in Transfer of Modern Science and Technology to the Muslim World: Proceedings of the International Symposium on “Modern Sciences and the Muslim World,” ed. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoğlu (Istanbul: Research Centre for Islamic History, Art, and Culture, 1992), 213–219. He argues that sixteenth-century medical practitioners in Egypt were aware of the medical remedies used in Renaissance Europe, including those for syphilis. Sherry Sayed Gadelrab argues that too much credence has been given to European, primarily French, medical accounts of the Middle East. The legacy of relying on these accounts has been the characterization of medicine under the Ottomans as being barbaric, disorganized, and primitive. See Sherry Sayed Gadelrab, “Medical Healers in Ottoman Egypt, 1517–1805,” Medical History 54, no. 3 (2010): 365. French officials and doctors often spoke about the local authorities’ “ineptitude” when it came to controlling venereal disease, and especially mentioned their “inability” to adequately surveil clandestine prostitutes. Dr. Henri Escher, who will be discussed here briefly, was one of the individuals to make this claim.

97 will be able to continue for a long time.”270 The text extolled his specialties in dermatology and venereology, which were his areas of expertise until his death on January 5, 1958, in Beirut.271

As Escher occupied a critical role in how medical surveillance of sex workers that evolved in the

Levant under the French, it is important to take a moment to discuss his work in more depth. I will return to him again in the following chapter. Recruited by the colonial state due to his expertise in venereal disease as a doctor in France, he rose to prominence in the Levant as a vocal advocate for the metropole’s position on the medical regulation of sex work as a means of safeguarding public hygiene.

Escher was appointed by the Lebanese government as a technical advisor on July 6, 1923, but his career—and his relationship with the French state—began after he was accepted into the

École du service de santé militaire of Lyon back in 1897.272 Finishing in 1900 with a doctorate in medicine, Escher rose through the ranks of the medical division of the military. During the Great

War, Escher served as an officer until the armistice in November of 1918. While stationed on the

Rhine, Escher served as the head of the French army’s Center for Dermatovenereology.273 The

French government recognized his contributions to ambulatory care, due to his organization of a large antivenereal disease campaign in the area.274 He subsequently founded a clinic in Mainz to

270 AM 1921–1924, 1. 271 According to the obituary written about Escher in the 1957–1958 Annual Report of American University of Beirut’s Faculty of Medical Sciences, “he had his regular medical library hours almost to the end of his life” and “[o]n his last admission to the American University Hospital, and just before his death on January 5, 1958, he had with him the new edition of Degos’ book on Dermatology.” Hrant T. Chaglassian, “In Memorium-Annual Report- Daniel Henri Elysse Escher 1877–1958,” in Annual Report 1957–1958 Faculty of Medical Sciences-The American University of Beirut, Archives of the American University of Beirut (AAUB). Beirut, Lebanon. 272 AM 1921–1924, 16. Lyon and the Levant had commercial ties that originated in the textile trade in the 1800s, making it unsurprising that French colonizers came from this city. See Kais Firro, “Silk and Agrarian Changes in Lebanon, 1860–1914,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 22, no. 2 (1990): 151–169. Escher’s credentials are important because they demonstrate that he held a key role in justifying France’s policy toward regulation in the Levant on medical grounds. 273 Dermatovenereology is a specialization in dermatology that focuses on the study of sexually transmitted diseases that give rise to skin diseases, such as syphilis, gonorrhea, and herpes. 274 Alexandre Lasnet, “Les Œuvres françaises de médecine en Rhénanie,” Revue d’hygiène 46 (1924): 18. Lasnet served as Inspector-General of Public Health Services for the French colonies. He also published a book in 1893 on

98 treat syphilis, and his efforts served as a model for those wanting to establish clinics to treat syphilis and related diseases.275 This work gave him the experience and the credentials that he needed later, upon his arrival in the Levant, to become considered a medical expert on venereal disease. In fact, he was called to the Levant for the express purpose of being the colonial military’s chief spokesperson on the issue of venereal disease.

Hired in 1923 to be a co-director of the newly formed Ministry of Hygiene and Public

Assistance, Escher was influential when it came to the regulation of sex work and the control of venereal disease.276 While listed in official documents as the technical advisor for the Ministry, in a 1923 letter Escher signed off, not coincidentally, as the head physician of the (unspecified)

Center for Dermatovenereology.277 In the same correspondence, another person lists Escher as the “Chief of Venerology Services of the Army of the Levant.”278 In whichever capacity he served (and sometimes he occupied more than one role at a time), he advocated regulating sex

venereal disease, perhaps indicating an interest in the French in placing doctors with knowledge of venereal disease in their colonial administration. Escher received many honors from both the French and Lebanese governments, including the “Officier de la Légion d’Honneur.” Hrant T. Chaglassian, “In Memorium-Annual Report-Daniel Henri Elysse Escher 1877–1958,” in Annual Report-1957–1958, Faculty of Medical Sciences—The American University of Beirut, AAUB. Beirut, Lebanon. 275 Ibid., 22–23. 276 According to an organizational chart in the Annuaire médical, the Minister of Hygiene and Public Assistance served alongside the technical advisor in overseeing the Lebanese Ministry of Health Services. AM 1925–1928, 54. Elias Khoury states that when the state of Greater Lebanon was declared in 1920 and the Ministry of Hygiene and Public Assistance was created, the health administration was headed by a Lebanese doctor (at the time of its inception, this was Yousef Mandour) and a French advisor. Elias Khoury, The Organization of Public Health in Lebanon (Beirut: N. P., 1949), 10. 277 Rapport du médecin-major de 1e classe Escher sur les accidents de gandrene [sic] gazeuses survenus à la suite d’injections de lait, à l’Hôpital de Damas. June 4, 1923. GR9NN/1078. DSS. ASHD. Vincennes, France. The relevance of this incident will be discussed in Chapter Three. The connection with the model that Escher developed in the Rhine and the Levant was noted elsewhere as well. Gougerot states: “You remember the remarkable results obtained in the antivenereal fight in Rhineland by our colleague [Escher]. He is pursuing with the same dedication the same effort in Syria.” Henri Gougerot, “Correspondence,” in Bulletin mensuel Societé francaise de prophylaxie sanitaire et moral, February 1925, 20. Escher wrote the manual Organisation de la lutte antivénérienne for the Levantine state in 1940. In it, he stated that the model for the carnet de traitement was a method of medical surveillance adopted by the Army of the Rhine and the Levantine troops in 1923. Le Médecin Colonel Escher, Organisation de la lutte antivénérienne (Beirut: Imprimerie Ohannessian, 1940), 33. While this method might have been revised, the obligation to carry a medical card was in effect under Decree 188, Article 77, which was signed in 1920. 278 Rapport du médecin inspecteur Emily sur une série d’accidents, dus a des injections sous cutanées de lait, pratiquées à l’hôpital militaire de Damas. June 2, 1923. GR9NN/1078. DSS. ASHD. Vincennes, France.

99 workers in the name of public health.279 Professor Henri Gougerot, as Secretary-General of the

French Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, stated that it was Escher’s suggestions and recommendations that prompted the passing of the 1924 decree in Lebanon regulating sex work.280 According to Gougerot, “this decree makes the distinction between so-called ‘docile’ prostitutes who can choose their doctor and who have no contact with the police or even with the administrative doctors (they are, with respect to their doctor, as an ordinary client) and prostitutes, called ‘disobedient’ [clandestine], who undergo the rigors of regulation.”281 Noting

Escher’s contribution to the fight against venereal disease, Gougerot’s review of the Annuaire

279 Escher held overlapping appointments with the French colonial military (from which he retired as colonel in 1936), was a professor at Syrian Protestant College (renamed AUB in 1920 but some documents still referred to it by its former name) and St. Joseph, was Chief Medical Officer of the French Army Hospital, was an advisor to the Lebanese Ministry of Health Services and the municipality of Beirut, and was a delegate of the French Red Cross to Lebanon. Hrant T. Chaglassian, “In Memorium-Annual Report-Daniel Henri Elysse Escher 1877–1958,” in Annual Report-1957–1958, Faculty of Medical Sciences—The American University of Beirut, AAUB. Beirut, Lebanon. 280 Henri Gougerot, “Correspondance,” in Bulletin de la Société française de prophylaxie sanitaire et morale, July 1925, 80–81. Gougerot was referring to Arrêté 2346 portant la réglementation de la prostitution that was enacted in March 1924, according to the Annuaire médical. While Cyrus Schayegh states that this act was from July 21, 1922, it was actually signed by the director of the health administration, Yousef Mandour, in addition to the governor of Greater Lebanon, Mr. Aubouard, and the Secretary-General of the League, Auguste Adib, on March 11, 1924. See Cyrus Schayegh, “The Many Worlds of ‘Abud Yasin; or, What Narcotics Trafficking in the Interwar Middle East Can Tell Us about Territorialization,” American Historical Review 116, no. 2 (2011): 287. The 1925–1928 edition of the Annuaire médical provides some detail on the regulation, affirming its effective date as March 11, 1924. It stated that the medical inspection of sex workers was obligatory twice a week. AM 1925–1928, 121. In addition, a copy of the regulation can be found in the diplomatic archives in Nantes. Arrêté No. 2346 portant réglementation de la prostitution. Beirut, March 11, 1924. 1SL/1/V/1441. CADN. Nantes, France. Gougerot provided insight on this regulation in regards to Escher’s work: “I pointed out to you the efforts which he [Escher] had made in this region against syphilis; in particular, I pointed out to you the adoption of neoregulationism, conforming our [French] system of giving prostitutes of ‘good will’ the advantages of abolitionism. These prostitutes have contact only with the doctor and do not see policemen or agents of the vice squad. They go to the doctor like any patient goes to his doctor for bronchitis. But the obligation of the visit remains; in the event that these persons do not want to submit themselves voluntarily, they could be compelled to do so.” The Annuaire médical 1925–1928 does not provide any details on this distinction, though it does state that “freedom is given to free prostitutes to choose, for the medical visit, one of the appointed sworn doctors.” AM 1925–1928, 121. Henri Gougerot served as a professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Paris and published voluminously on venereal disease. He, like Escher, also served as a French military officer during the Great War and briefly as the head of the Center for Dermatovenereology. See Henri Gougerot, Titres et travaux scientifiques de Henri Gougerot (Paris: Masson et Cie., 1928). 281 Gougerot, “Correspondance,” 20. According to Corbin, the neoregulationist movement came about as a result of doctors trying to save medical surveillance in the era of mounting criticism of the French system. See Corbin, Women for Hire, 246.

100 médical 1921–1924 referred to him as a distinguished colleague who “continues the same calling

[fighting against venereal disease] in Greater Lebanon.”282

It is important to note here that Escher’s neoregulatory stance positioned him as the chief defender of colonial policy in the face of mounting public opposition, which is a point that I will further elaborate upon in Chapter Three. Escher’s crusade earned him appointments at the two prominent medical schools in Beirut, namely, St. Joseph University and Syrian Protestant

College (renamed the American University of Beirut [AUB] in 1920).283 His capacity as a military officer and academic ensured his prominent and lasting contribution to medical surveillance throughout the French Mandate period. This contribution included the government’s tracking of sex work and venereal disease through the Ministry of Health. For example, Escher helped to organize and put on the first training conference for members of the Beirut medical community at St. Joseph University. The conference courses “treated syphilis in general and from a statistical point of view” to provide the medical establishment information on the dangers of venereal disease.284 As a government official training the medical community, his message served to buttress the Ministry’s claims on the threats that the disease posed. He illuminated the bureaucracy’s response through the strategic use of numbers and charts to articulate the position that the public health response must comprise containment policies that prevent the spread of

282 Gougerot, “Correspondance,” 80. 283 According to his obituary, he served as Professor of Dermatology and Venereal Disease at the AUB (formerly Syrian Protestant College) from 1927 to 1947, after which he became an emeritus professor. He simultaneously served as an adjunct professor at the French Faculté de medécine from 1936 to 1953 and as an honorary professor thereafter. The author of the obituary, Hrant T. Chaglassian of the AUB’s Medical School, characterized Escher as “render[ing] innumerable services to the American University of Beirut and to everyone connected with the university during the period of the French Mandate. He was the unofficial Liaison Officer between the university and the Mandatory power, and respected by all.” Hrant T. Chaglassian, “In Memorium-Annual Report-Daniel Henri Elysse Escher 1877–1958,” in Annual Report-1957–1958, Faculty of Medical Sciences—The American University of Beirut, AAUB. Beirut, Lebanon. 284 AM 1921–1924, 66.

101 disease to the general population. And part of the solution relied on the perceived conduit of contagion—that is, unregulated sex workers.285

Showcasing the medical system’s expansion is one method used in the Annuaire médical to solidify the state’s claims of effectively protecting the public against disease. Statistics were useful for presenting this success story. In response to the increased number of venereal disease cases, through its Ministry of Hygiene and Public Assistance the state showed precisely how it was addressing the crisis.286 For example, the Institute of Bacteriology’s screening for syphilis showed a marked increase in the use of testing. Through the government’s collaboration with the

French Faculty of Medicine at St. Joseph, treatment and prevention of venereal disease increased. From 1919 to 1924, the annual total number of syphilis tests went from 138 to 643, a nearly sixfold increase. Not only was the demand for screening apparent, but the results legitimized the existence of screenings: the rate of positive cases was 25.2 percent.287 These tests were mandatory for all registered sex workers, maison de tolérance managers, and all maison personnel. The scope of mandatory medical inspections extended beyond the confines of those explicitly engaging in the business of prostitution to include those suspected of operating clandestinely as such, incorporating dancers, singers, musicians, and anyone detained by the

285 In fact, charts and statistics used in the Annuaire médical are seen in the internal correspondence of the French administration in the Levant. 286 For example, a report by the High Commission, La Lutte antivénérienne dans les États du Levant sous mandat français, articulates the effectiveness of diagnostics in the fight against venereal disease, which was, of course, due to French intervention. Each “antivenereal dispensary . . . is entrusted to specialist physicians who systematically send to the state laboratories all bacteriological and biological tests. The practice of Wassermann reactions is widespread, making it possible to submit for intensified treatment girls [sex workers] with characteristic active manifestations and to maintain the treatment of those without apparent manifestations, who present a positive reaction . . . the table of the activities of the antivenereal dispensary of Beirut during the first four years of occupation . . . is the best argument.” Haut-Commissariat de la République française en Syrie et au Liban, La Lutte antivénérienne dans les États du Levant sous mandat français, N. D. GR9NN/1078. DSS. ASHD. Vincennes, France. The table embedded in the report was the exact one that was used on page 64 of the Annuaire médical 1921– 1924 in addition to the exact language: “La pratique des réactions de Wassermann . . . permettant de soumettre au traitement intensif les filles atteintes de manifestions actives caractérisées et au traitement d’entretien celles qui sans manifestions apparentes, présentent une réaction positive.” 287 AM 1921–1924, 28.

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Beirut Police Department, the police des mœurs (literally, “morals police” or loosely translated as “vice squad”), on suspicion of engaging in illegal sex work, which I will examine in more detail in Chapter Three.288 Subsequently, during the period 1925–1928, the rate of cases testing positive for syphilis increased to 28 percent.289 Yet, even considering the increased presence of venereal disease among its population under municipal regulation, the government defended its process of medical surveillance of sex workers. The authorities employed, in their opinion, an effective strategy of disease containment. As the report states, screenings of filles soumises

(registered sex workers) occurred at a frequency that was rather efficient at detecting contagions.290 If their containment strategy, which was examined for over a period of almost a decade in the charts displayed in the two editions of the Annuaire médical, was successful, it left unanswered why the number of diagnosed infections increased, albeit slightly.291

The treatment and physical containment of those diagnosed with venereal disease concerned both Boyer in the 1890s and the Lebanese government several decades later in the

1920s. According to the official statistics tracking the number of sex workers in the city of

Beirut, their number doubled between these two decades. It is worth noting that the 1921–1924 volume of the Annuaire médical cited Boyer’s text almost verbatim when describing the situation in the city in 1893.292 Lebanese officials contrasted the situation in Boyer’s time to the contemporary situation, and concluded that the dramatic increase in sex workers necessitated a corresponding increase in the amount of surveillance by police and public health officials.

288 Per Decree 188, Title VI, Articles 75, 78, 82, 84, and 85. 289 AM 1921–1924, 28. 290 AM 1925–1928, 77. 291 As will be seen in Chapter Three, Escher blamed clandestine sex workers for the inability of the authorities to contain venereal disease and remained unreflexive about his neoregulationist stance. 292 Boyer’s text stated: “D’après l’enquête officielle faite en 1893, on a compté environ 200 à 225 femmes publiques, loges dans environ quarante maisons.” Boyer, Conditions hygiéniques, 134. This statement is taken from the Annuaire médical, which reads: “D’après l’enquête officielle faite en 1893, à Beyrouth, environ 200 femmes publique, loges dans une quarantaine de maisons.” AM 1921–1924, 63.

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Mockingly, the report stated that “public women . . . occupy a whole district, in the very center of the city. Several streets access this area, so that it hardly deserves the name of ‘quartier réservé.’”293 Even with tightening surveillance of the red-light district, venereal disease flourished. Clandestine activities, not the colonial policy or the patrons of the sex workers, became the focal point of blame for officials. The strategy of containment meant increasing control though the use of medical facilities and better enforcement mechanisms.

As noted above, Boyer lamented the closure of a treatment facility that was specifically dedicated to treating venereal disease and strongly recommended that remain open. The

Annuaire médical made a point of situating the current French administration apart from the prior Ottoman administration. It noted that the facility designated under the French for venereal disease treatment “belonged to the Turks and without any special assignment” when it was constructed twenty years earlier. The French found a purpose for the space, wanting the Hôpital des Sablons to be “intended exclusively for the treatment of venereal disease [that] can hospitalize . . . public girls.” Moreover, the facility’s location evinces the realization of Boyer’s strategy of isolation and containment. Government authorities situated the hospital in a

“neighborhood . . . constituted by houses isolated from each other by empty spaces; the density of the neighborhood is low and the hygienic conditions of the neighborhood perfect.”294

The nascent Lebanese Ministry of Hygiene and Public Assistance used official documents like the Annuaire médical to convey health policy priorities worthy of the public’s support.

These official reports on the medical condition of Lebanon framed public policy as investing in the population’s welfare through medicine, which necessitated the republic’s increased and

293 AM 1921–1924, 63. 294 Ibid., 35.

104 continuous financial support.295 As one example of such framing, the 1925–1928 Annuaire médical highlighted the expansion of medical services to treat venereal disease, such as the opening of the Beirut polyclinic in July 1925. The Ministry framed this initiative as an answer to a demand for health services in impoverished areas. The clinic provided 96 health screenings in

1925, which rose to 947 in 1928.296 Within that three-year period, the use of syphilis screenings increased eightfold. Using charts to illustrate the widespread use of screenings, the Annuaire médical underscored the necessity of the provision of this public health service. Any acknowledged failures in the colonial state’s policy were framed in such a way that the policies did not go far enough. Instead, further strengthening of surveillance was always deemed to be in order. For example, the high occurrence of gonorrhea (46 out of 100 tests submitted tested positive) and syphilis from 1925 to 1928 meant that Decree 2346, “Règlementation de la prostitution” passed in 1924, proved “slightly insufficient to ensure the antivenereal struggle;

[therefore] an additive draft bill was drawn up by a technical committee” to address the gaps.297

For the colonial government, this meant generating more regulations that further constrained sex workers’ autonomy rather than recognizing the failures of medical surveillance in reducing the number of cases of venereal disease.

In fact, visits of sex workers to the Beirut dispensaries and the subsequent diagnosis of venereal disease did not indicate a correlation between mandatory health checks and the effective containment of illness. The number of registered women required to undergo examinations did not vary dramatically from 1925 to 1928. In fact, these bookend years in the above report reveal

295 The authors noted that the Ministry of Hygiene and Public Assistance in the state of Greater Lebanon was able to accomplish a sufficient amount with a relatively low budget when compared with the health ministries of other countries. See AM 1925–1928, 95. 296 AM 1925–1928, 113. 297 Ibid., 121. I will address the changes to the regulation of sex work in response to such “inadequacies” in Chapter Three.

105 the same number of registered prostitutes: 170.298 While the number of cases of syphilitic cankers increased from 56 to 98, the number peaked in 1926 with 122 cases and plummeted to

29 the following year. In addition, rates of gonorrhea oscillated among the same population between 267 and 193 over the three-year period. If anything can be concluded from this data, it is that screening registered sex workers did not consistently reduce the number of cases of venereal disease. But still the medical authorities insisted that the numbers would diminish only through additional reforms controlling the activities—and hence the bodies—of sex workers.299

And the state did impose new regulations. We can see this from the fact that the initial healthcare regulation that pertained to sex work, Decree 188, stated that “public houses” may be “found or not in a reserved quarter.” Yet, eleven years later, the amended regulation eventually became a law, which stated that “women who are subjected to medical examination by an ordinance of the special committee and who practice prostitution in an open way are obliged to live within the limits of the reserved quarter.” In addition, the Lebanese Governor Charles Debbas (under the watchful eye of the High Commissioner’s Office) gave doctors increasing control over sex workers. As Article 32 of the updated 1931 law stated, “it is the obligation of physicians

298 Ibid., 122. 299 The report acknowledges that there was a fluctuation in the numbers. The monthly average of the biweekly medical visits ranged from 225 to 325, and the number of illness varied from 15 to 110 over the same period. Yet even in this acknowledgment, the concluding statement emphasized the threat: of the 2,457 exams submitted for bacteria screening, 46 percent tested positive for a bacterium that causes gonorrhea. AM 1925–1928, 121. Gonorrhea is considered to be a “hidden disease” in women; this is why the results of these tests were released in order to convince the public and the medical establishment of the need for such exams. Yet such results were misleading, since it was only the screenings sent to the lab that were used. Based on loose calculations for registered prostitutes alone, there would have been approximately 17,680 medical visits in only one year or over 70,000 visits for the period under consideration. Therefore, approximately 983 positive cases of gonorrhea are diminished when compared with the overall number of medical visits demanded of prostitutes. This is an extremely general calculation of the number of registered prostitutes seen in a year multiplied by two visits per week, which is obviously not an exact number. But it is useful for the purpose of illustrating the manipulation of statistics to generate a reaction. Even if the rough calculations were reduced by three-quarters, the cases of gonorrhea would only constitute less than 6 percent of the visits from registered prostitutes. As will be seen in Chapter Three, the control did increase as new regulations came into effect in the form of a law in 1931 under Charles Debbas, the first .

106 commissioned to control venereal diseases and to take whatever measure they see fit and necessary to safeguard public health.”300 I will look at the details of these legal modifications in

Chapter Three.

Conditions hygiéniques and the Annuaire médical contained similar approaches to controlling prostitution. They promoted the use of surveys and data collection to track the population. They produced recommendations based on perceived best medical practices of the time, use pedigreed medico-administrative professionals to administer the state’s programs, and recommended an infrastructure to accommodate these programs.301 The underlying message of these texts was that sex workers were the source of disease. And they promoted the view that the state can only protect its population through monitoring them.302 As we will see, the emerging new social scientific field of sociology inserted itself into this debate, articulating a new understanding of commercial sex and disease that did not rely on medicine to examine the phenomenon.303 Stuart Dodd, a sociology professor at the AUB, shifted the focus from the urban environments, which preoccupied authorities and doctors in the above-mentioned reports, to the

300 Loi portant règlementation de la prostitution, Beirut, February 6, 1931. 1SL/1/V/875. CADN. Nantes, France. 301 Medical doctors occasionally diverged from the strict medicalization of women to create a more holistic approach to the person. But these doctors were clearly in the minority, which proves that Dr. Léon Bizard (1872–1942) was a rather exceptional person. Not only was he active in providing narratives of disenfranchised women, he was also a prolific author and published a great deal on this issue. Bizard provided an alternative male perspective on female marginalization that must be considered, yet his writings are one of the few examples that exist that take anything close to a subaltern approach to the matter. The British abolitionist paper The Shield, which began its circulation in the mid-1800s, also provided “firsthand” accounts of women involved in commercial sex. This publication was for the abolition of legalized prostitution; therefore, the accounts only point to the “horrors” of the profession. 302 Here I find James Scott’s Seeing Like a State very useful. In modern statecraft, society and environment were manipulated to fit into “maps of legibility” that did not reflect actual societal activity but only the sliver that interested the official observer, having the effect of enabling “the reality they depicted to be remade.” James Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), 3. The French colonial government, and by extension the nascent Levantine one, used metrics as a “map” to characterize commercial sex and reformulate it according to those projections. Therefore, if the numbers of venereal disease increased, more governmental intrusion was demanded to bring the “sliver” into acceptable margins. That “sliver” could be the sex workers themselves or venereal disease, depending on what the official observer was surveilling. 303 Sociologists were forerunners when it came to the survey-oriented approach. Although Pierre Guillaume Frédéric Le Play (1806–1882) was an engineer at the École des mines in France, he spent several decades surveying socioeconomic conditions of working-class families in the mid-1800s and became known thereafter as a sociologist.

107 rural regions of the Alawite state. His work is important because it shows that academics in other fields found the commercial sex trade a worthy subject of inquiry and because his conclusions validated the colonial government’s contention that sex work was primarily an urban phenomenon.

Assessing the Risk of Social Contagion in a Rural Context

Sociologists began to provide their expertise on sex work in the late nineteenth century in response to the challenges of modernity, including the perceived breakdown of traditional norms and customs.304 They sought to explore possible solutions to the breakdown of social order and how to comprehend it by considering people’s changing environments.305 Most of the initial studies that were produced investigated the origins of sex workers and what led them to their career path. Parent-Duchâtelet, whose work was discussed in some detail above, is considered to be a forerunner of this discipline and to be a practitioner of what is referred to as “empiricist sociology.”306 His research proved to be highly influential in establishing the field’s prevailing discourse later on in the century. As Corbin states regarding Parent-Duchâtelet, “the analysis of the causes and the description of the itinerary that leads to prostitution clearly show the presuppositions of the regulationist discourse . . . Parent-Duchâtelet’s portrait of the prostitute was repeated so often . . . distorting the vision of later researchers . . . the catalogue of qualities

304 A text from 1792, published several decades before De la prostitution dans la ville de Paris, addressed the social anxieties of modernity causing the degradation of the family vis-à-vis prostitution: “In the present enlightened age, mankind has made considerable advances in different kinds of moral improvement . . . liberty has gained great advantages . . . [yet] leading the vices of the present age, and of that have the most extensive influence on society, are a loosening of principle, a rage for sensual pleasure, and a contempt for marriage; these introduce prostitution and adultery, with all of their train of woes.” The Evils of Adultery and Prostitution: With an Inquiry into the Causes of Their Present Alarming Increase, and Some Means Recommended for Checking Their Progress (London: Printed for T. Vernor, 1792), iii–iv. 305 As the discipline of sociology did not emerge until the late-1800s, the methods employed by Parent-Duchâtelet place him de facto within this genre. Like his contemporary Auguste Compte, who first coined the term “sociology” in 1838, Parent-Duchâtelet was highly influenced by Enlightenment thinking. Parent-Duchâtelet believed, also like Compte, that society should be governed by reliable knowledge and be understood in light of scientific knowledge. 306 Corbin, Women for Hire, 13.

108 that the regulationists were unanimously to attribute to prostitutes was drawn up in virtually definitive form by Parent-Duchâtelet.”307 He represented sex workers as being different from respectable citizens and, as Corbin states, “the existence of this compartmentalization helps to exorcise the anxiety aroused by the risk of social contagion.”308

Like De la prostitution dans la ville de Paris, studies produced by the new field of sociology served to problematize sex work as a social phenomenon. Attempting to provide another type of methodical, scientific context for the portrayal of commercial sex, these texts addressed the risks posed by sex work, placing what scholars determined to be deviant and contagious practices in a category apart from reputable society.309 Sometimes, this included delineating the boundaries where commercial sex occurred. Professor Stuart Carter Dodd (1900–

1975), an associate professor of sociology at the AUB, carried out an extensive survey of the

Lebanese rural landscape of the Alawite state.310 Like Parent-Duchâtelet, Dodd employed quantitative analysis and questionnaires to draw conclusions. Whereas prior studies focused on the densely populated areas, Dodd’s study focused on the countryside.311 Published in 1934,

307 Ibid., 6–9. 308 Ibid., 6. 309 Kingsley Davis, a sociologist and a contemporary of Dodd’s at Pennsylvania State College, put it this way: “Women are either part of the family system, or they are definitely not a part of it. In the latter case, they are prostitutes, members of a caste set apart.” He argues that, as family systems weaken, the line between respectable women and prostitutes blur as sexual freedoms allow both sexes to seek gratification without monetary compensation. Kingsley Davis, “The Sociology of Prostitution,” American Sociological Review 2, no. 5 (1937): 755. 310 Dodd was born in Turkey, where his father served as a missionary doctor. After obtaining his BS, MA, and PhD from Princeton, he moved to Beirut to head the Social Science Research Section at the AUB from 1927 to 1947. Stuart C. Dodd, Horizons of Thought: The Life and Work of Stuart C. Dodd (Seattle: Stuart C. Dodd Institute for Social Innovation, 2012), ix–x. Dodd produced over seventy publications in sociology during his lifetime. While not always specific to the Middle East, some of his works include Social Relationships in the Near East: A Civics Textbook of Readings and Projects for College Freshmen (1931), “Social Distance Test in the Near East” (1935), and A Pioneer Radio Poll in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine (1943). During his tenure at the AUB, he served on the board of the Civic Welfare League (CWL), an organization that I discuss at some length in Chapter Five, which conducted a limited amount of work with sex workers in Beirut. The organization also worked on preventative measures with regard to sex work, including working with “street boys,” providing recreational activities for young women so they would not remain idle during school recesses, and training working-class women in vocational trades. 311 The majority of the world lived in rural environments during this time period, and the League of Nations Health Office (LNHO) first began concentrating on rural hygiene in 1928. In 1930, the LNHO began issuing reports on

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Dodd’s text, A Controlled Experiment on Rural Hygiene in Syria: A Study in the Measurement of

Rural Patterns and of Social Forces, was used by its author as a demonstration of academic rigor because it had featured the use of quantitative analysis.312 Furthermore, unlike government publications that appealed to a narrow target population, Dodd’s work was aimed at scientists, social workers, health workers, and students.313 Among the 136 questions asked to the rural peasants in seven villages of the Alawite state, four involved tracking commercial prostitution.314

From these interrogations, he concluded that prostitution was “nonexistent” in these areas.

According to Dodd, families residing in shared rooms and the constant supervision of women by family members and neighbors posed barriers to engaging in sexually promiscuous practices.315

This meant that there was little sex work in rural communities and that it posed a negligible

effective methods of medical assistance, organizing health services and sanitation services in rural districts. Borowy, Coming to Terms with World Health, 325–331. 312 Dodd’s own words articulate the need for sociology to be considered a legitimate scientific discipline: “The aim of this study is to contribute to quantitative sociology. A field of study becomes a science when it employs the scientific method. . . . Observation, to be of the rigorous sort demanded by science, must get beyond the state of qualitative concepts and develop quantitative units and instruments of measurement. The present study aims to do this in one little corner of the field of rural sociology—that of hygienic culture patterns of Syria.” Stuart Dodd, A Controlled Experiment on Rural Hygiene in Syria (Beirut: American Press, 1934), vii. 313 “Three types of readers were kept in mind in the presentation of the data of this study . . . the scientific reader who is interested in the techniques and the theory primarily . . . the social worker or health officer who is interested in the practical utility of this scale in working upon hygienic problems . . . [and] the student of local conditions who wants to know more about the life of peasants in Syria.” Dodd, A Controlled Experiment, ix. His work also points to the interconnectedness that will be addressed in his chapter on social and moral concerns, as the study was enabled, in part, by the Near East Foundation and the League. 314 The survey inquired into how many prostitutes existed in the area, where they practiced their trade, whether they charged a fee and, if so, how much, and what “group” (religion or nationality) they belonged to. Dodd, A Controlled Experiment, 257. In the text, Dodd talked about how freely those being interviewed talked about sexual matters: “Masturbation and intercourse by men with female animals was spontaneously admitted by several informants. . . . All the . . . informants talked freely to the doctor or elderly married nurse and spontaneously offered intimate information . . . without any apparent feelings of shame, reluctance, or resentment, such as would be encountered in American farming families” (168). This assertion was also made by a professor of medicine at the University of Constantinople when inquiring about venereal disease: “The people are naïve and talk more or less without interference from the doctor.” Dr. von During, as quoted in Louis Fiaux, La Prostitution “Cloitrée”: Les maisons de femmes autorisées par la Police, devant la Médecine publique, Étude de biologie social (Brussels: Henri Lamertin, 1902), 204. 315 Dodd, A Controlled Experiment, 168. Physical examinations of both sexes were provided in rural communities through Near East Foundation clinics, with only two to three cases of venereal disease having been found where the people had acquired it while in the army or in the emigration process (168–169). In this assertion, it is unclear whether he is stating that this is among the Alawites and Armenians only. In addition, this seems like an impressively low number of venereal disease cases. The Near East Foundation served nine villages regularly and fifteen on an irregular basis, averaging 1,259 persons a month in the Rihanié and Masyaf districts (293).

110 threat to the rural population.316 The implied conclusion that can be drawn from Dodd’s assertion is that the anonymity and lax familial structures that existed in urban settings allowed sex work to occur and therefore allowed disease to flourish.

While Dodd’s work was produced independently of the colonial government, he drew similar conclusions to those produced in internal memos from the High Commissioner’s Office, namely, that the focal point of controlling sex work was the urban milieu. What can be surmised is that the state needed to not spend scarce resources on rural areas because strong kin ties provided sufficient prophylaxis against the spread of venereal disease.317 Such deductions by

Dodd would have satisfied the colonial authorities, as the General Directorate of Health and

Quarantine Services argued for providing medical surveillance in areas only where the French military presided, particularly in port cities like Beirut and Tripoli, especially when it was faced with increasing budgetary constraints in the 1930s.318 The reasons that Dodd gave for the low

316 This conclusion was also made by the League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Issues, as it determined prostitution to be an urban phenomenon and, therefore, that the need for social services in rural communities was unsubstantiated. See Lasnet, “Les Œuvres françaises,” 1–37. Furthermore, according to the Larousse médical illustré, which was produced in 1924, “venereal diseases are frequent mostly in large [urban] centers.” Dr. Gaultier- Boissière and Dr. Burnier, Larousse médical illustré (Paris: Larousse, 1924), 1187. 317 Such assertions are found in League documents as well regarding the surveillance of women in rural areas. One such assertion was that made by the League delegate from Iraq, who said that families should keep a watchful eye over their daughters, so as to prevent sex work from occurring outside the relative anonymity of urbanization. 318 Contagious disease was a pressing concern for states, and academics were addressing its eradication through means of the increasing role of publications, the press, and conferences. There was a concerted effort not only to publish scientific articles on disease but also to reach the public on their prevention and treatment. International legal conventions and informational conferences became increasingly common in the late nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century. The stress was on prevention in public health and the need to contain disease, in which venereal disease served a role among many other contagions deemed to be a public threat. Venereal disease was just one among the many contagious diseases that raised government and public concern, such cholera and the plague. What set venereal disease apart in the scientific and social research on diseases is the focus on the individual as being accountable for its spread. This was further compounded by the manner in which it was spread. So while discussions on cholera, for instance, focused on its origins, eradication, and treatment, the discussions on venereal diseases treated an individual as a “bad actor” who infected people with different shades of innocence (the gradation, as will be seen goes from the young man, typically a soldier, to the wife who might become infected through her husband, to the child being born to a syphilitic mother). Part of the international effort to eradicate disease came in the form of international legal conventions that placed obligations on governments to provide quarantine services. Specific to venereal disease was the requirement of port cities to provide treatment facilities for merchant seamen, such as the “Agreement respecting Facilities to be given Merchant Seamen for the Treatment of Venereal Diseases” signed in Brussels on December 1, 1924. Due to budgetary pressures, the French Mandatory government argued that cases of venereal disease were congregated in Beirut and, to a lesser extent, in Tripoli, and

111 incidence of sex work in rural areas are not surprising. First, there was the lack of anonymity for both the worker and the patron in small kin-based communities. And second, the lack of demand resulted in the migration of sex workers to the cities. Those who offered services most likely did so on an impermanent basis, only selling their services as financial circumstances dictated.319

Yet, Dodd did not elaborate on these underlying reasons for a scarcity of sex work. He only noted cases of venereal disease as an imported product into the rural environment. Therefore, one can safely surmise that its occurrence did not rise to the level of concern for local and colonial officials.

Due to the limited amount of investigations into rural environments in this period, it is difficult to ascertain whether Dodd’s representation of the situation in the countryside was accurate. Mary Gibson’s book on sex work in from 1860 to 1915 speculates that its rural presence most likely occurred at a higher rate than was recorded. She provides several reasons for this assertion: as residents in small communities, sex workers were more likely to be absorbed into the population and pose a lesser threat to authorities; and systematic registration and surveillance scarcely occurred, as local health offices were uncommon and vice squads were primarily located in urban centers.320 A study produced in 1882, Vénériens des champs et la prostitution à la campagne discusses the rural island of Kythira in Greece, where the author stated that there existed around thirty prostitutes out of a total of five thousand residents.321 The author notes that this area did not have a garrison, which was the usual factor contributing to sex

therefore the colonial administration would concentrate its efforts in urban centers as opposed to rural ones, where venereal disease did not pose a concern. Dodd’s report, though not shown to be written in an attempt to confirm the colonial government’s claims, had the effect of doing as much. 319 In the case of rural prostitution, Corbin arrives at a similar conclusion. He states that it tends to only occur in rural areas where garrisons are located and other areas where single men congregate for employment. See Corbin, Women for Hire, 152–153. 320 Mary Gibson, Prostitution and the State of Italy, 1860–1915 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1986), 87. 321 Dr. Pierre Lardier, Les vénériens des champs et la prostitution à la campagne (Paris: O. Doin, 1882), 5.

112 work in the countryside.322 Yet he also states that “in any case, we do not find girls [who are] really prostitutes in the countryside [as t]hose who are already or are destined to become one soon emigrate to the city without delay, where the clientele is much more remunerative. The girl, accustomed to hard work, has a little-developed carnal appetite.”323 Judgment aside as to whether sex work constituted “easy” labor, the notion that the supply followed the demand is entirely logical. We saw in Chapter One, in the section on the historiography of sex work under the

Ottoman Empire, that such a process did occur.

In more contemporaneous terms, Liat Kozma, concerned with migration patterns of sex workers in the Mediterranean during the , argues that sex workers followed opportunities where they presented themselves in the global economy, not unlike other types of laborers.324 Yet she acknowledges that “[m]issing from this picture are women who migrated from the countryside to the city, sometimes in order to engage in prostitution and sometimes driven to prostitution to provide for parents or children left at home. These women were the majority of prostitutes in the major urban centers of the region—whether Casablanca,

322 A rare study of sex work in the countryside was also carried out in Toul, France, yet this was only done due to the increasing amount of cases of venereal disease in the local garrison. See Corbin, Women for Hire, 148–149. 323 The attribute of laziness among sex workers is often found in the medical literature of this era, beginning with Parent-Duchâtelet and continuing through the next century in League documents on the social causes of prostitution. In fact, what we will see (Chapter Five) in the Levant is the preoccupation of social groups with keeping young women occupied, as idleness was thought to lead to unsavory behavior. Additionally, “feeble-mindedness” is often cited as an attribute of the prostitute. In the paper entitled “Some Causes of Prostitution” read at the 11th Congress of the International Abolitionist Federation on June 10, 1913, the author, Dr. Helen Wilson, used “some hundreds of histories . . . extracted from the cases of feeble-minded women reported by Mrs. Bramwell Booth to the Royal Commission on the Feeble-Minded.” Helen Mary Wilson, On Some Causes of Prostitution; With Special Reference to Economic Conditions: A Paper Read at the Eleventh Congress of the International Abolitionist Federation, Held in Paris, June 9–12, 1913 (London: Association for Moral and Social Hygiene [AMSH], 1916), 3. The eugenics discourse of early feminism has been discussed elsewhere. See, for example, Cecily Margaret Devereux’s Growing a Race: Nellie L. McClung and the Fiction of Eugenic Feminism; and Asha Nadkarni’s Eugenic Feminism: Reproductive Nationalism in the United States and India. I will touch upon this issue as it relates to sex work and the Levant in Chapter Five. 324 Liat Kozma, “Women’s Migration for Prostitution in the Interwar Middle East and North Africa,” Journal of Women’s History 28, no. 3 (2016): 95.

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Alexandria, or Beirut. These migrants, however, left little trace in historical sources.”325 In conclusion, due to a lack of historical record, it is hard to assess the true extent of sex work in rural communities in the Levant in the early twentieth century, but scholarship produced during the period largely contributed to their invisibility by not concerning itself with the subject outside urban centers. Dodd proved to be an exception to this practice, even if he affirmed prevailing assumptions asserted by administrative officials.

Conclusion

All the documents reviewed in this chapter point to the connection between sex work and venereal disease. Through a close examination of these documents, we can also see how particular public health policies emerged as the way to identify and eventually solve this

“problem.” Underscoring this supposed crisis was the implicit notion that women were solely responsible for the spread of disease; they therefore became “problematized” in new ways. Any consideration of a conduit other than the female sex worker was markedly absent. She was always the culprit. The idea that the men who frequented sex workers also contracted the disease and therefore needed containment was never a part of the driving policy. One example of an exception is when the French military intervened in 1919 as venereal disease cases spiked in the

Levant, threatening the colonial authority’s supply of healthy soldiers. A memo issued by the

French Ministry of War from that year called for an increase in the frequency of medical checks on soldiers, recommending there be one every fifteen days.326 The public campaign against venereal disease among military service members approached the matter as a moral one as much

325 Ibid., 107. See Chapters Four and Five for a discussion of the League and early feminist action on sex work, which will engage with the topic of the monitoring and control of female migrants. Unlike the medical community, entities such as the League saw sex workers primarily as victims. What both have in common, however, is the use patriarchal and class assumptions regarding the commercial sex trade. 326 Sous-secrétariat d’État du Service de santé militaire, Services techniques, Section de médecine, “Note pour l’état- major de l’armée–section Afrique,” May 13, 1919, GR9NN/1078. DSS. ASHD. Vincennes, France. For further information on this memo, see footnote 187.

114 as a medical one. Therefore, the primary approach taken by the government was to encourage soldiers to practice celibacy first, individual prophylaxis second, and receive treatment if the aforementioned solutions did not work.327 At no point were any members of the military who contracted venereal disease charged with a crime or otherwise considered to have committed a criminal act. What state bureaucrats and academics alike did present was the soldier as physically threatened by the unregistered sex worker. In the medical reports covered in this chapter, demands for more surveillance of patrons did not receive any attention, only punitive measures to be taken against “threats” to men’s well-being. To put it in Keely Stauter-Halstead’s terms, it was sex workers, particularly those belonging to the working classes, who became the

“subjects of expert commentary and the objects of medical coercion.”328

The government and the medical establishment’s anxieties over the spread of venereal disease translated into extensive monitoring and reporting on citizens through the instrument of surveys. Using empirical knowledge, scholars and state officials substantiated their assertions with objective verification based on data. The regulatory system, which emphasized the public health benefits of the administration, relied on the control of commercial sex in the sanitized, neutral language of “good medicine” to legitimize its existence.329

The French colonial state attempted to justify its regulations over sex work not on moral but on medical grounds. Administrators presented the issue not as an endorsement of legalized

327 As rates of syphilis increased among service members, they also increased among the wives and girlfriends of military personnel. This posed venereal disease not only as a threat to the ability of France to protect its territorial interests, as infected individuals meant fewer days of active duty, but also as a threat to the pronatalist policies of a colonial state with a diminishing domestic population. Michelle K. Rhoades, “Renegotiating French Masculinity: Medicine and Venereal Disease during the Great War,” French Historical Studies 29, no. 2 (2006): 293. Yet in the context of the Levant, there was a lack of concern expressed for the alarming drop in the Syrian population following the famine of 1915–1918. 328 Keely Stauter-Halstead, “The Physician and the Fallen Woman: Medicalizing Prostitution in the Polish Lands,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 20, no. 2 (2011): 274. 329 See Levine, Prostitution, Race and Politics, 41, on how this was used to defend the CDAs in the British Empire.

115 sex work, which held complicated moral implications, but as a practical public hygiene measure to protect the social body. In this regard, Parent-Duchâtelet stated: “Where the government of men is concerned, it is good to know their weaknesses and to use them in order to govern them.”330 The sexual prerogatives of men were determined to be their weakness, and so the state intervened to govern them not directly, but indirectly through the regulation of sex workers.

Therefore, the “problem” with sex work lay not within the men who solicited the services but within the women who offered them. The state determined that, in order to protect its military interests by keeping a healthy army free of venereal disease, sex workers required medico-legal interventions that held material consequences, a point that will be illustrated in more detail in

Chapter Three. The discourse soon shifted from protecting the army to safeguarding the general public from contagion, an objective that provided the rationale for the wholesale adoption of regulationism in the interest of social hygiene. The French colonial state relied on doctors and academics to provide the expert knowledge to buttress its position. This new, exclusively male, professional class exercised a great deal of social power by shaping government policies, which called for the registration, medical examination, and incarceration of female sex workers.

Experts drew on the developing field of statistics, which made ample use of surveys, as a rationale for why sex workers must be cordoned off and medically regulated unlike the rest of respectable society, including their male patrons. Statistics shifted the focus away from the moral discourse on sex work to a scientific one. According to James Scott, “statistical facts were elaborated into social laws . . . [as a] progressive nation-state . . . set[s] about engineering its society according to the most advanced technical standards of the new moral sciences.”331 No

330 Parent-Duchâtelet as quoted in Corbin, Women for Hire, 16. 331 Scott goes on to state that “[s]ubpopulations found wanting in ways that were potentially threatening . . . might be made the objects of the most intensive social engineering.” Scott, Seeing Like a State, 92.

116 more clearly was this illustrated than in the production of comprehensive reports that employed facts and figures to validate control over marginalized sex workers. Those conducting the surveys, such as Boyer and Escher, positioned themselves as expert academics within the government infrastructure, wielding authority over knowledge production on sex work. This, sometimes reciprocal, relationship between academics and the state contributed to the marginality of sex workers.

Surveys placed primacy on what diseases needed targeting and the infrastructural development required to meet the state’s goals. For example, as seen in Boyer’s Conditions hygiéniques, government officials solicited French doctors and academics for their knowledge of public health and hygiene. While not all of Boyer’s recommendations came into immediate effect, those pertaining to sex workers’ containment eventually came to fruition under the

Mandate. Of more lasting impact was the influence of Escher, whose position within the French bureaucracy evolved from a technical advisor on public health to an academic advising the government on controlling the spread of venereal disease. His important contribution will be examined in detail in Chapter Three. “Prostitutes” became a designated topic for health initiatives looking to manage and contain disease, inasmuch as they were believed to be the source of venereal disease. They were therefore a worthy topic of observation and intervention for the state and academics alike.332 Sex became the site of imperial policy, or, as Levine puts it,

“part of the politics of Empire” and “central to the functioning of imperial governance.”333 In

332 Vocal dissenters to regulatory prostitution emerged in the nineteenth century, refuting the medical rationale for state containment of sex workers. One of the most prolific of these dissenters was Louis Fiaux (1847–1936), a former member of the Parisian municipal council and French delegate to the International Medical Conference held in Brussels in 1910. Using his authority as a doctor, politician, and researcher, he accused advocates of licensed prostitution of producing superficial studies: “The study of prostitution would in fact be the lowest of the masked curiosities in the name of studies” in their failures to examine the complexity of the profession. Fiaux, La Prostitution “cloitrée,” 15. 333 Levine, “Sexuality, Gender, and Empire,” 134.

117 post-World War I Levant, containment was thought to be the ultimate answer, keeping commercial sex in concentrated areas in garrison towns and city centers where it could be surveilled and tracked. The state was ultimately the party in position to carry out this task, yet it relied on modern medicine and academics to support the development, application, and enforcement of its policy. While this chapter has focused on how colonial governance framed the

“problem” of sex work under the rubric of medicine, the following chapter interrogates the effects of this framing through the administrative structures that were implemented in the Levant.

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Chapter Three

The Paradox of Liminality: Medico-Administrative and Legal Discourses in Defense of Public Health

“For many centuries, it was the aim of authority to confine prostitution within the limits and to regulate it, by distinguishing between the prostitute and other women. This was never easy, but, perhaps partly as a result of the special treatment that prostitutes received, partly as a result of their way of life, and partly because of their close contact with one another, certain characteristics came to be associated with them as a class.” — League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Prevention of Prostitution: A Study of Measures Adopted or Under the Consideration Particularly with Regard to Minors 334

In this chapter, I contend, using the words of Philip Howell, that “as a policy—rather than a series of unsystematic and dubiously legal practices—regulation . . . required a theory of society and of the role of the state in promoting the health and welfare of the population.”335 France had its hygienic theorist in Alexandre Parent-Duchâtelet and employed its medical practitioners to extol the virtues of neoregulation in the Levant, including Benoît Boyer, author of Conditions hygiéniques, and Henri-Élysée-Daniel Escher, who became the chief architect of and the main proponent for the regulation of sex work in Syria and Lebanon (both of whom I discussed at some length in Chapter Two).336 As John Scott argues, Parent-Duchâtelet effectively introduced a “normalizing scale” of rating women, from good to bad, that distinguished between the

334 League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Prevention of Prostitution: A Study of Measures Adopted or Under the Consideration Particularly with Regard to Minors (Geneva: League of Nations, 1943), 23. 335 Philip Howell, Geographies of Regulation: Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Britain and the Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 9. 336 Neoregulationists sought greater control of sex workers and venereal disease through medical means rather than through police surveillance. As Alain Corbin argues, neoregulationism arose from medical professionals responding to campaigns by abolitionists: “It was above all a manifestation of the efforts of the medical profession to develop its power and exert its authority, first through social hygiene, then through the prevention of disease.” Alain Corbin, Women for Hire: Prostitution and Sexuality in France after 1850 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), 246. The state and doctors worked together to create enforcement mechanisms against the menace of venereal disease.

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“polluted [unregulated] and clean [regulated] whores.”337 Once these “experts” produced the

“problem” of sex work as a matter of medical concern, civilian and military bureaucrats in the

Levant devised “solutions” in the form of regulatory schemes. The alliance between medical officials and state bureaucrats, as highlighted in Chapter Two, regarded medico-administrative and legal interventions against sex workers that were necessary to safeguard the public’s health.338 The neoregulationist framework was premised on the idea that sex workers, by choosing their profession, laid no claim to protection from the state, only punishment.339 This idea was buttressed by the work of Parent-Duchâtelet, who pontificated whether sex workers were entitled to individual freedoms and ultimately concluded that they were not: “Are prostitutes entitled to do whatever they want? In other words, can we, must we, deprive prostitutes of [their] individual freedom . . . they make themselves unworthy of that freedom by abandoning themselves to their unbridled passions and all the excesses of a dissolute life.

337 John Scott, “Governing Prostitution: Differentiating the Bad from the Bad,” Current Issues in Criminal Justice 23, no. 1 (2011): 61. 338 The medical establishment sought to differentiate itself from the outmoded way of thinking premised on religion and to fashion itself on the modern principles of the Enlightenment. The state would be a rational actor intervening in public health matters for the benefit of the public. Of importance was the role of the individual, liberty, and faith in science. Yet this newfound sense of individualism came at a social cost. Dr. Émile Marchoux, in his role as a professor at the Pasteur Institute in France, embodied these ideas when he proclaimed in 1923 that “[t]he old regime is based on religion and ministries of care in order to maintain the population in the traditionalist and conservative spirit in which its power rested.” Émile Marchoux, Rapport: L’éducation nationale. Congrès international de propagande d’hygiène et d’éducation prophylactique sanitaire et morale (Paris: Comité national de propagande d’hygiène sociale, 1923), 25. He continued: “The democratic state has shirked the task of guiding the public mind, perhaps because it has not understood the importance of it, perhaps also because it considers that to take care of it, it undermines the freedom of thought. Respectful as this abstention may be, it is a fault which may become the source of serious dangers . . . Material sanction is the only defensive weapon in society.” Therefore, according to neoregulationists, ideas of individual autonomy and self-determination needed to be cautiously applied in the protection of public health interests. 339 A telling example of the state believing sex workers to be subhuman, and therefore not entitled to the benefits of Enlightenment principles, comes from Britain. In reference to the 1864 Contagious Diseases Prevention Bill that was introduced into the British Parliament, Mary Spongberg finds that language within the bill was borrowed from acts concerning cattle. Mary Spongberg, Feminizing Venereal Disease: The Body of the Prostitute in Nineteenth- Century Medical Discourse (London: Macmillan, 1997), 60. She remarks that “prostitutes would no longer have the same rights as ‘virtuous women,’ they would no longer have legal personalities.” And this was precisely the case with France’s introduction of its policies into the Levant.

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Freedom in this case amounts to licentiousness, and licentiousness destroys society.”340 Rather than restricting focus to the regulations themselves, this chapter will focus on the operations of power that were deployed in the creation of new subjects (filles soumises, filles en carte, filles isolées, filles de café, mauvaises femmes) and spaces of control (maisons de tolérance, maisons de rendez-vous, maisons publiques, bordel militaire de campagne, maisons de débauche, maisons de prostitution, quartiers réservés) through colonial and military strategic directives

(Réglementation de la prostitution, Règlement sur la police des mœurs).341

For the French authorities in the Levantine provinces, to relegate sex workers to a specific area and thereby exerting spatial control meant more efficiency in monitoring the population and the ability to concentrate a police force in that area. By limiting the space where sex workers could operate, the constant surveillance required by the police and health officials could be centralized, which was the entire raison d’être behind the quartier réservé. As will be seen below, permitting sex work to operate outside the confines of a designated space led to protests from those enforcing regulations and from the population at large.342 As I mentioned in the

Chapter One, there was at this time a shift in political control in the Levant. While in the eighteenth century, under Ottoman rule, the neighborhood was the primary judicial entity, in the nineteenth century it was colonial, state, and local bureaucracies—or rather their officers and

340 As quoted in Claude Quétel, History of Syphilis (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990), 212. 341 In this focus, I will be relying on the notion of the construction of power as explained by Scott, “Governing Prostitution,” 55. Furthermore, I will be relying on Carol Bacchi and Susan Goodwin’s poststructural policy analysis, which contends that policy maintains order through the categorization of objects, subjects, and places. These categories are the effects of policy rather than the natural order of things. By understanding them as such, one can then examine not only how categories are produced but how they “translate into diverse lived realities.” Carol Bacchi and Susan Goodwin and Susan Goodwin, Poststructural Analysis: A Guide to Practice (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 6. 342 The by-product was the surveillance of women who may be involved in crimes associated with prostitution (“externalities,” so to speak). While crimes such as robbery and drug trafficking (hashish and opioids) might not be able to be pinpointed, taverns, coffee shops, and brothels were considered to be the usual hot spots of criminal activity. Therefore, confining these institutions to particular areas might be expedient in cracking down on other crimes associated with these vectors of social activity. Prior to the advent of regulationism, governments often controlled sex work through vagrancy laws.

121 administrators—who executed judicial control and meted out punishment for transgressions.343

France, in protecting its military interests while making paternalistic claims about acting in the interest of Syria and Lebanon, placed sex workers within an elaborate administrative structure that would endure throughout the colonial authority’s occupation of the region.344 To quote

Michel Foucault on his ideas relating to the instrumentalization of repression, the French state constructed “an administrative entity, which along with already constituted powers, and outside of the courts, decides, judges, and executes.”345 France accomplished this through a complex scheme of keeping sex workers outside the law through administrative control. The state existed not as an autonomous entity, but one that was shaped by actors who held their own vested interests.

This chapter takes an in-depth look at these actors, most of whom worked for the colonial military and civil authorities, and it examines how they exerted control over sex workers in the

Levant. Colonial bureaucrats used the administration of sex work as a means of expanding their power in the region, sometimes to the vocal opposition of those responsible for implementing the policies and those protesting their implementation in their homeland. In my analysis, I will go

343 Regulatory prostitution in the form of working in quartiers réservés was implemented in Paris, then in Algiers and Tunis at the end of the nineteenth century, and then in Casablanca in the early twentieth century. See Christelle Taraud, “Urbanisme, hygiénisme et prostitution à Casablanca dans les années 1920,” French Colonial History 7 (2006): 105. According to Taraud, on July 13, 1830, one week after the siege of Algiers, the French army of North Africa put in place the first colonial regulatory system designed to control prostitution (107, n.107). 344 As will become evident, “modernity in colonial contexts was always and everywhere unstable enough to be constantly eroding its own claims, for the beneficence and enlightenment claimed on behalf of the colonial authority could be realized only through coercive means. The legal fiction of modernity was thus doubly exposed by the colonial enterprise, untenable without a technology of discipline that ran counter to the freedoms espoused by both modernity and civilization.” Philippa Levine, “Modernity, Medicine and Colonialism: The Contagious Disease Ordinances in Hong Kong and the Straits Settlements,” in Gender, Sexuality and Colonial Modernities, ed. Antoinette Burton (London: Routledge, 2005), 44. 345 Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (New York: Vintage Books, 1988), 56. While Foucault is referencing the hôpital général, it is nonetheless useful to conceptualize administrative structures established in the Levant under the French regime in the same way: their powers had already been constituted and they came from the metropole. Administrative structures in the Levant rested outside the legal system and yet were charged with judging and sentencing sex workers.

122 beyond the strict confines of the “letter of the law” as officially produced by colonial authorities because it can often provide a false sense of reality. The law was produced by discourses and practices operating alongside, and not independent of, regulations “to shape the subjects, spaces and forms of power in sex work.”346 As Jane Scoular contends, to do otherwise would provide a misleading portrait, as the “mediating influence of the exercise of discretion by officials, non- compliance by those whose conduct law is intended to regulate and the unintended social impact of laws, policies and techniques, put in place in good faith by governments and other social actors, are often overlooked in many formal accounts which describe policy aspirations for law and are much less concerned with how law works in practice.”347

Focusing on the details of what it took to administer control over sex work in the Levant, this chapter will reveal that the imposed regulations, while desired by French authorities to be a seamless and direct transplant from the metropole to the Levant, encountered numerous obstacles. These obstacles are revealed to us through the detailed conversations that took place behind the scenes among male municipal, regional, and state authorities in defining, refining, and implementing control over women. Due to the complexities involved in attempting to keep the administration of sex work outside the confines of the legal system, tensions arose over who held jurisdiction over the enforcement and oversight of sex work. Toward the end of the chapter, I will focus on World War II, as it illuminates these tensions and underscores the fact that the administration of sex work in the Levant had less to do with protecting the civilian population

346 Jane Scoular, The Subject of Prostitution: Sex Work, Law and Social Theory (New York: Routledge, 2015), 2. As Scoular argues, the constitutive approach sheds more light on the issue of sex work, as opposed to the legal centrism provided in the formal accounts, as it factors social relations into the equation, so to speak. Furthermore, Scoular argues that legal formalism treats law as a scientific system of “‘rational’ rules, an independent and objective body of knowledge” (11). This chapter will shed light on the competing discourses and tensions around policy formation and how actors who constructed regulations were operating in an environment that formulated notions of sex work in specific ways. It will underscore the driving ideologies behind the changes within regulations in the Levant and what led to their persistence despite international condemnation. 347 Ibid., 13.

123 against the threat of venereal disease than it did with protecting colonial military authority. Yet the rationale of the French regulationist system (hereinafter referred to as the “French system”) in Syria and Lebanon hinged upon the notion that diseased sex workers threatened the general public due to their unsanitary and immoral behaviors and that, as a result, they required containment. In order to enforce compliance with the regulatory measures enacted by the colonial authority, bureaucrats not only issued fines and ordered incarceration, but also increased the means and frequency of punishment once regulation was shown to have failed to achieve its stated objective of eradicating venereal disease. The French never blamed the system itself, but instead sought to place the blame on external actors such as the “recalcitrant” women who evaded the authorities or who did not comply with the complicated administrative regime.

Those Existing Outside the Law: The Paradox of the French System in the Levant

To understand the French system, it is worth revisiting Decree 188 signed by General Henri

Gouraud, the acting French High Commissioner of Greater Syria, on April 19, 1920. While this was not the starting point of regulatory sex work in the Levant, it demarcates French intervention in the region, as it was the first order under the French Mandate system to regulate public health.348 Specifically, the three pages of Title VI, which was entitled “Réglementation de la prostitution,” dictated official policy toward sex work as a matter of public health and public security. First and foremost, it is imperative to note here that France did not place this decree under state jurisdiction, but rather placed it under municipal jurisdiction as a bylaw, which is exactly what it had done back home in the metropole. This strategy provided the opportunity for

348 N. A. Société des Nations Traite des femmes et des enfants extension de l’enquête sur la traite des femmes et des enfants en Orient: Rapport concernant les territoires du Levant sous mandate français (Syrie, etc.), July 31, 1932. 1SL/1/V/22. Centre des Archives diplomatiques de Nantes (CADN), Nantes, France. Decree 1362, which came into effect on April 6, 1922, modified Decree 188, which changed the official currency from Egyptian pounds to Syrian piasters, which was subsequently changed to Syrian pounds.

124 the colonial power to adamantly defend its position that administrative power over sex work emanated from the local authorities and not from the state authorities. In other words, it was an issue that fell under municipal, not state, jurisdiction.349

Before detailing the articles of Decree 188, it is critical to understand the paradox of the

French system when it comes to regulation.350 First and foremost, sex work was not considered a crime. This is because regulation was constructed within the context of the municipality and was therefore considered to be administrative in nature—that is, a civil matter.351 This created a system whereby those who were accused of breaking a municipal regulation did not have grounds for appealing decisions, as these local decisions were not subject to judicial oversight.

The accused were therefore not entitled to court proceedings. Instead, in its nascent form in the

349 Article 6 of the League’s French Mandate for Syria and the [sic] Lebanon states that France, as the Mandatory power, must establish a “judicial system that shall assure to the natives as well to foreigners a complete guarantee of their rights.” Furthermore, Article 17 required France to provide copies of all laws and regulations in their annual report to the Council of the League of Nations. The regulations on sex work did not appear in these annual reports, which only referenced Decree 188 (incorrectly reported to have be signed on April 15, 1920, by the High Commissioner) under the section on public health. The actual date was April 19, 1920. Rapport sur la situation de la Syrie et du Liban, Année 1924, Geneva, January 14, 1926. C452(m).M166(m).1925.VI: 28. In France’s 1922 report to the League, the Mandatory power stated that “the organization of the mandate would not be complete if it did not include means of correcting the errors that the authorities may commit in the administrative field, and if it also did not bring about serious improvements in the actual judicial service.” France claimed that “administrative errors” and “excesses of power” needed to be avoided, and that the “ideas of legality” that characterized the Ottoman regime were “far from inspiring.” They claimed to want unity in texts promulgated by local governments, and they wanted that the “High Commissioner would itself promulgate [decisions] if the decisions of states did not meet the recognized requirements of the improvement of indigenous jurisdictions.” République Française, Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Rapport sur la situation de la Syrie et du Liban, Année 1922 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1923), 23–24. These claims would prove to be dubious in the early 1920s, as tensions mounted between local Arab authorities (e.g., Administrator of Beirut), and the authorities in the Beirut police department, which was a department staffed by French appointees, over the regulation of sex workers. France’s interest in keeping regulations on sex work as an administrative, not judicial, matter led to confusion and tension as sex workers were effectively placed outside the jurisdiction of the law. 350 Jill Harsin, in her book on the Parisian regulation system of the nineteenth century, states that the French system instituted in that century was not entirely new, and that it was the medicalized aspect of it that was novel. Jill Harsin, Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Paris (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), xvi. 351 Regulations, as opposed to laws, consist of rules and standards adopted by administrative agencies. The quandary is that, at least in contemporary times, regulations govern how laws will be enforced. As the French bureaucracies did not, at this time, desire to create laws on the matter of sex work, administrative agencies were charged with enforcing standards constructed by the central government without legal backing, although the effects for sex workers subjected to the regulations were real. A breach of a regulation, much like the breaking of a law, came with punitive measures (including incarceration in the guise of “administrative detention”). However, those who breached regulations did not have legal recourse (i.e., access to courts = the ability to formally argue their case). I will discuss this issue below.

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Levant, the police des mœurs functioned as the sole deciders of a woman’s fate, and they did not have to provide a forum within which she could contest her arrest, medical inspection, or forced hospitalization.352 Such enforcement was intended to produce healthy and ordered bodies through mechanisms that held the power to “train and improve the physical body of the prostitute in order that it be made more efficient and docile.”353 Regulations, in the words of Scott, enacted as “a primary objective the responsibilisation of prostitutes.”354 While those constructing regulations took a paternalistic approach to regulation, which stated that responsibility needed to be taught through coercive means, the sex workers and those suspected of being sex workers came to be at the mercy of police, who were granted the authority to apprehend, inspect, imprison, and register women under their jurisdiction.355 As long as sex workers “responsibly” followed the regulations, they could practice their profession. Framed as such, “recalcitrant” women, in the words of colonial authorities operating within Lebanon, who were not able or who refused to be trained by the authorities, placed the social body in harm’s way, and their “failure to act prudently [was] a sign of social, as well as individual irresponsibility.”356 This behavior warranted placement in, to use the words of an advisor to the Lebanese governor, “administrative sequestration,” which, in practical terms, meant being incarcerated without the benefit of a trial.

352 Beginning in 1922, a tribunal of men provided oversight over the regulations. This tribunal, while diminishing the police’s monopoly, did not make much of a dent in the police’s immense authority over sex workers. Scott makes the point that sanitationist interventions in the form of forced medical incarceration enacted by public officials disciplined unhealthy, recalcitrant sex workers who were thought of as irresponsible and threatening. Hygienist technologies, such as rescue houses, focused on young sex workers and those deemed to possess the ability to be saved, made more responsible, or prevented from entering the profession to begin with. Hygienist technologies leveraged the victim perspective that enabled interventionists to provide charity to sex workers. Scott, “Governing Prostitution,” 61–62. This latter group, interventionists engaging in hygienist technologies, will be the focal point of the latter half of this thesis. 353 Scott, “Governing Prostitution,” 56. 354 Ibid. 355 The state violation of women’s bodies and the intrusiveness of its methods led prostitutes in France to call the speculum used for mandated medical examinations “the government’s penis.” Anne Carol, “Caring and Healing: Women, Bodies and Materiality in Nineteenth-Century French Cities,” The Routledge History Handbook of Gender and the Urban Experience, ed. Deborah Simonton (London: Routledge, 2017), 277. 356 Scott, “Governing Prostitution,” 58.

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Administrative sequestration could occur even if women were merely suspected by the police of failing to comply.357 As Jill Harsin states, under the auspices of the police des mœurs, municipal guidelines, registration systems, and venereal exams were established “so that the prostitute could remain within society and under its control.”358 Ironically, this process of forcing sex workers to register with the police prefect in order to be designated “en carte” placed sex workers outside the confines of the law.359

For their part, medical theorists such as Parent-Duchâtelet and Boyer had already established sex workers as objects of knowledge, and thereby made prostitutes legitimate targets for government intervention. What the knowledge conveyed informed authorities about how they could best “act on these subjects” through a system of registration, medical coercion, and punishment. The regulations factored into one of many discursive practices that “constitute[d] prostitution as a social fact” with material consequences.360 When comparing Decree 188, the administrative public health regulation that provided oversight of prostitution in the Levant, with the contemporaneous administrative decrees circulated by the French Ministry of the Interior in the metropole, certain central common elements are apparent.361 These elements are as follows:

357 Le Conseiller du Gouvernment, “Note sur le projet de règlement sur la police des mœurs,” April 25, 1922. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. A similar structure appeared in Paris. See Harsin, Policing Prostitution, xvi. 358 Harsin, Policing Prostitution, xv. 359 “Mise en carte” refers to the process of registering women as sex workers; registered sex workers were therefore sometimes referred to as “filles en carte.” Harsin, Policing Prostitution, xvii, 6. Harsin describes the system as an administrative structure whereby “the maison de tolérance was a technically illegal but officially tolerated house of prostitution, established with the permission of the police; the tolérance was the permission to run such a house. The fille en carte was a prostitute who was ‘inscribed,’ or registered with the police and was given a card issued by the prefecture. The fille de maison worked in a house, the fille isolée lived outside a tolerated house and found her own customers; both were en carte . . . Prostitution clandestine was practiced by women who eluded police surveillance; they were referred to as insoumises. The visite sanitaire was the examination for venereal disease conducted by doctors who worked for the . . . dispensary.” Harsin, Policing Prostitution, 6. 360 Scoular, The Subject of Prostitution, 19. 361 Julia Miller notes that on December 24, 1940, France’s Minister of the Interior Marcel Peyrouton notified prefects in the occupied zone that the government was in the process of considering uniform national regulation and, in the interim, provided a “model decree” that all notified prefects were required to enact. Miller claims that this constituted the first time that brothels had a legal existence in France, nine years after it they were recognized in law in the Mandate territories of Lebanon and Syria. Yet this act was subsequently reversed due to public protest. Julia Miller, “The ‘Romance of Regulation’: The Movement against State-Regulated Prostitution in France, 1871–1946,”

127 every sex worker must register with the local police, which provided her with authorization to work as long as (1) she adhered to the administrative bylaws on when, where, and how she could solicit work; and (2) she submitted to regular medical exams and, if found infected, confined herself to a designated health facility for the duration of her treatment.362 If the police determined her to be in violation of the regulations, she would be subjected to a fine, imprisonment, or both, and the decision would be made by the Police Commissioner after an administrative, not a judicial, review. As Harsin adroitly states, by placing regulation under municipal administrative jurisdiction, the state forced women to live in a paradox: those accused of working clandestinely could only prove their innocence in the court of law, yet this avenue was barred to women once they were arrested, inasmuch as being detained placed them under municipal jurisdiction.363

Once the arresting officer and the Police Commissioner established a woman as a sex worker based on their judgment of the situation, the accused could not appeal their decision through legal means. According to the Police Commissioner in Beirut who served from 1921-1922,

Grégoire Henri, a provocative gesture or the length of a dress could be reason enough to detain a woman.364

(Diss., New York University, 2000), 525–527. In Lebanon and Syria, the transformation of the regulation into law came sooner, in 1931, as I will mention below. 362 See Harsin, Policing Prostitution, 6–7, for a summary of the French system. 363 Harsin, Policing Prostitution, 19–20. Harsin cites Article 484 of the FPC, which stated: “[W]hen the police officer has established the facts of the case by an official report of the offense, the women thus legally recognized as being prostitutes find themselves placed outside the law.” 364 This was the case as well in Paris, where a “provocative” look or gesture could result in a woman being accused of prostitution. Harsin, Policing Prostitution, 20. In Foucault’s discussion of the advent of the carceral system, he states that the judicial model focused on small infractions as punishable offenses in order to keep people in line: “The least act of disobedience is punished and the best way to avoid serious offenses is to punish the most minor offenses very severely.” Michel Foucault, “The Carceral,” in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: Vintage Books, 2010), 235. Similarly, had sex workers known that they could be subjected to fines or incarceration for minor offenses, they would have been more likely to avoid committing them simply to avoid being conveyed as “recalcitrant” and being subjected to harsher treatment under French regulations, such as expulsion or longer prison sentences. The effect of such a system was that the authorities molded sex workers into docile bodies, or at least attempted to do as much. This also had the effect of keeping all women “in line”: they were afraid of being taken in by the authorities for looking “suspicious.”

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At the inception of the French Mandate, Decree 188 adhered to the central tenets of regulationism as stated above. First, all maisons de tolérance had to receive the express permission of the administrative authorities in order to be in operation or else face a fine of 100 to 200 Egyptian pounds and be closed down for a minimum of three months for having operated illicitly.365 All sex workers had to be registered with the local authorities, and they had to all be at least 18 years of age; women who failed to register and/or who failed to tell the truth about their age would be considered to be working “clandestinely” and would be subjected to two to eight days in prison and/or fines of 20 to 100 Egyptian pounds.366 If found to be operating clandestinely, after an ambiguously stated “investigation prescribed by administrative authorities,” women would be formally registered and placed on a list of prostitutes. Registered workers had to have a medical card with an affixed photo and contained all the medical and administrative notices that they must adhere to in addition to the results of each medical examination. This included biweekly medical inspections established by the administrative authorities. If a sex worker was found to be infected with a venereal disease, she would be sent to a specialized medical facility and fined up to 40 Egyptian pounds per day for treatment.367 An

365 The label of “houses of toleration” is instructive when conceptualizing the French system as placing sex work outside the law. Maisons de tolérance, as their name suggests, were merely allowed to exist; they were not formally legalized. So, unlike Foucault’s suggestion that sex ceased to be spoken about in terms of “simply being condemned or tolerated,” the French system did exactly that. Foucault goes on to discuss something the French system did accomplish. It “tolerated” places of commercial sex, which were “inserted into systems of utility, regulated for the greater good of all, made to function according to an optimum. Sex was not something one simply judged; it was a thing one administered.” Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), 24. 366 The designation of registered, clandestine, foreign, indigenous, and other categories in the regulations made the lives of the people belonging to these categories highly contingent and restricted. The structures brought over into the Levant produced hierarchies and “inegalitarian forms of rule.” See Bacchi and Goodwin, Poststructural Analysis, 4. 367 All other tenants, maids, and servants of the brothels, regardless of their sex, were also subject to weekly medical visits by the doctor responsible for the medical examination of sex workers. Furthermore, those workers who regularly operated through a brothel had their medical expenses paid for by the brothel owner or, if destitute, would have mandatory medical services provided free of charge. While the Wassermann test forged new ground in the area of diagnosis, salvarsan became the method of treatment for syphilis around the turn of the century. Once the specific syphilis bacterium was identified in 1905, the identification of arsenic as a treatment emerged in 1908. The compound arsphenamine became known more prominently by its marketing name “salvarsan” or “606” in 1910 as a

129 authorized medical doctor would also conduct random monthly inspections of each brothel, as per Boyer’s suggestion in the 1890s (see Chapter Two).

For those maisons not found within the confines of the quartier réservé, owners were required to ensure the medical compliance of all their workers or be fined 5,000 Egyptian pounds, face temporary or permanent closure, and/or be imprisoned for one to six months. Those sex workers not in compliance with the articles in Decree 188 were subject to a fine of 10 to 300

Egyptian pounds and imprisonment for a period of five days to six months. The articles further outlined, in rather vague terms, that all indigenous public entertainers—be they dancers, musicians, or singers—had to visit a doctor upon their arrival in a new locality and would be subject to weekly medical visits and fall under the jurisdiction of the regulations for sex workers,

chemotherapeutic treatment that the military quickly embraced in its defense against the spread of venereal disease among its troops—a treatment that it forced on sex workers. In a study conducted by the British Royal Army Medical Corps, the results showed that the treatment with arsenic led to a shorter hospital stay for soldiers when compared with the alternative treatment, which at the time was with mercury: “Under the salvarsan treatment a syphilitic soldier is inefficient in the first year of his disease for thirty-three days, while under exclusively mercurial treatment he loses at least sixty-one days.” Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel T. W. Gibbard, Major L. W. Harrison, and Lieutenant A. S. Cane, “Salvarsan and Neosalvarsan in the Treatment of Syphilis,” Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps 19, no. 2 (1912): 294–295. While shown to be effective, the toxic effects of the treatment were well- established at its inception. David Lees, “The Toxic Effects of Arsenobenzol Treatment and their Prevention,” British Journal of Venereal Diseases 1, no. 3 (1925): 218. Administered both intravenously and intramuscularly, arsenobenzol could induce such reactions as respiratory and cardiac distress; swelling of the face, tongue, and lips; and, of more serious consequence, fatality due to cerebral toxemia within the first twenty-four hours of administration (223). Later reactions were found to include jaundice, anemia, and death due to a cerebral stroke. Salvarsan came in two forms, “606” and “914” (neosalvarsan) with the latter being less toxic but also less frequently used in the French military medical establishment in the Levant. The use of 914 was first documented as being in use around the time French troops arrived in Constantinople. Le médecin inspecteur Clouard, Directeur du Service de santé du C.O.C., à Le Ministre de la Guerre 1o C.O.C., 4o Bureau, March 12, 1921, GR9NN7/1078, Levant et Proche-Orient, Ministère de la Guerre, Direction du service de santé (DSS), Archives of Service historique de la Défense (ASHD), Vincennes, France. The treatment required repeated administration, with fatality from serous apoplexy occurring after the second or third injection of the drug. Lees, “Toxic Effects of Arsenobenzol,” 223. While these toxic effects were documented in medical publications of the time, the overall consensus was that it was a safe treatment with rare serious side effects that were mostly attributed to the improper preparation of the patient. With the compulsory treatment of soldiers and registered prostitutes, these individuals were denied the right to decide for themselves whether it was acceptable or not to risk dealing with the side effects. Therefore, while the reasons for why sex workers operated illegally are not recorded, it is reasonable to assume that some exercised self- determination in their medical care when they operated clandestinely. Yet any sort of visible ulceration, a prevalent feature of early syphilis, would draw the attention of the police, who of course monitored the streets in the Levant, and result in their medical incarceration.

130 depending on the results of their initial medical exam.368 Perhaps most alarming—and serving as further evidence as to the vague nature of this new regulations—was Article 85, which stated that

“all other independent women or artists not falling into the above category who would provoke well-founded complaints accusing them as having spread venereal diseases, or who, after a police investigation, would be recognized as having engaged in a manner consistent with prostitution, will be subject to the obligation to be visited regularly by the doctor of the administration.”

The specificity of the strict regulation of indigenous sex workers, as opposed to foreign ones, provoked a great deal of tension. The French system created a stratified structure that privileged foreign workers over domestic ones. Colonial authorities often conflated artists, particularly dancers, with sex workers, and debates ensued over how much control should be exercised over the profession.369 The expansive notion of “artists,” a vague label continuously deployed in the regulations that included female public entertainers, occupied this liminal space that those in positions of power continuously struggled to control and define. The sense of ambiguity is reflected in the regulations and the contestations that surrounded their profession’s

368 As Anthony Shay states regarding professional entertainers, “their art was at the core of society and its idealized sexual codes, and they were both desired and reviled. Because of their abject social status, it was possible to have sexual relations with them, but to ignore them as human beings; they were considered on a par with prostitutes. . . . For a man or woman to display his or her body for pay, no matter to what degree it was covered, was equated to prostitution.” Anthony Shay, The Dangerous Lives of Public Performers: Dancing, Sex, and Entertainment in the Islamic World (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 4, 36. 369 In her study of female entertainers in nineteenth-century Egypt, Karin van Nieuwkerk notes the decline in the prestige of dancers and singers in the 1800s and their increasing involvement in prostitution during French occupation. She declares: “Beside working as dancers and singers, a number of entertainers became prostitutes as well. The word ‘alma completely lost its original meaning of learned woman. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, its meaning had changed to singer-dancer, and by the 1850s it denoted a dancer-prostitute. Dancing became stripping, and dancers increasingly worked as prostitutes.” Karin van Nieuwkerk, A Trade Like Any Other: Female Singers and Dancers in Egypt (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006), 35. The conflation of sex work with dancing is illustrated in League documents on trafficking. For example, the Iraqi government’s 1924 annual report to the League, the section entitled “Repatriation and Deportation” reported that twelve out of the fifteen foreigners deported for practicing prostitution were Syrian women aged 16 to 34. They “were either inmates of the various brothels or were dancing girls who, as a result of surveillance and medical examination, were found to be carrying on prostitution and were accordingly expelled.” League of Nations, Traffic in Women and Children: Annual Report for 1924 from the Iraq Government. July 13, 1926. C.414.M.150.1926.IV. Geneva, Switzerland.

131 capacities. Foreign artists, while still under the supervision of the police des mœurs, were the subject of repeated debates as to whether they were required to submit to obligatory medical checks. For indigenous artists, this was not contested. Furthermore, foreign workers commanded higher wages and performed in separate venues. In one account of the disparity given by a resident of Beirut on the stratified structure created by the French system, the foreign artists primarily came from Hungary or Germany and would work based on a monthly renewable contract.370 They would work from 7:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m., during which time they would entertain and drink with the clientele, making a 20 percent commission on the sale of alcoholic beverages. According to the observer, “[artists] are expelled without mercy and without notice. .

. . They are forbidden openly to lead a loose life; this is to say they are allowed to have one

‘friend,’ but not several at once.” In contrast, the “native artists or Arab dancers” were concentrated within four or five establishments in Beirut. The more noteworthy establishments included Carillon, “Kaukab-el-Shark,” and “Kaukab-el-Gharb.” Those working at these institutions received less pay than their foreign counterparts, approximately 20 francs daily, with which they had to pay for lodging, food, and clothing. As domestic artists, they underwent medical examinations twice a week (unless, according to the observer, guarantors took them in as mistresses) and inspections by the police des mœurs. The indigenous establishments experienced less turnover than the ones employing those from European countries, and,

370 Beirut Vigilance Committee, Report Presented to the Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women, February 1932. Student Life and Activities (SLA), Civic Welfare League Yearbook (CWLY) 1936/1937. AA.4.3.5. Archives of the American University of Beirut (AAUB). Beirut, Lebanon. Ashwini Tambe notes that European sex workers in colonial Bombay achieved upward mobility and enough pay to buy “a horse carriage or ‘a summer rental of a bungalow.’” Ashwini Tambe, “The Elusive Ingénue: A Transnational Feminist Analysis of European Prostitution in Colonial Bombay,” Gender & Society 19, no. 2 (2005): 171.

132 according to the same observer, “they practice the profession in order to live and in order to escape the confinement of the licensed houses.” 371

When foreign artists contracted venereal disease, they were required under the regulations to be treated for their condition—not unlike their indigenous counterparts.372 Due to misconceptions about the requirements and the differentiated treatment of workers based on their places of origin, some perceived that the authorities inconsistently enforced requirements. A social worker in Beirut reported on a case of a German artist who was treated for venereal disease and released to proceed to work in Damascus before returning to Beirut again. According to the report, the artist seemed to be aware of the regulations overseeing her profession, as the social worker reflected in the following way on their interaction with the traveling artist: “When

I asked her how it was that she was allowed to remain in the country after being diagnosed with a disease, she said she was surprised herself that she was allowed to remain, as she knew it was the regulation that such cases should be expelled.”373 Since the regulations never expelled a foreigner for being “diseased,” only for operating without permission from the authorities, it is no surprise that the worker was allowed to remain. Yet this perception of lax enforcement of regulations can be seen as reflecting tensions over the disparate treatment of foreign and

371 Beirut Vigilance Committee, Report Presented to the Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women, February 1932. SLA, CWLY 1936/1937. AA.4.3.5. AAUB. Beirut, Lebanon. 372 It is important to note the construction of the notion of “foreign sex worker.” While the capitulations reified the difference in meaning between foreign and indigenous, the League’s Advisory Committee on the Traffic of Women and Children required countries to make such distinctions as well. This construction derived from establishing authority based on national sovereignty. Yet the League itself, under the Mandate system, solidified notions of foreignness that did not exist under the Ottomans. This ambiguity exists in the reports to the League, where countries did not distinguish between Lebanese or Syrian sex workers, only listing them as “Syrian.” As the Iraqi government succinctly stated, that it is “to be noted that there is no ‘White Slave’ trade [in Iraq]. The majority of foreign women expelled etc. [thirty-one of the thirty-four being “Syrian,” the remaining three being “Persian”] were foreign only in virtue of the provisions of the [1923] Treaty of Lausanne.” League of Nations, Traffic in Women and Children: Annual Report for 1924 from the Iraq Government. July 13, 1926. C.414.M.150.1926.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. 373 Beirut Vigilance Committee, Report Presented to the Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women, February 1932. SLA, CWLY 1936/1937. AA.4.3.5. AAUB. Beirut, Lebanon.

133 indigenous workers under the regulatory system. The system of taxation applicable to sex workers further illustrates the stratified structure that preferred foreign workers to indigenous workers.

Taxation: Discrimination Comes in Different Forms

Taxes played an integral part when it came to regulating sex work in the Levant. As demonstrated in Chapter One, its importance even existed under the Ottomans. To be more specific, municipal revenues in the form of taxation were important for the authorities. As

Decree 188 articulated, municipal authorities levied fines on those in violation of the regulations and required workers to pay for their medical examinations. In addition, while they were not obligated to do so under Decree 188, the cities imposed taxes—which they claimed to be part of a their “health” policies—on the revenues of workers under the regulations of the police des mœurs that were established on March 12, 1920.374 Harsin’s arguments on sex work in nineteenth-century Paris can help clarify just how the municipalities relied on revenues derived from sex workers to sustain the French regulatory system in the Levant, as France sought to replicate structures in their colonial holdings that were found in the metropole. Referring to the medical dispensary system, in which workers would undergo their inspections, Harsin argues that the facilities, materials, and staff had to be paid for through the revenues generated from the examinations in order to ease the public’s condemnation of the steep costs of regulation.375 By

374 References to the tax are found in archival letters and it was plausibly promulgated in this regulation. I could not locate a copy of this version, only references to it, and France does not acknowledge the regulation in its summary of laws given to the League in 1932. Article 9 of a July 15, 1921, regulation signed by the Governor of Greater Lebanon states that there were three categories of brothels that must pay taxes established by the municipal authorities without stating what those amounts were. “Police des mœurs: Règlements relatif aux maisons de tolérance,” Beirut, July 15, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. Nessim Znaien argues that they were financial motivations to alleviate the debt burden, as sex work generated revenue through state, municipal, and what he terms “guarding” taxes. Nessim Znaien, “La Prostitution à Beyrouth sous le mandat français (1920–1943),” Genre & Histoire 11 (2012): 7–8. 375 Harsin, Policing Prostitution, 8.

134 transferring the costs onto the worker—in the case of Decree 188, they amounted 40 Egyptian pounds per day of treatment—the authorities constructed the fee as a form of “municipal tax.” As

Harsin states, “it took money to rent the building, to buy equipment, to support the clerks, and to pay the . . . Brigade des mœurs. So long as all of this was paid for by the prostitutes, the organization remained entirely self-contained and self-supporting, and, it was assumed, free also of public criticism.”376 Harsin shows how this calculation proved to be incorrect in France, as criticism emerged that linking government revenues to sex work encouraged the police to register more prostitutes to bolster earnings.377 This concern is illustrated by a correspondence that took place in Beirut regarding filles isolées.

A controversy emerged that had to do with the permission for filles isolées (literally,

“isolated girls” as opposed to those who are attached to a particular maison) to operate in Beirut in 1921.378 Regulations granted filles isolées certain liberties not afforded to filles de maisons de tolérance, as the former resided in their own establishments, not in the maisons, and were not required to live in the quartier réservé.379 In particular, Articles 37–41 of the July 15, 1921,

376 Ibid., 10–11. 377 “Police des mœurs: Règlements relatif aux maisons de tolérance,” Beirut, July 15, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. Article 33 of the July 15, 1921, regulation of the police des mœurs attempted to penalize corruption of the police by stating that it was formally prohibited for the Police Commissioner and his agents des moeurs to receive girls or services from either the patrons or workers of maisons. Furthermore, akin to France, Article 44 stated that profits from the fines paid by prostitutes or brothel managers must be given to charity. 378 Harsin, Policing Prostitution, 5. Harsin quotes the Paris Police Prefect’s statement in 1879 that indicated that the authorities preferred maisons de tolérance over filles isolées, as the latter were harder to surveil and, in their opinion, decentralization of the practice allowed for clandestine operations to increase. 379 According to the municipal regulation of sex work in the city of Valence, France, three categories of “public women” existed: les filles de maisons, who lived in licensed brothels under the direction of the brothel owner (maitresse de maison), les filles isolées who were independent of brothels and not dependent on a brothel owner but practiced openly, and les filles isolées who practiced “discreetly” and posed the greatest danger to public health. Ville de Valence (Drome), Règlement général de la prostitution (Valence: Granger et Legrand, 1930), 4. In Paris, sex work shifted from maisons de tolérance to filles isolées due to the fact that the public was increasingly repulsed by the contractual relationships between the owners of the brothels and the clients, which resulted in the perceived exploitation of the sex worker. Bulletin municipal officiel de la Ville de Paris, May 5, 1890, 1191. Other municipalities referred to the separate categories as filles de maison close and filles isolées. See, for example, Ville de Quimper, Règlement sur la police des mœurs (Quimper: A. Jaouen, 1916), 1. Dr. Caufeynon’s 1902 book on sex work in Paris characterizes filles isolées as the “aristocracy of prostitutes” who look down upon the filles de maison. He states that only a few, privileged women ever earned the fille isolée distinction, namely, those who were able to

135 police des mœurs regulation pertaining to maisons de tolérance acknowledged the tacit permission of filles isolées to operate in Greater Lebanon. They stated, however, that these women were not allowed to change rooms or locations without providing notice to the Police

Commissioner at least twenty-four hours in advance, that they were not allowed to be on the balcony or in the window of their rooms, that they were not to attract attention to themselves while on the street or go out without a headdress, that they could not enter hotels, cinemas, theaters, cabarets, or other public places, and that they could not be in public view after midnight.380 All of these restrictions were in addition to being subjected to the same sanctions as those women working in maisons.381 Yet even with all these restrictions, sex workers in Beirut appeared to prefer being filles isolées to living in the quartier réservé. In the words of the

Administrator of Beirut, “the powers granted to isolated girls are so favorable that all the girls in the quartier réservé will soon leave the middle of the depraved environment where they are enclosed to escape any control and to sneak into environments more favorable to soliciting a larger and more gallant clientele.”382 Considering all the restrictions placed on filles isolées under this new police regulation, this was more of an indictment of the conditions in which the sex

save enough money so that they were no longer dependent on intermediaries to get clients. Docteur Caufeynon, La Prostitution: la débauche à Paris, les maisons de tolérance, la prostitution clandestine, règlements de police, caractère des prostituées (Paris: Charles Offenstadt, 1902), 72–73. 380 The language in the regulations stated that women could not “sortir dans la rue en cheveux,” which literally means to go out on the street “in hair,” a term that was used at the turn of the century to denote women who did not cover their hair. See “En cheveux” in the Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle: Française, historique, géographique, mythologique, bibliographique, littéraire, artistique, scientifique, etc., Tome 4 (Paris: Pierre Larousse, 1866). 381 “Police des mœurs: Règlements relatif aux maisons de tolérance,” Beirut, July 15, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. 382 L’Administrateur de la ville de Beyrouth à Monsieur le gouverneur de Grand Liban,” Beirut, July 23, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. This idea is echoed in police official Charles-Jérôme Lecour’s observations of sex workers operating in maisons in the 1880s in Paris, who would wait “impatiently, provisionally, and awaiting the moment when they can enjoy the relative liberty and chances for adventure that the fille isolée possesses.” Lecour as translated by Harsin, Policing Prostitution, 314.

136 workers of the quartier réservé had to work than it was a testament to the liberties granted to filles isolées.

This new regulation promulgated by the police des mœurs provoked criticism not only on monetary but also on moral grounds; there were also concerns raised over the inability of the authorities to adequately surveil the workers. For those administering this new regulation, the introduction of a new class of sex workers created ambiguity and tensions, as those responsible for enforcement much preferred the clearly defined boundaries provided by the quartier réservé.

Inasmuch as policies were intended, at least in theory, “to produce and reinforce specific categories of social being and specific patterns of social organization,” this new policy did the opposite.383 In other words, filles isolées, due to their increased freedom of movement, muddied the waters. On July 23, 1921, only one month after filles isolées gained permission to operate in the city, the Administrator of Beirut, H. El-Ahdaly, wrote to the Governor of Greater Lebanon, complaining about its effects on the quality of life for the more respectable and privileged of

Beirut’s residents. As he asserted, “the customs of the country are of a particularly delicate and sensitive kind, because there are women of various religions! Besides, I do not see what would prevent an ‘isolated’ woman from settling in the middle of a neighborhood frequented by very distinguished families . . . one might have an idea of the disastrous state in which there will be fathers of families—concerned about the education of their children—who would witness the scandalous scenes of such undesirables.”384 Subsequently, in December of the same year, the

383 Carol Bacchi and Joan Eveline, “Approaches to Gender Mainstreaming: What’s the Problem Represented To Be?” in Mainstreaming Politics: Gendering Practices and Feminist Theory, ed. Carol Bacchi and Joan Eveline (Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press, 2010), 112. 384 L’Administrateur de la ville de Beyrouth à Monsieur le gouverneur de Grand Liban,” Beirut, July 23, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. He continued on to state that “public women” were always a danger, an idea that served as the rationale behind the quartier réservé.

137 financial ramifications of the new regulation began to be discussed among Beirut’s administrative authorities.

In another letter written by El-Ahdaly to the Governor of Greater Lebanon, the former detailed his concerns over permitting this new class of sex workers within his municipality. He complained that the “filles dites ‘isolées’” were progressively exiting the confines of the quartier réservé to live elsewhere, circumventing the controls provided in the quartier. He more or less reiterated the same concerns he expressed several months earlier that sex workers were leaving the quartier to “save the amount of taxes they pay and settle in more favorable environments soliciting a larger and more gallant clientele” to the dissatisfaction of the moukhtars, the heads of local neighborhoods. El-Ahdaly argued that, by permitting women to register as filles isolées, the authorities were not serving the interests of the municipality due to the decreased tax revenue and the dangers posed to both the public’s health and its security. He asked for the Governor to order a “total revision” of the regulation permitting their existence and to legislate severe requirements for clandestine sex workers and maisons de rendez-vous, whence the workers operated, that would, in effect, make it excessively difficult for filles isolées to ply their trade.385

Yet filles isolées were not the only concern of the authorities that involved both tax revenues and sex work. Capitulations also became an important issue during this time.

Capitulations factored into how revenues from sex work translated into early municipal policy under the French Mandate. First, the capitulatory system, from which France benefited greatly at its inception in the sixteenth century, meant that foreign workers, at least in theory, were exempt from local prosecution and taxation until the system’s abolishment under the Treaty

385 L’Administrateur de la ville de Beyrouth à Monsieur le gouverneur du Grand Liban, Beirut, December 10, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France.

138 of Lausanne in 1923.386 Not only did indigenous sex workers object to the unfair two-tiered system imposed on them, but local authorities objected to the fact that indigenous workers would not be taxed if treated equally to foreign ones. The local revenues generated by the taxation of sex workers paid for salaries and other expenses incurred by the municipalities that were charged with maintaining and enforcing strict surveillance over sex work.387 So the concern to have indigenous sex workers included in the same category as foreign women employed in cafés or concert halls was not only about public health but about revenue.

On March 30, 1921, Dr. Beydoun, the chief medical officer of Beirut, wrote a letter to the

Administrator of Beirut, H. El-Ahdaly, arguing that women working in cafés and concert halls, along with other female singers, should be required to undergo regular medical inspections as they could well be carrying venereal diseases.388 He urged El-Ahdaly to instruct the central

386 According to a 1923 article written about the capitulatory system, “foreigners were so completely exempt from the jurisdiction of the Turkish police that they came, in effect, to be regarded as subject to no law inasmuch as none of the powers could attempt any general or special police surveillance over their own nationals. . . . The most notorious instances of this helplessness were in the impotence of the police in dealing with the hotels, cafés, gambling houses, saloons, dance-halls and other pleasure resorts which were owned by foreigners. . . . The proceedings were so complicated and so likely to give rise to controversies of a highly disagreeable nature that it was generally found more prudent to refrain from any interference with these foreign establishments” (emphasis in original). Philip Marshall Brown, “The Capitulations,” Foreign Affairs 1, no. 4 (1923): 73. Turkey abolished capitulations in 1914, but the French reinstated them in Syria and Lebanon in 1918. The Treaty of Lausanne and the League of Nations Charter provided for the abolition of capitulations in Syria and Lebanon in November 1923. “Arrêté No. 2981: Fixant la date d’exigibilité des impôts et taxes dont les sujets des Puissances ex-capitulaires étaient dispenses en vertu des capitulations,” in Bulletin mensuel des actes administratifs du Haut-Commissariat, December 1924, 223. A. Farhat states that the League’s text allowed for the French to establish a judicial system in the region, which led to a dual system of French and Lebanese magistrates hearing cases of “real foreign interest.” A. Farhat, “La condition des étrangers au Liban,” Civilisations 7, no. 3 (1957): 362. M. Talha Çiçek argues that Jamal Pasha sought to implement the abolition of capitulations in the region during World War I in order to erase French influence. M. Talha Çiçek, War and State Formation in Syria: Cemal Pasha’s Governorate during World War I, 1914–17 (London: Routledge, 2014), 79, 143–144, 268. 387 A maison de tolérance sought exemption from taxes on the basis that it served military personnel and, as per municipal regulations, all imported merchandise used for troops were exempted from paying entry taxes. Abdul Halim Hajjar, le caimacan de Baalbek à Monsieur le lieutenant Burtin, officier de S. S. Baalbek,” Baalbek, October 19, 1931. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. The efforts failed and the authorities declared that they must pay taxes. “Monsieur l’Officier des Services spéciaux de la Beka [sic],” Baalbek, November 18, 1931. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. 388 Dr. Beydoun, médecin chef de la ville de Beyrouth à Monsieur l’administrateur de la ville de Beyrouth, March 30, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. Carla Eddé identifies the Beydouns as a prominent Shi‘ite family originally from Damascus who became associated with Beirut municipal politics after their arrival at the end of the nineteenth century. Carla Eddé, “Étude de la composition du conseil municipal beyrouthin (1918–1953):

139 commissioner, which was the Police Commissioner, Grégoire Henri, to require these workers to pass by dispensaries, as they were currently not required to do so.389 In response to this request,

El-Ahdaly informed Dr. Beydoun that, as per the regulations of the police des mœurs established on March 12, 1920, by the delegate from the High Commissioner for the Police and Security

Services, courtesans and artists employed in these establishments were not required to visit medical dispensaries for venereal disease inspections. Yet, he also stated that he was aware that many foreign women entered Beirut who claimed to be artists but who were really sex workers.

And he was indeed concerned that the aforementioned women could infect men of a distinguished class who often visited these establishments, as these men would never report being infected for reason of self-protection. With this concern in mind, he requested that Dr.

Beydoun draw up a draft decision on the matter as soon as possible.390 From this letter, we are able to learn that the Administrator of Beirut requested the chief medical officer, who oversaw

Renouvellement des élites urbaines ou consolidation des notables?” In Municipalités et pouvoirs locaux au Liban, ed. Agnes Favier (Beirut: Presses de l’Ifpo, 2001), 92. 389 According to the decree signed by Gouraud in April of 1920, Articles 87–90 outline the Police Commissioner’s role in surveilling sex workers. Following medical inspections of sex workers, the doctor must submit a health report to the Police Commissioner. Relevant to this dispute, Article 90 stated that all artists who openly practiced prostitution must be registered as such; yet prior to this happening, the Police Commissioner had to prepare a report providing the circumstances under which it was deemed that the artist was practicing prostitution. The internal municipal administrative hierarchies are difficult to reconstruct using the archives I reviewed. There are references to the Administrator of Beirut and the Police Commissioner. According to Mounzer Jaber, while the Governor of Greater Lebanon had the ultimate authority, the Administrator was held responsible for the daily activities such as building regulations and sanitation, much like we understand the responsibility of the mayor of a city. Mounzer Jaber, “Les Dessous de cartes: quelles règles pour les jeux de l’administration libanaise? Lecture des cartes de visite et documents personnels de Sahriq al-Halibi,” in The British and French Mandates in Comparative Perspectives, ed. Nadine Méouchy and Peter Sluglett (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 549–578. In 1941, Order 79/LR explicitly provided the Administrator with the executive powers of a mayor (554). Jaber states that the Administrator of Beirut and the conseillers municipaux constituted the “government of Beirut,” whose “primary responsibility [was] to enforce the governor’s policy.” What is referred to as the “commissaire central” in the archives is the head of the city’s police force and not to be confused with the city council. The archives that I reviewed reflected an ambiguity as to the political hierarchy, as those occupying the positions of Administrator and Police Superintendent were disputing each other’s authority over municipal matters. To make matters more ambiguous, Jaber cited a 1924 municipal law of Beirut from the Ministry of the Interior that gave “the city council the ability to say what it thinks, without being free to execute its decisions, because its competences and its executive functions must remain under the tutelage of the central power” (555). While this municipal ordinance was passed after the correspondence that I was reviewing, it does nevertheless illustrate the power structure of and the power struggles within state–municipal relations. 390 L’Administrateur de la ville de Beyrouth à Monsieur le médecin-chef de la ville. Beirut, March 31, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France.

140 sex workers, to actually write an administrative bylaw, illustrating how doctors were directly involved in formulating regulation policy in the city.391 And the Administrator followed up on this letter with another one, which was addressed to the city’s administrative lawyer on April 1,

1921, stating that those women in “regular troops” and working in “rather classic” establishments should be exempted from being inspected.392 While he did not define exactly what he meant by these phrases, his instructions do seem to have been making class distinctions, exempting artists who performed in theaters, who catered to the more affluent citizens of the city.393 If this was indeed the case, it serves as even more evidence for the socioeconomic stratification of sex workers in terms of what Scott describes as the development of vocabularies

“about prostitution which allow for the production of specific classes of prostitute and evaluations to be made considering their social status, which is determined according to calculations of relative safety and health.”394

In effect, the sex worker’s social class was intertwined with the population that she served; she did not necessarily possess a social class in her own right. This kind of thinking translated into class assumptions about disease, what kinds of people were likely to have it, and which

391 The idea of medical officers designated by the government to track the spread of venereal disease came before the Mandate period. In 1914, under increasing pressure to respond to the public threat of contagious diseases, the Ottoman government created positions for two doctors to monitor the spread of syphilis and tuberculosis. However, the newspaper Al-Muqtabas published an article criticizing the ineffectiveness of these two physicians, claiming that they did nothing aside from collect their pensions, and that they did not even speak Arabic. Robert Ian Blecher, “The Medicalization of Sovereignty: Medicine, Public Health, and Political Authority in Syria, 1861–1936” (Diss., Stanford University, 2002), 143. 392 L’Administrateur de la ville de Beyrouth à Monsieur le conseiller administratif. Beirut, April 1, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. 393 Abraham Flexner’s Prostitution in Europe (1920) attests to classed-based enforcement of regulations. He states that “showy women of the cafés, the boulevards, the variety theaters are absolutely free from molestation . . . these women are technically called ‘clandestine’—an absurd misnomer, for their way of living is as notorious as that of any registered prostitution in the city. A little shrewdness was what enabled them to avoid giving offense. The brunt of the system falls upon the friendless and the stupid.” Abraham Flexner, Prostitution in Europe (New York: Century, 1920), 156–157. Furthermore, Flexner quotes a member of a French commission studying sex work in France as having said that “Paris police do not arrest, do not disturb, do not even watch the well-to-do courtesans . . . who live luxuriously . . . who frequent theaters, concerts and balls—in a word the aristocracy of the underworld” (156). 394 Scott, “Governing Prostitution,” 54–55.

141 kinds of people deserved to be protected from it by the state. In a letter responding to the city’s administrative lawyer, who was mindful of class distinctions, the Controller of General Security

(writing on behalf of the Director of General Security) argued in a letter dated April 6, 1921, that the current regulation, which was enacted on March 12, 1920, was still sufficient, and that only those whose wages relied exclusively on sex work must undergo inspections, not those working in cafés and/or concert halls.395 He articulated that those found to be practicing sex work must be placed on the sex workers registry but, he added, those coming from nations benefiting from capitulations could not be subjected to administrative punishment or prison time if they refused to submit themselves to the regulation.396

We see capitulations being invoked once again in a letter written by the Administrator of

Beirut stating that if a notice that was issued by the Director of General Security was to remain in effect, then indigenous women working in cafés or concert halls would become exempt from paying taxes, just like foreign women were, and could therefore leave the city without having to pay taxes on the money they earned.397 His letter, addressed to the Governor of Greater Lebanon

Albert Michel Antoine Trabaud, asked for the state authorities to offer their opinion as a means

395 Le directeur de la Sûreté générale absent, le contrôleur, “Soit fait retour à Monsieur le conseiller administratif du sandjack de Beyrouth,” Beirut, April 6, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. 396 In the July 15, 1921, regulation of the police des mœurs signed by the Governor of Greater Lebanon, Article 16 stated: “The brothel managers who would bring virgin girls or married women to their establishments will have their authorization to operate revoked and if they are of foreign nationality they will be expelled from the territory.” Furthermore, Article 22 stated the following regarding workers who repeatedly exited onto the street without police permission: “In the case of incorrigibility, the prostitute will be expelled if she is foreign, her license will be withdrawn if she is native, and she will be given formal notice to leave the city.” “Police des mœurs: Règlements relatif aux maisons de tolérance,” Beirut, July15, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. According to Margot Badran, tensions regarding sex work and capitulations surfaced in Egypt. Egyptian feminists attacked capitulations as protecting foreign prostitution in their home country. However, they decided to compromise by trying to pass a resolution against capitulations at the 1935 International Association of Women conference in Istanbul not on sex work, but on the disparate treatment of wives’ nationalities. While they did not manage to achieve international condemnation of the link between capitulation and sex work, Egyptian feminists like Huda Sha‘rawi continued to campaign on the issue in their home country. Margot Badran, Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 203–205. 397 H. El-Ahdaly à Monsieur le gouverneur du Grand Liban, April 13, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. In his letter, he characterized regulations in some French cities as being draconian and he said that he did not want to replicate them in Beirut.

142 of settling the matter.398 On June 4, 1921, the Governor weighed in on the conflict. Without differentiating between foreign and indigenous women, he stated that all those who worked in cafés or concert halls and who were deemed suspicious by the police des mœurs, and who were found to be involved in prostitution, must be added to the official sex workers registry.399 The subsequent regulation signed by Trabaud on July 15, 1921, required both foreign and indigenous artists working in cafés or concert halls to provide a certificate of good health and morals to the police department and subject themselves to weekly medical exams or else be punished by fine or expelled from the region.400 For those who the police deemed “incorrigible,” they would be registered no longer as artists but as filles isolées. This resolved the disagreement between the

Police Commissioner and the Administrator of Beirut, at least on paper.401

Enforcement and Porteuses de Ceinture Dorée:402 The Complexity of Municipal Rule

As mentioned above, France had created a system where sex work fell not under state jurisdiction but under local (city, municipal) jurisdiction, which led to problems not only for the workers themselves, but for those who were hired by the government to enforce this draconian system. It is important to understand how policies create subjects to be governed, and it is

398 High Commissioner Gouraud named Albert Michel Antoine Trabaud, a French military commander, as Governor of Greater Lebanon on September 1, 1920, a position that he served in until April 1923. “Arrêté No. 329,” Bulletin mensuel des actes administratifs du Haut-Commissariat, October 1920, 14. 399 Le Gouverneur du Grand Liban à Monsieur l’administrateur de la ville de Beyrouth, June 4, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. 400 “Police des mœurs: règlements relatif aux maisons de tolérance,” Beirut, July 15, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. 401 In a July 23, 1921, letter from the Administrator to the Governor, the former maintained that the new regulation passed on July 15, 1921, proved problematic. He stated that he wanted to see whether there existed a note from the High Commissioner pertaining to the exemption of foreign artists from medical inspections due to capitulation. L’Administrateur de la ville de Beyrouth à Monsieur le gouverneur de Grand Liban, Beirut, July 23, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. 402 Le Commissaire central à Monsieur le chef des Services de la Police. Beirut, June 14, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. Porteuses de ceinture dorée is the term that the Beirut Police Commissioner used for sex workers, which can be translated loosely as “golden belt women or (female) wearers of golden belts.” The Police Commissioner placed this description in parenthesis, suggesting that this might have been used elsewhere but I could not find other references to such effect.

143 equally important to understand, in the words of Carol Bacchi and Susan Goodwin, “how the governmental schemes and programs put in place make sense to those who govern.”403 The ambiguity of local jurisdiction over who has the responsibility of punishing disobedient sex workers played out in the early years of French rule between the Administrator of Beirut and the

Police Commissioner of Beirut.404 It is important to recall that Decree 188 assigned the Police

Commissioner the responsibility of reporting on artists suspected of being sex workers and that the municipal administration’s doctor must submit a medical report to the Police Commissioner.

But the details about the enforcement mechanisms that were to be put in place were absent. And this is why there came to be internal municipal disputes about enforcement mechanisms, as we have just seen above, in letters from various vested authorities in 1921 and 1922.405

On June 14, 1921, the exasperated Beirut Police Commissioner sent a letter to the Chief of

Police Services, stating that the Administrator of Beirut contradicted the authority given to him by the administrative advisor for Beirut, Commander Doizelet.406 The Police Commissioner,

403 Bacchi and Goodwin, Poststructural Analysis, 9. 404 According to Elizabeth Thompson, approximately four hundred to six hundred French bureaucrats worked either directly for the Office of the High Commissioner or as “local advisors.” As I affirm in this chapter, French bureaucrats directly controlled local government, and no actions, political or otherwise, would be taken without their approval. As Thompson states, these colonial administrators constructed the civic order. Elizabeth Thompson, Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege, and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 64–65. Furthermore, as she illustrates, the “top-down” approach of having military goals define public projects is reflective of the paternalistic attitude of France during the Mandate period. What was good for France was considered to be good for the colonies. Instead of training the new regime of indigenous bureaucrats, which was necessitated by the dismantling of Ottoman bureaucracy at the end of World War I, the French authorities dominated them (66). 405 After having reviewed a great deal of internal correspondence on the autonomy of local jurisdictions, I found the claim of France of municipal jurisdiction over sex work regulations to be an attempt to fend off public criticism. This is illustrated in the objections that the Beirut police and the city’s Administrator had to enforcing the new laws drawn up by the colonial authorities. The lack of clarity on the roles of local bureaucrats and mechanisms of enforcement and the bureaucrats’ subsequent searching for guidance from the Governor both indicate that the structures within the city failed to be developed by the local authority. The Governor weighed in on the decisions and amended the supposedly “municipal” regulations on the police des mœurs. 406 Le Commissaire central à Monsieur le chef des Services de la police,” Beirut, June 14, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. In a letter dated June 20, 1921, to the Governor of Greater Lebanon, the Administrative Advisor affirmed the Police Commissioner’s allegations that “the women [sex workers] observe very poorly the dictates that are made to them, disobey the orders given, and engage in the street with actions which would call for immediate punishment.” He criticized the shortcomings of the regulations pertaining to the police des mœurs,

144 newly appointed by Secretary-General of the High Commission Robert de Caix in January of that year after having worked for the Paris police force, contended that he had the authority to condemn sex workers to one day in prison.407 He asked the Chief of Police Services for advice, as the Administrator’s accusations had left him “weakened morally and professionally.” He went on to say: “[F]earing that I will be charged with abuse of power and not wanting to run the risk of being brought to justice, I ask you to send me your instructions as to how you want to repress prostitution and what coercive measures should be employed to that end. I am no longer able to maintain order, decency and security both in the quartier réservé and in other parts of the city.”408 Furthermore, he stated that “it is therefore necessary that a certain freedom be left to civil servants so that they can take action according to certain rules established by the higher authority and especially according to their conscience. If the conscientious righteousness of this official is questionable, it is obvious that the whole system is collapsing, since the decisions taken are not of a judicial nature but only of an administrative and arbitrary nature [my emphasis].”409 Here, the Police Commissioner acknowledged that the system was subjective, and

contending that “the police are almost completely disarmed, because in the regulation of the police des mœurs made by Mr. Carette, the offenses are well-targeted but the sanctions are not indicated. Prohibitions are made, but penalties that should be attached to them are not planned. This is a dangerous state of affairs and a recipe for continual disorder.” He asked for the Governor’s intervention in granting the Police Commissioner the authority to imprison sex workers for twenty-four hours. Furthermore, he asked for permission to close maisons for a period of fifteen days to one month if they fail to comply. Significantly, he stated that such rules were in effect when Commander Doizelet had been the Military Governor of Beirut during World War I. Le Conseiller administratif de Beyrouth à Monsieur le gouverneur du Grand Liban, Beirut, June 20, 21. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. Mr. Carette served at the Director of General Security and as an advisor for the Police Service and Security of the High Commissioner. “Note de Service,” Bulletin mensuel des actes administratifs du Haut-Commissariat, July 1920, 46. 407 The Secretary-General of the High Commission, Robert de Caix, signed Decree 631 on January 13, 1921, which appointed Grégoire Henri, formerly of the Paris police prefecture, to the position of Commissaire central de police de la ville de Beyrouth with a salary of 1,000 francs per annum payable by the local budget of Greater Lebanon. Bulletin mensuel des actes administratifs du Haut-Commissariat, February 1921, 5. Approximately a year-and-a- half later, on September 1, 1922, Grégoire Henri was fired from his job as Police Commissioner. “Arrêté No. 1548,” Bulletin mensuel des actes administratifs du Haut-Commissariat, August 27, 1922, 243. 408 He alleged that he tried to draw on the existing OPC, which was vague and only made reference to offenses involving insulting officials and public insults to modesty. 409 Le Commissaire central à Monsieur le chef des Services de la police, Beirut, June 14, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France.

145 that the discretion that was exercised for incarcerating women was dependent on the moral judgment of the particular official in charge.

In reference to his time in Paris, the Police Commissioner stated that “historically, the public authorities have faced the same difficulty [as he is currently facing], because prostitution is not considered illicit in itself and no article of the code provides for sanctions against the outrageous fantasies of these women . . . and, indeed, how to punish a woman walking in the city in a strange outfit which shocks the good taste of her fellow citizens—a shamefully short dress made of flamboyant rags—and I do not know that the modern legislator has taken care of determining the length of the skirt and the color of the dress.” He contended that such “quasi” offenses, or “rather those administrative offenses, require immediate sanction. And the repression, in my opinion, must be energetic and ruthless. My long experience has shown me that the world of prostitution respects only a strong, vigilant and merciless authority. To the outlaw, one must apply measures taken outside the law.” A severe mechanism of control designed to shape and reform the docile body—a body scrutinized on the level of mere gesture—needed to be put in place. He argued that his solution of incarcerating women for a maximum of twenty- four hours was far less than the fifteen days to several months in prison that Parisian sex workers faced “and yet, Paris is well accepted as beings the city of Liberty.” Such measures would, in the hopes of the Police Commissioner, force the sex worker to behave and operate as the authorities wished. 410 At the same time, as “quasi” offenses were not clearly demarcated, sex workers were

410 Le Commissaire central à Monsieur le chef des Services de la police, Beirut, June 14, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. The Police Commissioner may have been only partially correct in his statement. On November 1920, the President of the French Republic issued a decree forbidding women to wear shorts or to have their torso exposed “from the throat to the legs” while bathing. High Commissioner Dentz enacted the regulation on May 5, 1941, in the Mandate territories. “Arrêté No. 99/LR du 5 mai 1941 relatif à l’interdiction du port de certains vêtements,” Beirut, May 5, 1941. 1SL/250/48. CADN. Nantes, France.

146 faced with meeting an ambiguous and perhaps unattainable standard.411 Were the police allowed to take such discretionary measures, sex workers would never be able to feel secure in their position, as glances could be used as mere pretexts for detainment. The Police Commissioner was fired on September 1, 1922, due to “budgetary constraints,” but not before he was able to create more tensions over the city’s handling of sex work.412

A letter dated June 21, 1921, from the Chief of Police Services, F. Ramadan, to Governor

Trabaud, sheds further light on the conflict between the Administrator of Beirut and the Police

Commissioner on the regulation of sex work. Paraphrasing the opinion of the Administrator,

Ramadan wrote: “[The Administrator] thought that the [Ottoman] Penal Code provided sufficient authority for the surveillance of prostitutes but considered that the punishments inflicted by the

[Police Commissioner] amounted to an abuse of authority.” The Chief of Police Services appeared to concur with the Police Commissioner in certain respects, as he stated that “because of this interpretation [by the Administrator], the police des mœurs find themselves disarmed and for some days now I have noticed a significant breakdown in the brothels, and I see this as a serious danger to public health.” He criticized the Administrator’s refusal to comply with the police with his reflection that “I find it regrettable that the authority most concerned with public health is precisely the one that seems to be an impediment to the repression of prostitution, when it should, with all its power, help to limit its dangers.” The Chief of Police Services aligned himself with the Police Commissioner, who decided to increase the regulation of sex work, stating that OPC was not doing enough to repress the dangers posed by prostitution. He charged that the OPC lacked specificity, allowing for the administration to act at its own discretion. To

411 According to Foucault, the production of docile bodies results from “a policy of coercions that act upon the body, a calculated manipulation of its elements, it gestures, its behavior.” Michel Foucault, “Docile Bodies,” in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: Vintage Books, 2010), 182. 412 “Arrêté No. 1548,” Bulletin mensuel des actes administratifs du Haut-Commissariat, August 27, 1922, 243.

147 remedy the current predicament, the Police Commissioner asked for the central authority, in the absence of revising the OPC, to allow for specific levels of imprisonment for sex workers found to be in violation of the regulations currently in effect. He argued that this would not be a new practice, but a continuation of Turkish methods of repressing prostitution. Chief Ramadan saw himself as trying to navigate between the policy of the Administrator of Beirut, who desired a continuation of Ottoman laws and believed that the central authorities were overstepping their bounds, and that of the Police Commissioner, who believed that the lack of clearly defined punishments allowed the police to act at its discretion. As a result, Chief of Police Services proposed concrete fines and prison sentences to both sex workers and maison de tolérance owners.413

As mentioned above, the Governor did sign a new regulation into effect on July 15, 1921, but this did not satisfy the Administrator of Beirut. The Administrator wrote a letter to the

Governor on July 23, 1921, less than a week after the new regulation went into effect, explaining to the latter that, while the new regulation was intended to apply to all of Lebanon, it could not be applied in its entirety to Beirut due to the city’s unique administrative structure. He reminded the Governor that “you have kindly agreed that all decisions relating to measures to be taken in

Beirut only shall be made by the administration of the city.” And yet, the Administrator contended, the authority that the Governor had granted to the police was not acknowledged by

413 Le Chef des Services de la police à Monsieur le gouverneur du Grand Liban, Beirut, June 21, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. On July 1, 1921, the Administrator of Beirut also wrote to the Governor, arguing that the police were not understanding that there were two types of police: administrative and judicial. The administrative police, under which the Police Commissioner falls, was not permitted to enforce criminal law, as that was the role of the judicial police. The jurisdiction of the administrative police fell under local administrative authority. He acknowledged the poor state of affairs that the police des mœurs found themselves in due to the lack of specificity in the regulations. L’Administrateur de la ville de Beyrouth à Monsieur le gouverneur de Grand Liban, Beirut, July 1, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France.

148 the city’s administrative system.414 He argued that, by placing the police des mœurs in charge of interpreting and enforcing the sex work regulations, the governor had given them unparalleled power over legislative, executive, judiciary, and financial matters. While recognizing the power of the police des mœurs to execute the rules as they were defined in the regulations, the

Administrator contended that such powers should not infringe on the right of the municipal administrative authorities to interpret and act on the regulations, especially and most importantly the July 1921 regulation.415 This regulation underwent another revision the following year, a fact that illustrates the complexity involved in keeping the overseeing of sex work outside the legal system.

In an internal memo dated April 25, 1922, an unnamed government advisor provided his opinion on the decrees pertaining to the police des mœurs. He stated how, like France, Greater

Lebanon could draw upon numerous laws and decrees that were in effect that provided municipal authority over sex work regulation. Specifically, he pointed to an order signed into effect on

March 12, 1922, that granted the administration “the municipal power of maintaining good order on public roads and in public places.” Yet if the municipalities failed to comply with orders, the advisor articulated, then “without a doubt, the Governor of the Greater Lebanon has the faculty to take such decisions for the full extent of the territory of the state, and [this is true] even for a

414 He highlighted how he (i.e., his authority) had been disregarded by the new regulation: instead of being placed in charge of overseeing the administrative function of overseeing sex work operations in Beirut, the new “regulations have been interpreted in such a way that the authorities of the city are totally overlooked.” 415 L’Administrateur de la ville de Beyrouth à Monsieur le gouverneur de Grand Liban, Beirut, July 1, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. In an additional layer of complexity, this dispute illustrates how the regulations over sex work illuminated a power struggle between French and Arab authorities with regard to jurisdiction. The Mandatory power’s insistence on concentrating the regulations on a local level while effectively administering them from above seems to have operated ambiguously under its League covenant. In the French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon promulgated on August 12, 1922, the Council of the League of Nations charged France “with the duty of rendering administrative advice and assistance to the population.” Therefore, placing regulations under municipal jurisdiction created, in a sense, a legal fiction that local indigenous authorities, like that of the Administrator of Beirut, held power when it came to making policy decisions.

149 determined municipality if the municipal authority does not fulfill the obligations the law imposes upon it and as circumstances dictate.” But he provided a cautionary note: “It can be estimated that, in matters of prostitution, the head of state must intervene only if there is an absolute lack of municipal power and provincial authority.” 416 The remedy when municipal authorities did not comply with the regulations, as was the case in Beirut at the time, was for the

Governor to personally handle their enforcement. Due to the instructive manner in which it shows the nature of the administrative mechanisms behind the French system operating in

Greater Lebanon, the above-mentioned memo from the Governor’s advisor is worth quoting at length.417 He stated that the administrative decrees were indispensable and should be carried out at the municipal—not the legislative—level because:

the legislative authority has always been reluctant to intervene in such matters not only for reasons of self-respect but also and especially because of the difficulties of writing a text on prostitution. It has become almost an axiom that prostitution is outside the law. The administrative sequestration of prostitutes and their peers, a measure of correction for violation of the police regulations, falls within the

416 Le Conseiller du gouvernement, “Note sur le projet de règlement sur la police des mœurs,” April 25, 1922. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. 417 There were several sex-work-related decrees that were specific to Syria. An administrative decree issued in Aleppo, Decree 17286/66, subsequently modified by Decree 19175/1031 on October 30, 1924, briefly articulated rules under which workers could practice. It declared that “every woman who does not live in her family and usually does not practice any profession” would be registered as a sex worker “if it is proved that she derives from prostitution her ordinary and only means of existence.” Furthermore, it permitted a maximum of four hundred and fifty women, including brothel managers, to be admitted into the city’s quartier réservé. The modified decree of October 1924 gave further details on the exact locations of approved residences. Another decree that applied to all of Syria prohibited places that sold alcohol to admit women who were registered as sex workers, and it prohibited alcohol from being served in the quartier réservé. This decree, Arrêté No. 53 of February 19, 1926, also prohibited all women from selling alcohol. Traite des femmes et des enfants: extension de l’enquête sur la traite des femmes et des enfants en Orient, rapport concernant les territoires du Levant sous mandat français (Syrie, etc.), Geneva, July 31, 1932. 1SL/250/22. CADN. Nantes, France. Several years later, in 1933, Syria retained most of the regulations originally promulgated in Lebanon in February 6, 1931, yet it made a few changes: the Syrian state did not provide for a separate category of maisons de rendez-vous, a defining characteristic in the 1931 Lebanese regulations, nor did it provide punishments for the crime of pederasty or regulate artists, singers, and dancers. These regulations were subsequently modified on March 21, 1935, by Decree 112. High Commissioner de Martel approved the changes on April 15, 1935. “Arrête No. 93/L.R. Syrie 122 du 26 Avril 1935,” Bulletin officiel des actes administratifs du Haut-Commissariat, June 1, 1935, 157. Furthermore, Article 6 placed more stringent requirements on investigating whether a woman was operating clandestinely prior to being added onto the registry: “This approval will be given after an investigation which will include at least a detailed report, drawn up by three different agents and showing that the person concerned is engaged in prostitution.” N. A. “La loi du 24 juin 1933,” Damascus, April 19, 1940. 1SL/1/V/875. CADN. Nantes, France.

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disciplinary measures to which all those who place themselves outside the ordinary law must submit. This disciplinary regime is left to the free will of the administration, which, however, must never deviate from the principles of humanity and justice. . . . Therefore, it would be up to the administrator of the Municipality of Beirut to make the executive decision on prostitution, but that decree should contain no provision of a legislative nature . . . it may be done by law, but [the] drawbacks will appear immediately.418

As discussed above, Governor Trabaud signed new regulations governing the maisons de tolérance on July 15, 1921, without providing any instructions on incarceration. Instead, the punishments detailed in Article 22 for infractions of regulations included fines of 1 to 5 Syrian pounds and expulsion (the currency was switched from Egyptian pounds in 1922), either from the country or the city depending on the perpetrator’s country of origin, for “incorrigible behavior.”419 The regulations concluded with the following, ambiguously defined sentence: “In case of disobedience, she [the sex worker] will be prosecuted judiciously.”420 The new regulation drew criticism from the High Commissioner’s Office, which released a statement that Article 22

“seem[ed] abusive” and did not conform to either the Ottoman or French Penal Codes.421 The advisor to the High Commissioner for police and security services sought the guidance of the

High Commissioner’s judiciary advisor, as, in his words, “the practices . . . were the subject of a real scandal.”422 The judiciary advisor did not object to the regulation passed by the Governor that exceeded the bounds of OPC; rather, what he objected to was that the Governor did not get the High Commissioner’s approval and that the sanctions inflicted upon the sex workers could

418 Le Conseiller du gouvernement, “Note sur le projet de règlement sur la police des mœurs,” April 25, 1922. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. 419 For the change in currency calculation, see footnote 348. 420 “Police des mœurs: règlement relatif aux maisons de tolérance,” Beirut, July 15, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. The regulations were disseminated in French and in Arabic. 421 Le Conseiller du Haut-Commissariat pour les Services de police et de sûreté à Monsieur le conseiller judiciaire du Haut-Commissaire, Aley, September 1, 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. Specifically, the letter refers to OPC Article 254 and FPC Article 471 without providing more details. 422 Ibid.

151 only be made by the courts.423 So, yet again, this time on July 21, 1922, another regulation emanated from the Governor’s office.

Significantly, the Règlement sur la police des mœurs issued on July 21, 1922, established that those who stood accused of violating the regulation would be pursued and then sent to the

Tribunal de droit commun (common law tribunal), which would determine the guilt or innocence of a woman accused of operating secretly as a sex worker. Yet the same regulation also stated that “irrespective of sentences pronounced by the competent tribunal, the Chief of Police

Services, after receiving the opinion of the technical advisor, may order the temporary or permanent withdrawal of the verdict.”424 In effect, this gutted the “administrative review” process of its authority, since it could be easily overruled. Power, then, remained vested in the police authority. Moreover, should there be a disagreement between the Chief of Police Services and the technical advisor, the decision of the Secretary-General of the government would prevail.425 The bureaucratic workings of the regulation make for a confusing system, one that was difficult to navigate. Instead of clarifying procedures in such a way as to easily resolve internal tensions, Governor Trabaud seemed to only add more layers to an already archaic

423 Le Conseiller judiciaire, “Note pour M. le conseiller pour les Services de la police et sûreté,” Beirut, November 1921. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. 424 État du Grand-Liban, secrétariat general, “Règlement sur la police des mœurs,” Beirut, July 21, 1922. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France. In addition to adding bureaucratic layers, the regulation also stated that only first- and second-class brothels could serve all types of drinks; that third-class brothels could “only serve tea, coffee, and lemonade”; that only the children of the brothel owner, up to the age of 4 years, may reside in the maison; that brothels could not be established outside the quartier réservé (though filles isolées did not have to reside in the district); that brothel owners could go into the city each day between 7:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. but sex workers in brothels could only leave Mondays and Thursdays between 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m.; and that those who wished to be taken off the registry of sex workers must be subsequently surveilled for two months to ensure that they were no longer engaging in the profession. 425 According to a letter dated April 25, 1922, the government advisor recommended establishing a tribunal to resolve conflicts and keep the regulation of sex work under municipal jurisdiction. As he ascertained, “it would seem necessary to create a simple police court on the model of the French simple police courts in order to allow the administrative and municipal character of this disciplinary correction system to subsist.” Le Conseiller du gouvernement, “Note sur le projet de règlement sur la police des mœurs,” April 25, 1922. 1SL/1/V/2435. CADN. Nantes, France.

152 decision-making process, with women having the most at stake. Getting back to the tribunal itself, one can see it as power operationalized. In the words of Scott reflecting on the thoughts of

Michel Foucault, “the principle of power is not some absolute statement of difference . . .

Instead, power operates more broadly and more subtly, visible as a constant anxiety or pressure to conform to shifting and forever unattainable norms.”426 For those women who stood accused of clandestine sex work, undergoing the scrutiny of an all-male tribunal whose measures of determining their “guilt” were not clearly defined was highly problematic on many levels. Here,

I want to stress that the accused had to conform to standards of socially determined respectability that were subjective, not fixed, in nature.

While the regulations pertaining to the police des mœurs focused on the details of where and how sex workers could ply their trade and on who was responsible for enforcement, those rules pertaining to the Réglementation de la prostitution detailed the same information but elaborated upon them. In Decree 188, the public health regulation that was signed by General

Henri Gouraud, rules on sex work comprised one out of six sections. Article 2346, which was issued on March 11, 1924, was signed by Director of Hygiene and Public Assistance Joseph

Mandour in addition to the Governor of Greater Lebanon, Antoine Privat-Aubouard, and the

Secretary-General, Auguste Adib.427 Yet, without apparent fanfare, the regulation of sex work became law on February 6, 1931; this law was signed by Governor Charles Debbas, President of the Republic Auguste Adib, and Minister of the Interior for Hygiene and Public Assistance,

Moussa Namour. The 1920 and 1924 regulations and, subsequently, the 1931 law existed under

426 Scott, “Governing Prostitution,” 54. Scott cites Robert Weitzer’s discussion on the modern-day classification of “street walker” as a low-level prostitute and “escort” as a high-level prostitute. See Robert Weitzer, “Sex Work: Paradigms and Policies,” in Sex for Sale: Prostitution, Pornography, and the Sex Industry, ed. Robert Weitzer (London: Routledge, 1999), 7–12. 427 “Arrêté No. 2346 portant réglementation de la prostitution,” Beirut, March 11, 1924. 1SL/1/V/1441. CADN. Nantes, France.

153 the auspices of public health policy.428 The regulation issued in 1924 and the law issued in 1931 had a wider reach than the initial regulation signed in 1920; they legislated the establishment of two types of brothels, maisons de tolérance (called maisons publiques in the 1924 regulation) and maisons de rendez-vous.429 As defined within the relevant articles, maisons de rendez-vous were considered to be first-class maisons that were authorized to sell alcohol and that were occupied by filles de café, who were not regular tenants and who had to dwell in the quartier réservé.430 Under the 1931 law, the courts were responsible for issuing penalties for offenses within fifteen days of a reported violation, and in cases where the law did not provide specific penalties, fines up to 100 Syrian pounds or imprisonment up to one year applied.431 At the same time, a League inquiry into the prisons in Syria deemed them to be problematic. In the straightforward assessment of Robert de Caix, the French delegate to the Permanent Mandate

Commission (PMC), “the system of [Syrian] prisons are in effect bad.”432 He validated that they were too small, insufficiently organized, and in poor sanitary condition.433 Yet this

428 There was still a great deal of confusion vis-à-vis who held jurisdiction over what, as a letter from the Police Commissioner of Baalbek illustrates. In 1927, he explained that, due to the fact that many military personnel visited civilian brothels, it was unclear which medical officer presided over health inspections, as the 1924 decree, 2345, did not distinguish between military and civilian brothels. Le Commissionner de Baalbek Cherif à Monsieur le chef du L.R. de Baalbek et de la Bekaa, Baalbek, December 11, 1927. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. 429 While both 1924 and 1931 regulations defined penalties for pederasty, the 1931 regulation forbade “homosexuality” as well. 430 There used to be three classes of brothels; these new rules brought the number down to two classes, each of which was subject to a different level of taxation. 431 “Loi portant règlementation de la prostitution,” Beirut, February 6, 1931. 1SL/1/V/875. CADN. Nantes, France. Those practicing sex work had always been required to be a minimum of 18 years of age, but adherence to the League’s Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children required France to raise the age to 21. Therefore, the 1931 law was amended on October 28, 1932, by Decree 49 to reflect the new rule. 432 Robert de Caix consistently attended every session of the PMC from 1924 to 1939 as an official from the French colonial ministry. Susan Pedersen, The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 413. 433 Commission permanente de la Société des Nations. “Prisons and Youth,” Publications de la Société des Nations VI.A., Mandats, 1934, 79–80. He also stated that they were insufficiently funded as “le pays en lui-même n’est pas riche.” This lack of funding resulted in juveniles being housed in the same prisons as adults, although efforts were made to separate the former from the general population.

154 acknowledgment did not prevent the authorities from using them to actively incarcerate sex workers or those suspected of being sex workers.434

Evading Criticism: Colonial Power and the Blame Game

France’s government rejected external pressure from bodies like the League to reform their policies pertaining to sex work. As Barbara Metzer states, the League’s Advisory Committee on the Traffic of Women and Children:

had no authority or direct power but could recommend reforms, legislation and new administrative arrangements geared towards meeting international standards. The objective of the Committee’s work was to study the laws in different countries in order to see how far they met international standards and to what extent they were implemented or ignored, and also to find weaknesses in both domestic and international legal systems and to suggest remedies.435

434 Those placed in a position of power overseeing the enforcement of regulations abused their authority, and yet seemed to have themselves avoided incarceration. Take, for example, the case of Captain Elias Medawar in Tripoli in 1926. Captain Medawar served as the commander of the district of Tripoli. And he happened to frequent brothels in the city. On “a date that is not precise” but around October 10, 1926, Medawar and a lieutenant went to the “maison publique Nazira” and demanded to see a sex worker by the name of Linda, who, busy with other clients, was unavailable at the time. He returned several days later, accompanied by two other friends, and they reproached her for her “attitude regarding the officer.” Rapport du chef de Bon Coindriau, inspecteur-adjoint de la 1ère cie sur les faits reprochés au capitaine Elias Medawar, commandant le district de Tripoli, Tripoli, January 6, 1927. Carton 8, Dossier 65. Centre des Archives Nationales du Liban (CANL). Beirut, Lebanon. They continued to harass her over many nights. Medawar stood charged of acting in a dishonorable manner, as the police had to intervene in the arguments and altercations that erupted. It was also reported that the captain has used his official vehicle to frequent maisons, and that he left it in plain view of the public. Le Lt. colonel Khazen Cdt le Régiment de libanaise, “Transmis à Monsieur le colonel-inspecteur du Régiment,” Beirut, January 5, 1928. Carton 8, Dossier 65. CANL. Beirut, Lebanon. On January 8, 1926, the Arabic-language newspaper Hurrieh denounced Medawar’s actions, asking whether the authorities purchased cars for the pleasure of some gendarmes. Internal memos show that the authorities considered sanctions against the newspaper for damaging the reputation of the French gendarmes. While his behavior warranted that he be sidelined for at least eight days for acting in ways unbecoming an officer (“mauvaise conduite habituelle”), the records indicate that he continued to work as battalion commander even after a report determined that his behavior had been inappropriate. Rapport du chef de bataillon Negib el Halouf Cdt la 1ère cie, sur la punition de Capitaine Medawar Cdt le district de Tripoli, Tripoli, December 24, 1927. Carton 8, Dossier 65. CANL. Beirut, Lebanon; “Les Autos de l’État,” Trans. from Arabic from “Journal Hourrieh” [sic], January 1, 1928. Carton 8, Dossier 65. CANL. Beirut, Lebanon. Medawar appeared again in records over a decade later, apparently while still working as a gendarme. Medical Report by Dr. Halechi on Elias Medawar, le commandant du district de Baalbek, February 5, 1929. Carton 8, Dossier 65. CANL. Beirut, Lebanon. According to Decree 114, he was found “guilty of treason, desertion and having favored the desertion of a Lebanese gendarme,” which resulted in his rank being revoked in June 1941. Subsequently, he was given a “forced” retirement after having been accused of colluding with a southern Shi‘ite politician named Ahmed El-Assad against the interests of the French state. Le Colonel Rosanvallon, chef de la mission et commandant le Règlement de gendarmerie Libanaise à Monsieur le chef du gouvernement de l’État du Liban, “Dossier du Lt-Colonel Medawar,” Beirut, July 15, 1941. Carton 8, Dossier 65. CANL. Beirut, Lebanon. 435 Barbara Metzger, “Towards an International Human Rights Regime during the Inter-War Years: The League of Nations’ Combat of Traffic in Women and Children,” in Beyond Sovereignty: Britain, Empire and Internationalism, c. 1880–1950, ed. Kevin Grant, Philippa Levine, and Frank Trentmann (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 60–

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While not signing Lebanon and Syria on to the International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children until 1930, as a Mandatory power the colonial government still had to provide information on the extent of trafficking in its annual report to the League’s

PMC.436 In the international arena, organizations focused on the trafficking of women and children primarily focused on sex trafficking. To that end, abolitionists accused regulationist countries like France of encouraging exploitation because these countries created a demand for sex workers by explicitly permitting sex workers to operate. The required reports provided to the

PMC documented the policies that France enacted in Lebanon and Syria, and they subjected the colonial rules to international scrutiny, although these rules admittedly received only a cursory, formulaic mention in the reports. In any case, in an interesting maneuver, France cited the OPC in its defense and simultaneously disavowed control over regulationism in Syria and Lebanon by stating that it was a municipal matter.437

With critics of regulation demanding France’s cessation of its policy both in the metropole and in the colonies, representatives of the government distanced themselves from their involvement in the Levant, stating that regulation was under the jurisdiction of the local authorities.438 Furthermore, when defending themselves against League inquiries on the

61. I will go into detail about the Advisory Committee’s role and its involvement in the Levant in Chapters Four and Five. 436 The adherence Lebanon and Syria to international conventions will be covered in Chapters Four and Five. 437 The ability to blame municipalities and not the colonial authorities proved useful in the midst of controversy. In 1933–1934, public outrage ensued in Marrakech following the coming to light of details about a funding scandal surrounding a quartier réservé. A French banker wound up being convicted of fraud, and a public official was tried for bribery. Miller, “‘Romance of Regulation,’” 400. During the scandal, the “resident general” distanced himself from the project, even though he allegedly initiated it, stating that the municipality held all the decision-making power. 438 In the metropole, a similar pretense was given that the provincial municipalities held jurisdiction over the regulation of sex work. As Miller points out, while some municipalities objected, the central government, through the Ministry of the Interior, called for the expansion of the regulatory system. A notice from the Ministry in 1878 stated that the prefectural administrations must have maisons de tolérance in all their municipalities. Miller, “‘Romance of Regulation,’” 85, n. 63. Miller also argues that France’s Minister of Justice and police prefects did not want prostitution to fall under the law, for it would make it harder for the state to regulate (193).

156 trafficking of women and children, French authorities cited Ottoman laws as providing effective controls against illegal sex work in the form of trafficking.439 As just one example, the required annual PMC report provided to the League in 1924 stated that the trafficking of women and children did not occur in the mandates, as it was suppressed under Article 201 of the OPC.440 In their 1927 report, France cited the same section of the OPC, claiming that “the trafficking of women, which is repressed by Article 201 of the Ottoman Penal Code, does not exist in the countries of mandate.” Once France signed the Levantine provinces on to the International

Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children on June 2, 1930, French colonial policy in the Levant received further scrutiny and reporting requirements, both of which

I will discuss in Chapter Five. As part of this new entrenchment, the 1932 League Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children extended to the East, to which French officials cited the OPC as a method of enforcement in the Levant over a decade after the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire.

French authorities argued that certain Ottoman laws that governed aspects of sex work were still held in effect during the Mandate period.441 Specifically, they pointed to Articles 196,

197, 200, 201, 202, 205, and 206 of the OPC.442 These laws concerned penalties inflicted upon

439 The League and abolitionists operating within the League “fuse[d] the two concepts of trafficking and prostitution” at the expense of creating an undifferentiated experience that failed to acknowledge voluntary sexual migration. Jane Scoular, “The ‘Subject’ of Prostitution,” Feminist Theory 5, no. 3 (2004): 351. The conflation of sex work and trafficking upheld the predominant image of victimhood, where the “violated, innocent trafficking victim bolsters calls to criminalise demand.” Eilís Ward and Gillian Wylie, “Carceral Feminism, the State and the Sex Worker in a Globalized Era: Whose Power?” in Feminism, Prostitution, and the State: The Politics of Neo- Abolitionism, ed. Eilís Ward and Gillian Wylie (London: Routledge, 2017), 155–156. The unproblematized construct of abolitionists interlinking sex work and trafficking is examined in Chapter Five and the thesis conclusion. 440 Rapport sur la situation de la Syrie et du Liban, année 1924. C.452 (m). M.166 (m). 1925.VI. January 14, 1926, Geneva, Switzerland: 3. 441 League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, Report to the Council, December 10, 1932. C.849.M.393.1932.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 431–432. 442 There are discrepancies between the official report and internal memos about the report. The official report cited OPC Articles 198, 200, 201, and 202. Internal memos differed in what they cited: one cited Articles 196, 197, 201, 202, 205, and 206, and another cited Articles 197, 202, 205, 206, and “Loi ottoman sur la répression des maladies

157 those who were found guilty of committing assault (regardless of the victim’s gender), rape

(specific to “girls”), promoting immorality among young persons, or public indecency. The vague language in these laws was just about as vague as the language that the French employed in their municipal regulations: it failed to define what constituted “indecent assault,” “public morals,” “gross immorality,” or “indecent behavior.” The irony of the situation is how the

French consistently referred to the incompetency of the Ottomans when it came to suppressing and/or regulating sex work, as I have demonstrated in Chapter Two and will further elaborate on below, but then used their penal system to assure the League and other international bodies that their sex work regulations and laws were sufficient.443 And when international pressure mounted, claiming that regulationism failed to achieve its stated goal, which was to reduce the number of cases of venereal disease and to improve the state of public health, French officials turned to three other scapegoats: Ottoman legacies, local ineptitude, and clandestine workers.

On September 19, 1936, Jacques Meyrier, the general delegate of the High Commissioner, wrote a heated letter to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs regarding sex work in Syria.

Annoyed at the accusations made by abolitionists that France was failing to effectively combat the trafficking of women and children in the Levant, Meyrier argued that the Mandatory power

vénériennes, datée du 5 octobre 1331 (1913).” Furthermore, the translations of these laws differed. I was unable to find anything to indicate why these discrepancies occurred. John Bucknill and Haig Utidjian’s 1913 annotated book on the OPC notes that certain articles in Ottoman law corresponded with the FPC passed on April 28, 1832: Articles 197 (FPC Art. 331), 198 (FPC Art. 332), 201 (FPC Art. 334), 202 (FPC Art. 330), 203 (FPC Art. 341), 205 (FPC Art. 345), and 206 (FPC Art. 300, 307, 350, and 354). John A. S. Bucknill and Haig Apisoghom S. Utidjian, The Imperial Ottoman Penal Code: A Translation from the Turkish Text, with Latest Additions and Amendments Together with Annotations and Explanatory Commentaries Upon the Text and Containing an Appendix Dealing with the Special Amendments in Force in Cyprus and the Judicial Decisions of the Cyprus Courts (London: Oxford University Press, 1913), 149–162. 443 French colonial authorities found in Ottoman legacies a justification for their continued presence in the region and reasons for disavowing regional autonomy. De Caix, when he spoke with the PMC, claimed that Ottoman oppression had inhibited Syrians’ ability to govern themselves and that the “French were driven to use the kinds of forceful methods” that the inhabitants had been used to. Pedersen, The Guardians, 158.

158 had been vigorously applying international conventions.444 He stated that clandestine prostitution was being rigorously combated and that foreign workers found practicing illegally were being expelled from the region. Playing on nuance and once again placing sex work outside the strict confines of the law, Meyrier stated: “As for the control of prostitution in the maisons de tolérance, it is inexact to say that it is officially organized. It is only surveilled very closely, notably from the sanitary point of view.” In fact, Meyrier hinted to fears of miscegenation. He continued: “From an ethical point of view, the existence of such houses is regrettable, without a doubt . . . [and that] in the current state of morals the qualified health authorities and the police consider that it would be imprudent to abolish licensed houses, especially in ports and cities, and garrisons of races other than native ones.”445 The truth claims were in the statistics, as Meyrier employed numbers as proof of the extreme danger posed by clandestine sex work to public health, which he argued only diminished in areas that are were under strict controls. Therefore, not relying on morality alone, Meyrier appealed to the rationality of his audience.446 “The abandonment of control would only bring back clandestine prostitution, as in Turkish times.”

Interestingly, he claimed that “countries of the Levant” should not be used as a field experiment in which to abandon the control of sex work as long as more evolved countries like France believed it to be a mistake.447

444 In this correspondence, he addressed the complaints of La Ligue française pour le relèvement de la moralité publique. 445 In 1921, the League’s Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children circulated a questionnaire for countries to complete. In the section entitled “Colonies and Dependencies,” the document stated that “reports have been received that it is the practice in certain colonies for immigrant White men to have native women and girls procured for them for immoral purposes, and that these women and girls are provided for the by chiefs or procurers.” League of Nations, “Traffic in Women and Children,” February 16, 1921. Geneva, Switzerland. These concerns persisted throughout the interwar period. 446 See Foucault, History of Sexuality, 24. 447 M. Meyrier, délègue general du Haut-Commissaire à son excellence Monsieur le Ministre des affaires etrangers, Beirut, September 19, 1936. 1SL/1/V/1441. CADN. Nantes, France. This should not be confused with the renaming of the High Commissioner as General Delegate under in 1941. Damien de Martel held the position of High Commissioner at the time of Meyrier’s correspondence. Meyrier served as an official representative from the High Commissioner’s Office and in other correspondence is listed as “secrétaire général au haut-commissariat de

159

Akin to what colonial authorities produced in the Annuaire médical, which I discussed in

Chapter Two, the colonial administrators in the different regions of the Levant, when criticized by the League for maintaining a system of regulatory sex work, provided justification for how the situation regarding sex work improved under the French government.448 The authorities appealed to rationality: they had “recourse to reason and to ‘medical science,’ which became authoritative forms of knowledge in dealing with the challenges” confronting the regulatory system.449 In a letter dated February 3, 1930, the Chief of Security for the Syrian state claimed that maisons de tolérance actually decreased to 140 under the French from 154 under the

Ottomans. Furthermore, he added that venereal disease and clandestine sex workers, both rampant under the Ottomans, diminished as French authorities managed to combat clandestine work (but, he noted, not at the levels of European countries with better police forces).450 In another letter discussing the cities of Alexandretta and Antioch, the French authorities argued that the situation regarding prostitution had improved under French control, stating that, prior to the “French occupation,” there existed a state of permanent contagion as prostitution prevailed and medical surveillance was absent. They argued that at the present time, in 1930, under the occupation, the number of sex workers had diminished and the maisons de tolérance in which they operated had been greatly reduced from the five establishments that had existed under the

Ottomans in Alexandretta. They further argued that the medical surveillance that was provided

France en Syrie,” a position he began on November 14, 1935, after heading the French consulate in Shanghai. N. A. “La carrière de M. Meyrier,” Le Petit marocain, August 23, 1940, 1. 448 The defensive posturing by various jurisdictions mentioned here was prompted by the condemnations by Avril de Sainte-Croix, who represented abolitionist groups to the League. 449 Scoular, The Subject of Prostitution, 37. 450 Le Chef de la Sureté générale de l’État de Syrie à Monsieur le ministre plénipotentiaire délègue du Haut- Commissaire, Damascus, February 3, 1930. 1SL/250/22. CADN. Nantes, France.

160 by a municipal doctor, which was strictly enforced, resulted in a reduction of the number of cases of venereal disease.451

Conversely, the colonial authorities argued that the establishment of three maisons de tolérance for the military and two for civilians in Antioch, where there were none prior, safeguarded the residents against “public danger” due to subsequent reduction in “clandestine prostitution practiced on a very large scale.”452 And in Deir-ez-Zor, clandestine work was blamed for the persistence of venereal disease in addition to a lack of regulation under the

Turkish authority, for under their authority “there were many venereal diseases, and syphilis now affects at least 60 percent of the population by heredity.”453 To validate their claims, the authorities provided the testimony of the Director of Hygiene and Public Assistance, Joseph

Mandour, who had spoken about the benefits of regulations in controlling venereal disease. They also referred to a series of letters written by colonial officials in the territories confirming how the colonial regulation policy was effective at diminishing prostitution levels and the number of cases of venereal disease.454 According to these letters, regulation actually improved health

451 Le Délègue adjoint du haut-commissaire pour le sanjak autonome d’Alexandrette à Monsieur le haut- commissaire de la république française, “Objet: alcoolisme, stupéfiants, prostitution dans les États sous Mandat.” Alexandretta, January 13, 1930. 1SL/250/22. CADN. Nantes, France. 452 Ibid. The author noted that the two civilian maisons, which were established in July1926, employed fifteen women and were “placed under the control of a municipal doctor and the local police.” Furthermore, he made sure to articulate that Antioch, inhabited by more than thirty thousand people, had experienced a great reduction in the amount of clandestine prostitution since the establishments were opened. He concluded with the declaration: “The sanitary condition from this point of view is excellent.” He argued a similar point with regard to Kirik Khan, where, due to its being a garrison town, a mixed brothel was required—a brothel that he deemed as “indispensable.” Before this, women would operate clandestinely in the town center or through artists serving as intermediaries. 453 Le Colonel Callais, délègue adjoint du Haut-Commissaire pour le sandjak de Deir ez-Zor à Monsieur le haut- commissaire de la république française, “Objet: a.s. Alcoolisme, stupéfiant et prostitution.” Deir ez-Zor, January 17, 1930. 1SL/250/22. CADN. Nantes, France. The letter claims that there existed no official brothels under the Turks but that, instead, women operated out of five private houses and clandestine sex work flourished. 454 In addition to these letters, another letter came from Beirut, which addressed the outcomes in the change in numbers of maisons under the French between 1925 and 1929 in Beirut (46 to 45), Tripoli (1 to 4), Saida (2, no change), Baalbek (1, no change), and the establishment of maisons in Zahlé (1) and Rayak (1), and reiterated the claim that the trafficking of women and children did not exist in Lebanon. Le Délégué du Haut-Commissaire auprès de la République Libanaise à Monsieur le Haut-Commissaire de la République Française, “Objet: a.s. alcoolisme, stupéfiants, prostitution dans les États sous Mandat. 1SL/1/V/22. CADN. Nantes, France. Similarly, letters came from Aleppo, the Alawite state, Djebel , Hauran, and Damascus all attesting to the success of the controls over

161 statistics in the states placed under French protection. Any failure in achieving these regulations’ stated aims was due to those who operated at the “margins of the margins” of society and who evaded the authorities—that is, the clandestine workers.

Clandestine workers proved to be the lasting scapegoat for the French government. Facing mounting criticism that the French defense of regulationism as a measure of protecting public health had failed due to its ineffectiveness at curtailing venereal disease, officials placed blame on those women who had been evading the system.455 The British authorities and both global and domestic abolitionists publicly claimed that the French regulatory system was abusive and that it was a failure; they used the League as a forum in which to vocalize their opposition during June

1936, prompting the High Commissioner’s Office to ask the Lebanese Health Services

Department to write a formal response to these claims.456 The High Commissioner’s Office

sex work under the French regime. From all the letters, it appears that the French authorities in Lebanon, Syria, and the other regions were arguing that their tighter controls over sex work reduced clandestine activity and the number of cases of venereal disease, something that the Turks failed to accomplish. And yet they used both reductions and increases in the number of maisons as part of their “proof.” 455 In 1933, W. M. Allen Pusey, former President of the American Medical Association and the American Dermatological Association, and a professor of dermatology at the University of Illinois, did not refute the need for containment. Yet he also argued that there was no evidence to suggest that mandatory examination and certification of prostitutes showed any measurable difference in the spread of disease. This was not a disputation of the prevalence of syphilis among prostitutes, as some estimates placed it anywhere from affecting 38 percent of the population to “almost universal existence among old prostitutes.” W. M. Allen Pusey, The History and Epidemiology of Syphilis (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1933), 78. Studies indicated that the best prophylaxis against venereal disease was at the individual level. Pusey stated that the incidence of syphilis among members of the United States army was reduced by more than 50 percent after the military invested in personal prophylaxis (from 2.68 to 1.17 per one thousand men) (101). 456 L’Ambassadeur de France, haut-commissaire de la république en Syrie et au Liban à Monsieur le médecin- général, directeur du Service de santé, Beirut, February 8, 1937. 1SL/1/V/301. CADN. Nantes, France. Avril de Sainte-Croix, who will be discussed more in Chapter Five, vocalized criticism that licensed houses provided “a steady market for the trafficker” because they created a steady demand for new women to come work as prostitutes. In the League’s Advisory Committee on the Traffic of Women and Children, four out of the fourteen countries provided evidence that licensed brothels encouraged trafficking. France was noticeably not one of them. Additionally, opponents of the medical surveillance of prostitutes often made their case on medical grounds, which was a strategy to counteract the prevailing “logic” of the French compulsory system as a matter of public sanitation. Claiming the ineffectiveness of this practice, opponents argued that the exams were cursory and not always in tandem with essential bacteriological testing. In addition, the window of contagion for gonorrhea could occur between the two compulsory medical exams and the disease could therefore be undetectable. League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Enquiry into Measures of the Rehabilitation of Prostitutes: Social Services and Venereal Disease. July 1, 1938. Geneva, Switzerland: 24. These arguments can be counterproductive, since they could substantiate the need for increased surveillance, not less. As seen in Chapter Two, the French

162 summed up the allegations against the French authorities in the Levant as being twofold: (1) sex workers were not at liberty to quit their profession and were detained by force; and (2) maisons de tolérance propagated venereal disease.457 In the past, France employed two claims to serve as its defense: (1) it had sovereignty over its territories; and (2) more scientific research needed to be done to determine the specific effects of licensed brothels.458 Once more research had been done, which showed the ineffectiveness of regulation in curtailing venereal disease (though

France continued to refute this claim), the French authorities blamed the failure of some women to obey the regulations and laws, and not the regulations and laws themselves.459 And instead of retracting the system that had begun to face mounting criticism, the French expanded it with the onset of World War II and the influx of soldiers into the Levant.

invested resources in the Levant in the form of laboratories, and samples were routinely sent for testing so as to determine the existence of venereal disease. In order to enable these tests to be successfully and routinely conducted on prostitutes, the Lebanese government created medical surveillance as its primary coercive mechanism for compliance. 457 Article 21 of the 1931 law signed by Debbas stated that women were allowed to leave their profession whenever they would like and that the owner of the brothel could not use any means to detain the worker, even if the worker was indebted to the owner. 458 League of Nations, Report: Social Questions. CTFE 336 (2), 1929.IV.2. Geneva, Switzerland: 7. 459 Aurore François and Christine Machiels show that defenders of abolition and regulation both used statistics to defend their positions. As early as the 1880s, abolitionists used numbers to demonstrate how regulating sex work failed to protect public health. Aurore François and Christine Machiels, “Une guerre de chiffres: l’usage des statistiques par les discours abolitionniste et réglementariste sur la prostitution à Bruxelles (1844–1948),” Histoire & mesure 12, no. 2 (2007): 103–134. In the 1930s, abolitionists employed multiple decades’ worth of figures to support their argument and refute regulationists’ claims that the system benefited the greater public. Jean Joussellin, who will be discussed in Chapter Five, analyzed the numbers used by the French authorities in Beirut to undercut their argument. Based on his calculations of numbers furnished by the French authorities, the numbers actually proved the ineffectiveness of regulation when it came to curtailing the number of clandestine sex workers and the number of cases of venereal disease. Jean Joussellin, Enquêtes sur la jeunesse délinquante et la prostitution au Liban en 1932 (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1933), 28. Ismaël Maatouk’s more recent article on French control of venereal disease in Lebanon claims that the French were more successful at controlling venereal disease than the Ottomans due to their tight restrictions on sex workers. Ismaël Maatouk, “Venereal Diseases in Lebanon during the French Mandates,” in International Journal of Dermatology 55, no. 7 (2016): 820–821. Yet even if the French were more successful than their Ottoman predecessors at controlling disease, inasmuch as the Ottomans had already imported the French system into the Levant during the period Maatouk analyzed, they were not demonstrably better (regulation) at controlling venereal disease than the Ottomans (abolition).

163

The Sexual-Infrastructural Demands of World War II

For the French, control over sex workers had consistently been defended as the control of venereal disease and the securing of improved public health.460 Even since the French officially took control over Syria and Lebanon, their policies had implemented strict control over workers’ submission of their bodies to health inspections by designated medical professionals. Their policy of regulation reached new importance in the years immediately prior to withdrawal of

French troops in 1946.

The start of World War II saw an increase in the number of French colonial and allied troops in the Levant.461 For the military hierarchy, the increase of sex workers came in tandem with the influx of single men, and it renewed the threat of disease as a security issue.462

Especially relevant in this context is Scott’s argument that “the activities of individual prostitutes have been socially contextualised and made politically meaningful by discourse linking prostitution to issues of civil and national security, and by rendering the health/sexual behaviour of prostitutes socially and politically meaningful.”463 The meaning of sex work as a necessary

460 According to Miller, France’s isolation, which was due to its sustained defense of regulation, served to bolster some French perceptions of their “country’s uniqueness and superiority.” Miller quotes one Paris municipal councilman as stating that the defense of the French regulatory system meant protecting “the good name of France that foreigners denigrate a lot and that the League of Nations takes the liberty of reprimanding.” Miller, “‘Romance of Regulation,’” 498. 461 According to Elizabeth Thompson, while the French civil administration peaked upward of 600 persons, the expanded from 12,889 in October 1919 to 69,416 in 1921 in response to Syrian rebellions and then to 100,000 at the beginning of World War II. Thompson, Colonial Citizens, 49. 462 As Michelle Rhoades argues regarding World War I, “France’s wartime rhetoric emphasized that masculinity included the physical duty to protect the nation and the ability to engage in sexual activities with women.” Furthermore, she argues that soldiers who contracted venereal disease were not held accountable for their role in its propagation and were construed as circumstantial victims, as they had been deprived of the “sexual contact marriage provided.” In response to the crisis that venereal disease posed during wartime, French military health services standardized medical treatment, increased prophylaxis for soldiers, established dispensaries, and tightened the regulation of sex work. Michelle Rhoades, “Renegotiating French Masculinity: Medicine and Venereal Disease during the Great War,” French Historical Studies 29, no. 2 (2006): 299, 307–308. Such practices became the established norm for combatting venereal disease among the French troops, and, as Henri Escher (discussed in Chapter Two) served as a medical doctor specializing in venereal disease for the French military during World War I, they are the same practices that were to become the norm in the Levant. 463 Scott, “Governing Prostitution,” 56.

164 conduit for soldiers’ mental and physical health drove the higher echelons of France’s military colonial authority to expand the enterprise of commercial sex. In two undated letters, one addressed to the directeur général de la Sûreté publique of and the other to his counterpart in

Algiers, the directeur de la Sûreté générale aux armées in Beirut asked whether the two men knew of anyone who was knowledgeable in establishing military maisons de tolérance. If they could identify such a person, the director asked for them “to kindly approach him for an installation in the Levant.” Due to the increased hostilities in the Mediterranean region, the

Supreme Commander of the Troupes du Levant (Levantine troops) believed such establishments to be a necessity for both the morale and hygiene of the troops. In the words of the director in

Beirut, “the Superior Commander would examine with a large spirit of goodwill any request that would reach him on this subject and offer some compensation to those who would like to take care of it.”464 The French authorities granted visas to those interested in establishing maisons exclusively for the troops.465 This was not the first time that the colonial authorities contracted out for “sex infrastructure” work. In fact, General Gouraud commissioned a man by the name of

Robert Tucci to open maisons for servicing France’s troops beginning in the 1920s. In 1929, the

464 Monsieur le directeur de la Sûreté générale aux armées Beyrouth à Monsieur le directeur de la Sûreté générale Alger and Monsieur le directeur de la Sûreté générale aux armées Beyrouth à Monsieur le directeur de la Sûreté générale Fez, Beirut, November 11, 1939. 1SL/1/V/91. CADN. Nantes, France. The Director claimed that “until now, and in times of peace, this question was not absolutely necessary, as the number of troops in residence in the Levantine territories was relatively small.” I found résumés of two women in the archives that replied to the request for information concerning the creation of maisons de tolérance for the troops. Both recommended women were French citizens working in Rabat, . One ran a maison de rendez-vous and the other a maison de tolérance, and both were seeking to open establishments for the troupes du Levant. Le Directeur de la Sécurité publique Maroc à Monsieur le directeur de la Sûreté generale aux armées, inspecteur general des polices Beyrouth, “Objet: maisons de tolérance militaires,” Rabat, February 6, 1940. 1SL/1/V/71-72. CADN. Nantes, France. 465 The Director of General Security for the army contacted local prefectures to support their applications, as can be seen in the case of a French national by the name of Sylvain Levy, who requested a visa to come to Beirut to “study” the possibility of opening maisons de tolérance for exclusive use by the military. The Director wrote to the Prefect of Loir et Cher in Blois, France, stating that the commandant supérieur du théâtre d’opérations en méditerranée orientale approved Levy’s visa to travel to Beirut. Le Directeur de la Sûreté générale au armées et inspecteur general des Polices à Monsieur le préfet du Loir et Cher, Blois, Beirut, April 22, 1940. 1SL/1/V/71-72. CADN. Nantes, France.

165

French-language newspaper Les Échos of Damascus published multiple scathing articles on

Tucci and his wife, covering controversies that surrounded these individuals, the first of which mistakenly reported “le fameux Robert, le ‘fournisseur’ de l’Armée” as dead by apparent suicide in after amassing a fortune by opening maisons de tolérance .466

French author Pierre La Mazière (1879–1947) described Tucci in his 1926 travel account

Partant pour la Syrie, 10e mille as a man with notoriety who had a “radiant” face and “sweet voice” and who held himself with confidence.467 Tucci recounted to La Mazière how he began his business that extended to eighteen maisons de tolérance and two-hundred women across

Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Damascus, and Tripoli in less than four years.468 In 1922, Tucci sustained himself as the owner of a café in Beirut until General Gouraud commissioned him to open maisons de tolérance exclusively for the use of French troops within eight days in a building already in possession of the French authorities.469 Tucci needed to find personnel for the maisons, so he went to the public area in the city where sex workers were known to operate,

Place des Canons, where he found ten women to employ. In need of money to fund the operation, Tucci requested funds from Gouraud, who, according to Tucci, called an officer and had a treasury bond prepared for 100,000 francs. Tucci claimed that, within the first day of operation, between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m., these ten women saw 238 clients, which indicates

466 N. A., “Le Pauvre Robert,” Les Échos de Damas, April 11, 1929. They corrected the report a few days later on April 14, 1929, stating that he was, in fact, not dead. 467 Pierre La Mazière, Partant pour la Syrie, 10e mille (Paris: Imprimerie des établissements Busson, 1926), 155–156. An officer on the train with La Mazière and Tucci remarked to La Mazière that Tucci was “a considerable person” who ran eighteen maisons militaires for the Army of the Levant (153–154). He did not reserve such flattery for Tucci’s companions, who presumably were sex workers whom he was transporting. He described the two women, one Muslim and the other Christian, whom he said continuously smoked with gaudy makeup and gold teeth (156). According to La Mazière, Tucci was a person accustomed to public speaking, who was well-read, and who generously offered food to others on the train. La Mazière wrote: “We are powerless to resist the sweet voice [of Tucci]” (156). 468 Ibid., 158–159. 469 Ibid., 157.

166 the level of demand placed on the women in his establishments.470 Within a week, Tucci repaid the general and as of that time “no longer needed the advances of France.” Subsequent publications characterized Tucci in far less flattering terms. The abolitionist newspaper, Le

Relèvement social, édition abolitionniste in January 1928 provided a more damning account of

Tucci as a corrupt operative of an unethical practice of state-sanctioned prostitution.471 In 1936, the same publication accused Tucci of trafficking young girls less than 12 years of age.472 Emile

Pourésy, a prominent abolitionist and anti-pornography activist, mockingly stated that the same person who commanded officers of the army intervened in the exploitation of prostitution. In his memoir, Pourésy condemned the actions of the French, and staunchly rebuked them: “What an admirable lesson of civilization given to the natives under our mandate by those who have the noble mission of showing, as the saying goes, the ‘true face of France!’”473

Over the years, after Gouraud’s departure from the Levant, Tucci expanded his enterprise and, with it, his notoriety, attracting the attention of those appalled by France’s role in the sex business. As mentioned above, the French authorities subsequently commissioned Tucci to open maisons de tolérance in Aleppo, Tripoli, Homs, Hama, and Damascus, so that in 1926, he would have already owned eighteen houses employing two hundred women. In July, the conseil de guerre for the region of Damascus, Hauran, and Djebel Druze punished several individuals, including Tucci’s wife, for the poor treatment of women who worked in their facilities. The punishment ranged from six months to three years in prison and a fine of 2,000 francs.474 Tucci

470 Ibid., 157–158. 471 Miller, “‘Romance of Regulation,’” 368. 472 Paul Gemaehling, “En Syrie,” Le Relèvement social, March 1936, no. 3. Tucci is quoted as having stated that girls under 12 years of age did not work in his establishments but that he had “by surprise” hired girls not even that old. This accusation stemmed from La Mazière’s memoir. See La Mazière, Partant pour la Syrie, 164–165. 473 Emile Pourésy, Souvenirs de vingt-cinq années de lutte contre l’immoralité publique (Bordeaux: Durand, 1928), 262. 474 A. C. “L’État et les mœurs,” Les Échos de Damas, July 25, 1929. In La Mazière’s memoir, Tucci stated that, at that time (1926), his managers included his wife in Tripoli and former French subordinate officers who wanted to

167 himself escaped imprisonment by paying a 100,000 franc fine, while the military tribunal condemned his wife to three years in prison and 2,000 francs for abusive behavior toward the workers in her maisons.475 Without any explanation given, aside from the fact that the Tuccis appealed the decision in front of the military tribunal of Aleppo, the newspaper reported in

December 1929 that said tribunal had reduced Tucci’s wife’s sentence to six months in prison.476

Grievances against Robert Tucci found their way to the League in the form of petitions.

One petition dated February 13, 1935, stated: “Homs is horrified at Robert’s commerce in the

White slave trade in Syria.” It demanded that Tucci be expelled from the Levant by the French authorities.477 The petition was signed by three residents of Homs, one of whom was a doctor and one of whom was a pharmacist. The other petition, dated February 19, 1935, just six says later, accumulated eight signatories and used similar condemnatory language; it claimed that

“Homs abhor[red] Robert’s trade on the honor of Syrians.” The PMC became aware of the petitions on May 25, 1935, from a letter sent to it by the French delegate, who stated therein that there were two telegrams from Homs accusing Tucci of having recruited a young girl whom he forced to work in his brothel. An investigation launched by the principal military doctor of

remain in Syria after being decommissioned. He characterized former military personnel as making good managers, as they knew the troops and had a great deal of respect. La Mazière, Partant pour la Syrie, 160. 475 The author wrote under the name Grincheux: “Potins: Les Époux Robert se Lamentant,” Les Échos de Damas, October 10, 1929. Tucci, according to La Mazière, stated that his management style was “severe but just” and that “the women like[d] that.” La Mazière, Partant pour la Syrie, 159. Furthermore, he stated that he moved workers to another location when he noticed that they were getting attached to a patron (160). He also stated that he rotated women after keeping them in one location as long as possible, “like a general.” He did so after the women had been seen too much by their patrons, and “lost [their] shine” (164). Regarding stationing two or three women in the BMC, Tucci acknowledged that the women preferred working in a house and that he rotated them because “you need equity in everything. That is why it’s not always the same ones who are from the interior [meaning village or remote location]” (165). 476 N. A., “L’Affaire Robert auprès du Tribunal d’Alep,” Les Échos de Damas, December 28, 1929. 477 Commission permanent des mandats Syrie et Liban, “Pétitions, en date des 13 et 19 février 1935, émanent respectivement de Me Sri el Hussami et autres, et de M. Suleiman Massaroui et autres, Homes, transmises le 25 mai 1935 par le Gouvernement française avec ses observations,” May 31, 1935. CPM 1629. Geneva, Switzerland. Pedersen states that French Mandatory power held contempt toward the petitioning system at the PMC, threatening petitioners with retaliation, disregarding complaints as unworthy of the PMC’s attention, or, astoundingly in the case of atrocities committed in Syria in 1925–1926, claiming to never have received petitioner complaints. Susan Pedersen, The Guardians, 84.

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Homs, however, found that she had consented and was of age. In addition, the delegate’s letter cited an Arabic-language news article claiming that a doctor had declared that 90 percent of the cases of syphilis had come from “les maisons Robert.” In fact, this article had been published in the journal El Ayam, which had run it on February 19, 1935. It accused “les maisons Robert” of damaging the health and morals of Homs’s youth.478 The French authorities stated that they could not verify the doctor who made the claim, which was made in the Arabic article, that 90 percent of venereal infections were emanating from Tucci’s establishments.479 The PMC requested that further inquiries be made and was told that the medical authorities in Homs found that the argument in favor of the rampant spreading of venereal disease was unfounded. When reviewing the merit of the claim, the British representative to the PMC, Lord Frederick Lugard, stated that the French Mandatory power had concluded that the charge of abducting a respectable girl against her will was without merit and that he was satisfied with their conclusion.480

478 “Syria and Lebanon: Petitions dated February 13 and 19, 1935, from M. Sari el Hussami and Others and from M. Suleiman Massarani and Others, of Homs,” League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission, Minutes of the Twenty-Seventh Session including the Report of the Commission to the Council, June 18, 1935. C.251.M.123.193.VI. Geneva, Switzerland. Lugard of the PMC, when reviewing France’s initial response to the complaint, found France’s response inadequate because it addressed the allegations in the news article and not in the petitions themselves. He therefore requested that any determination on the petitions be deferred until France provided additional information. 479 In a meeting of the PMC on November 9, 1934, William Rappard suggested to his colleagues that France should send an accredited person to assist in the review of petitions from Syria and Lebanon “not so much because of the importance of those petitions as of the delay in forwarding them.” He claimed that French delays undermined the credibility of the PMC, as some petitions faced a two-year delay. League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission, Minutes of the Twenty-Seventh Session including the Report of the Commission to the Council, June 18, 1935. C.251.M.123.193.VI. Geneva, Switzerland. 480 “Annex 9: Syria and Lebanon, CPM1730(1), Report by Lord Lugard,” League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission, Minutes of the Twenty-Eighth Session Held in Geneva from October 17 to November 2, 1935 including the Report of the Commission to the Council, November 2, 1935. C.439.M.288.1935.VI. Geneva, Switzerland: 188– 189. Robert de Caix, representing France in the PMC, provided the following characterization after confirming that the houses were “licensed and legal”: “The police enquiry had shown that the young woman self-described as virtuous and underage, whom the individual called ‘Robert’ was alleged to have brought by force to his ‘establishment,’ was not only very much of full age, but was a very consenting party and was quite used to this form of residence. She was a woman from Aleppo who had had [sic] to be sent away from Homs because her brother, who did not approve her mode of life, had threatened to kill her. That was how all the talk had arisen.” Later in the PMC sessions, Valentine Dannevig, the representative from Norway, inquired as to what work the authorities conducted to save the aforementioned woman, for “in a Moslem country, a woman never lived alone. Was any effort made to bring her back to a regular mode of life?” a question to which de Caix replied as follows: “When the attention of the police had been drawn to the matter, the woman in question could certainly, if she had so wished,

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Therefore, Lugard argued that the petitioners had failed to provide sufficient evidence in support of their charges and that no further action was warranted.481

Alison Neilans, who was serving as the Secretary-General of the London-based

Association for Moral and Social Hygiene (AMSH), wrote to Lugard regarding her objections to his and the PMC’s handling of the petition, to which Lugard replied that he wanted the matter referred back to the French authorities.482 Organizations in Beirut also discussed the controversy

have adopted a different mode of living; but it was rare for such persons to make an effort to do so.” League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission, Minutes of the Twenty-Seventh Session including the Report of the Commission to the Council, June 18, 1935. C.251.M.123.193.VI. Geneva, Switzerland: 101, 111. Dannevig brought up the case of Tucci in a later session of the PMC, stating that the issue of the trafficking of girls into licensed houses in connection with Tucci implied that “the state of affairs in this connection left much to be desired.” De Caix responded that the licensed brothels were strictly supervised and therefore “forced interment in licensed houses seemed to him impossible. He could not speak with equal assurance in regard to clandestine houses.” During this exchange, Lugard acknowledged receiving multiple letters from Syrian women’s organizations, including one from the Chairman of the Vigilance Committee of the Federation of Women’s Clubs of Syria and Lebanon advising him that they had put together a petition. He stated that the petition called for the abolishment of licensed houses, ending access to young women in the hospitals by “matrons and inmates” who “often entice[d] them to become registered prostitutes” and remedying the unsatisfactory conditions in the one hospital in Beirut designated for the treatment of venereal disease. League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission, Minutes of the Twenty-Ninth Session Held in Geneva from May 27 to June 12, 1936 including the Report of the Commission to the Council, June 12, 1936. C.259.M.153.1936.VI. Geneva, Switzerland. The PMC received a petition in 1936 from the Federation of Women’s Clubs of Syria and Lebanon calling for the abolition of licensed houses in Beirut. See R4102/6A/1469/24358, “Petition of the Federation of Women’s Clubs of Syrian [sic] and Lebanon for the Abolition of Licensed Houses in Beirut,” League of Nations Secretariat Mandates Section (1919–1946). 481 “Annex 9: Syria and Lebanon, CPM1730(1), Report by Lord Lugard,” League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission, Minutes of the Twenty-Eighth Session Held in Geneva from October 17 to November 2, 1935, including the Report of the Commission to the Council, November 2, 1935. C.439.M.288.1935.VI. Geneva, Switzerland: 188–189. 482 Letter from Alison Neilans to Lord Lugard, London, September 13, 1935. AMSH 3AMS/D/33-46, Box 118. The Women’s Library Archives (WLA). London, England. Neilans commended Lugard for his assertion to the PMC that the French authorities had failed to directly reply to the allegation made by the “Moslems in the city of Homs in Syria concerning the setting up by the French authorities of a brothel, apparently under the management of the man ‘Robert.’” She suggested that Lugard compare the venereal disease statistics of British soldiers in Palestine, a place where prostitution had been abolished, to those of French soldiers in Syria. Neilans surmised that “it would be interesting if we could show the French that our soldiers in Palestine have a lesser venereal disease rate without tolerated brothels . . . I believe the French have an appalling rate of venereal disease in their army in Syria.” Lugard was reluctant to directly follow through with Neilans’s request, as “it might perhaps be considered somewhat invidious by the very touchy politicians for me to contrast British and French methods and results.” Instead, he directed her to take her inquiry to the Health Section of the League. Letter from Lord Lugard to Miss Neilans, Surrey, September 16, 1935. AMSH 3AMS/D/33-46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. Lugard’s trepidation is understandable, as tensions regarding comparisons between French and British mandatory powers played out in the chairman of the PMC’s suggestion to France to follow Britain’s example when replying to the annual questionnaire. The chairman stated that he “hoped that the departments concerned would pay due regard to this desideratum and he handed the accredited representative a copy of the report on Palestine, in case it might be useful.” League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission, Minutes of the Twenty-Seventh Session Held at Geneva from June 3 to 19, 1935, Geneva, June 18, 1935. C.251.M.123.1935.VI, 90. In pursuit of her inquiry, Neilans turned to her contacts in Beirut.

170 surrounding Tucci. The minutes of the AUB Civic Welfare League (CWL) characterized him in a similar manner as the newspaper Les Échos several years prior, stating that he, under French authority, used the tactic of debt to bind the women to sex work occupations.483 According to a missionary account, a former sex worker, now leading a “respectable life,” provided the following characterization of Tucci: “She told me that Mr. Robert, whom we understand to be the agent for the French army here, used the same method of fixing spurious debt up on the girls to hold them.”484 The last mention of Tucci was in the Bulletin mensuel des actes administratifs du Haut Commissariat on February 15, 1946, which publicized Decree 1207 signed by Léon

Moron, which simply stated that the authorities “ordered the release of the seizure and sequestration of Robert Tucci’s property and values in Syria and Lebanon.”485 Even at the end of the Mandate, the French authorities had come to his defense.

Bringing the Civilian and Military Authorities Together

Yet, even in light of the tensions and controversies that the Tucci affair invoked with his expansion of the sex trade, French military commanders sought to enact measures to directly procure maisons de tolérance militaires once again, with wartime tensions serving as the excuse they cited to expand regulated sex work in the Levant. The concern to safeguard the morale and

Lara Brade, who worked at the time at the AUB, instructed Neilans that “it would be more tactful for this information [about the French statistics on venereal disease] to come from Homs than from London.” Letter from Lara Brade to Miss Neilans, Beirut, December 1, 1935. AMSH 3AMS/D/33-46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. Neilans subsequently complained to Brade that the English army aggregated all its venereal disease statistics for Palestine, Cyprus, Egypt, and Khartoum, and to isolate the numbers for Palestine would “therefore mean another application to the [British] War Office for separate figures [which would take] about 10 years.” Letter from Alison Neilans to Lorna Brade, London, December 10, 1935. AMSH 3AMS/D/33-46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 483 Beirut Vigilance Committee, Report Presented to the Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, February 1932. SLA, CWLY 1936/1937. AA.4.3.5. AAUB. Beirut, Lebanon. 484 Ibid., A missionary in Beirut reported this information to the Beirut Vigilance Committee, which was subsequently submitted to the League of Nations’ Travelling Commission in 1932 (for more on this body, see Chapter Five). It should be noted that this information is hearsay, as the missionary report acknowledged that “he had this information from a girl who had been in his employ. Neither she nor I could vouch for the truth of the statement from actual knowledge.” 485 “Ordonnance No. 1207,” Bulletin officiel des actes administratifs de la Délégation general No. 1, February 15, 1946, 6.

171 health of the troops preoccupied the higher echelons of the military chain of command with such intensity that a mixed commission (“Mixed Commission” to differentiate it from the “Special

Commission that I will subsequently be referencing) was established in 1940 to oversee the process. This is where Henri Escher, the French military doctor and academic at Beirut’s St.

Joseph University and the AUB discussed in Chapter Two, re-enters the discussions on regulation. The military staff of General Weygand, which included Escher as the médecin colonel, met with the staff members representing the High Commissioner and the Lebanese and

Syrian governments on May 10, 1940, to discuss how to best control the spread of venereal disease. Secretary-General Jacques Meyrier (referred to also as the “General Delegate of the

High Commissioner”) presided over the meeting. Included on the agenda were such issues as the regulation of prostitution, the problems presented by clandestine sex workers, administrative control over foreign sex workers, and the establishment of maisons for military and “mixed” purposes.486 In fact, Escher played the leading role in establishing the new Mixed Commission, which comprised both military and civilian authorities.487 On April 17, 1940, médecin-general

Martin, Inspector-General of Hygiene Services and Social Work and Director of Quarantine

Services of the High Commissioner’s Office, wrote a memo proclaiming the formation of the

Mixed Commission, at the request of Escher, in Beirut, Tripoli, Damascus, Aleppo, and Homs due to the considerable danger posed by venereal disease and the need to surveil clandestine sex work. In his memo, Martin declared the intention of the Mixed Committee to designate several

486 “Prophylaxie du paludisme et lutte antivénérienne,” Beirut, May 8, 1940. 1SL/1/V/91. CADN. Nantes, France. “Mixed houses” are those used by both military personnel and civilians. While representatives of the “government” of Syria and Lebanon were present at the meeting, they were all French bureaucrats representing the Lebanese Ministry of the Interior, the Lebanese Police Department, and the Lebanese Public Health Department. 487 Escher also intervened when it came to personnel matters. Escher, this time signing as Delegate of the French Red Cross for the States of the Levant, wrote the High Commissioner’s Office in Beirut, asking for a French nurse to be appointed at the infirmière sociale in the antivenereal disease unit. Le Docteur D.H. Escher à Monsieur Conty concernant Melle Gautron Magdeleine, infirmière S.B.M., Beirut, November 18, 1940. 1SL/1/V/875. CADN. Nantes, France.

172 military doctors with the responsibility of inspecting sex workers in specialized medical hospitals and mixed maisons, which would serve both civilians and the military; he therefore addressed the issue, which was first raised in Baalbek back in 1927, of who had jurisdiction over maisons used by military personnel.488 Yet it was General Weygand himself that issued the order to organize efforts on regulating sex work to counter venereal disease during the onset of World

War II.489

Drawing on recommendations from a medical conference on venereology that had been held in 1939, Weygand instructed each regiment to provide instruction on the personal prevention of venereal disease, including films in Arabic and other languages, individual protection in each cantonment and quartier réservé in the form of prophylactics, and surveillance and regulation of prostitution.490 Further detailing the requirements of surveillance, Weygand declared that all establishments open to the troops had to be inspected using unannounced visits and that those who refused to submit to such visits would be banned from serving as military personnel. Furthermore, clandestine workers had to be detected by the Sureté de la prévôté

488 Le Médecin-Général Martin, “Note sur les mesures contre les maladies vénériennes à prendre par les autorités civiles en corrélation avec les autorités militaires,” Beirut, April 17, 1940. 1SL/1/V/875. CADN. Nantes, France. The commissions in Beirut and Damascus were to play leading roles for each state in the coordination of efforts in Syria and Lebanon. The first commission was called the “Commission mixte centrale” and the other commission would be called the “Commission mixte municipale.” “Prophylaxie du paludisme et lutte antivénérienne: commission réunie le 10 mai 1940, au Haut-Commissariat,” Beirut, May 15, 1940. 1SL/1/V/875. CADN. Nantes, France. In 1932, a military maison de tolérance received complaints for its location in Baalbek’s city center, causing a “depreciation of all the neighboring dwellings.” Le Chef de bataillion Terrier, chef des Services speciaux en service détache à Baalbek à Monsieur le caimacam du caza de Baalbek. “Objet: a.s. de la maison de tolérance de Baalbek,” Baalbek, November 14, 1932. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. This prompted the military authorities to recommend not the closure of the maison but its relocation to outside the center of Baalbek “by legal means and by safeguarding the rights of everyone.” “Transmis en communication à Monsieur le caimacam du caza de Baalbek,” Baalbek, December 7, 1932. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. 489 In a letter dated May 4, 1940, from Weygand to the High Commissioner, Weygand proposed the meeting date of May 10, 1940. He asked for Escher to be present at the meeting. Le Général d’armée Weygand, commandant en chef le théâtre d’operations méditerranée orientale à Monsieur l’ambassadeur, haut-commissaire de la République française en Syrie et au Liban, “Urgent: Objet: Prophylaxie du paludisme et lutte antivénérienne,” Le Quartier- Général, May 4, 1940. 1SL/1/V/875. CADN. Nantes, France. 490 Commandement en chef du théâtre d’operations de méditerranée orientale 4eme bureau Weygand, “Note de service,” Le Quartier-général, March 12, 1940. 1SL/1/V/875. CADN. Nantes, France.

173 française in collaboration with local police when available.491 Noticeably, Weygand spent more time focusing on the women who were to be surveilled than on the troops themselves. He followed up on his initial instructions with a letter to the High Commission in Beirut, beginning his correspondence with the following proclamation: “Because of the arrival of important reinforcements in the states under the French Mandate, the problem of the struggle against venereal disease arises with new acuity.” Due to this concern, he requested that the High

Commissioner set up an oversight commission on venereal disease prevention that was analogous to what had already been in existence in the metropole, and he ordered the formation of a new mixed commission (which is the Mixed Commission that I just mentioned above).492

The military assumed increasing authority over the High Commissioner, intervening in matters related to the controls of venereal disease and the medical surveillance of sex workers.

What resulted from General Weygand’s recommendations was that Escher organized the Mixed

Commission that met monthly in Beirut to oversee the implementation of the strict regulation of sex work.493 One of the outcomes of the formation of this new committee was the promulgation of a new regulation on sex work, Decree 174/LR, on June 24, 1940. This new regulation targeted fraudulent medical practices.494 Its first article illustrated the underlying fears of the authorities:

491 The Counselor of the Embassy, Delegate of the High Commissioner to the Syrian Government, objected to placing authority with the French. He warned that “serious errors could occur in the fight against prostitution if it was managed exclusively by the French services, who do not know neither the place nor the customs of the country.” Le Conseiller d’ambassade, délégué du haut-commissaire auprès du Gouvernement syrien à Monsieur Gabriel Puaux, ambassadeur, haut-commissaire de la République française en Syrie et au Liban. 492 Le Général d’armée Weygand, commandant en chef le théâtre d’operations de méditerranée orientale à Monsieur l’ambassadeur, haut-commissaire de la République française en Syrie et au Liban. “Object: lutte antivénérienne,” Le Quartier-général, March 14, 1940. 1SL/1/V/875. CADN. Nantes, France. 493 M. Gabriel Puaux, haut-commissaire de la République française en Syrie et au Liban à M. l’inspecteur général des Services d’hygiène des œuvres sociales et des Services quarantenaires, “Lutte antivénérienne,” Beirut, August 31, 1940. 1SL/1/V/875. CADN. Nantes, France. 494 The focus on charlatans was not new. Many countries enacted laws to ensure that only “qualified” and registered medical practitioners were allowed to treat venereal disease or provide the medicine required for its treatment. League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Enquiry into Measures of the Rehabilitation of Prostitutes: Social Services and Venereal Disease. July 1, 1938. Geneva, Switzerland: 10. Even in 1849, a doctor with the American Protestant Mission observed that “the means of acquiring an adequate knowledge of modern

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“Advertising of commercial character in any form whatsoever, openly or in a disguised manner, of the prophylaxis of venereal diseases is prohibited.”495 Not only would the entity advertising the treatment be fined, but the press publishing the announcement would be considered just as liable. This decree, like the Mixed Commission itself, had its ultimate origins in the general of the French Mediterranean army, though this time from the newly appointed Eugène Mittelhauser, who assumed the position in June 1940. Mittelhauser said that, in both the French and Arabic press, medical announcements were being published on the treatment of venereal infections. In his words, “these ads are written in such a way that they are in fact a scam” that promise a quick cure not based on serious medical science. He asked for the High Commissioner to prohibit these advertisements in a manner analogous to what had already been done in France.496

medical science are altogether wanting in Syria, yet this does not prevent any individual, high or low, rich or poor, learned or unlearned, from setting up as a practitioner at any moment. Almost innumerable are the instances in which poor tradesmen, mechanics, and farmers, suddenly conceiving the idea of practicing medicine, leave their several employments, buy a lancet, or grind an old knife-blade into the shape of one, and give themselves out as doctors; and strange to say, all these individuals find more or less encouragement. Incapacity to read and write forms no impediment to becoming a physician, and we find many of these vain pretenders going about bleeding, and administering medicines, from simple colored water to the powerful elaterin.” C. V. A. Van Dyck, “On the Present Condition of the Medical Profession in Syria,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 1, no. 4 (1849): 570–571. One can presume that, under regulationism, those who sought doctors not formally recognized by the authorities did so due to the secrecy and anonymity that it provided. Mandatory reporting to the state and the control exerted over people’s lives by the state undoubtedly led many to be wary of the system. Yet the protection offered by “charlatans” violated the state’s efforts to substantiate its legitimacy through modern Western medical practices. By offering what it deemed to be “effective” and “modern,” the authorities demanded that its citizenry receive medical services through its process of authorizing who could and who could not offer assistance. The expertise bestowed upon medical practitioners through degrees served a dual effect of control: control over a professional class and control over the bodies of its citizens as manifested in the prostitute. Khaled Fahmy discussed this in a related way concerning Egypt. As strict regulations came into effect in the 1800s under Mehmet Ali as a way of modernizing medical practices, those who bypassed the system were criminalized. See Khaled Fahmy, “Women, Medicine, and Power in Nineteenth-Century Egypt,” in Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, ed. Lila Abu-Lughod (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), 17–51. 495 “Arrêté No. 174/LR du 24 juin 1940 relatif aux publications concernant la prophylaxie antivénérienne,” Beirut, June 24, 1940. 1SL/1/V/875. CADN. Nantes, France. 496 Le Général d’armée Mittelhauser, commandant en chef le théâtre d’operations de méditerranée orientale à Monsieur l’ambassadeur, haut-commissaire de la République française en Syrie et au Liban, “Objet: annonces médicales,” Le Quartier-général, June 16, 1940. 1SL/1/V/875. CADN. Nantes, France. So new was Mittelhauser’s appointment that Weygand’s name was merely struck off the letterhead and Mittelhauser’s name was placed over it, most likely due to being a recent Vichy appointment. C. A. Massiet took over as general prior to the appointment of Mittelhauser and provided approval of the Mixed Commission. Le Général C. A. Massiet commandant en chef le théâtre d’operations d’orient à Monsieur l’ambassadeur, haut-commissaire de la République française en Syrie et au Liban, “Objet: prophylaxie sanitaire,” Le Quartier-géneral, May 24, 1940. 1SL/1/V/875. CADN. Nantes, France.

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In another example of the French military intervening in domestic affairs, just one month earlier General Henri Caillault intervened in sex work regulation, asking the High Commissioner to comply with the obligatory evacuation to the nearest civilian hospital of contaminated sex workers plying their trade in the bordels militaires de campagne (mobile brothels used for the troops, abbreviated as BMC) and maisons de tolérance open to military troops.497 In a prior memo that Caillault sent to the High Commissioner, the general stated that only military doctors could authorize a woman’s release from the hospital and that the individual running the maison would be held responsible for the expenses associated with the evacuation of the women to the hospital.498 Caillault elaborated on his rationale, lamenting that the measures undertaken to curtail venereal disease have not been effective despite all the efforts of specialized doctors to limit its transmission.499 He attributed this failure to the fact that the situation was “due, among other things, to the lack of isolation of the contaminated public women,” who, in many of the cases, were “simply referred to a room,” which made “it possible on the part of unscrupulous tenanciers to commit regrettable fraud.” He did not elaborate on what this fraud may be and how those who ran maisons de tolérance helped perpetrate such fraud; he merely claimed that it could occur and that, by isolating “contaminated” women and requiring their discharge be

Weygand’s name was similarly struck off the letterhead and replaced with Massiet’s name. What is striking is the importance placed on venereal disease and sex work control in times of rapid transition. 497 Le Général de corps d’armée Caillaut, commandant supérieur des troupes du Levant à Monsieur l’ambassadeur de France, haut-commissaire de la République française en Syrie et au Liban, “Objet: lutte antivénérienne,” Le Quartier-général, May 17, 1940. 1SL/1/V/875. CADN. Nantes, France. 498 Le Général de Corps d’armée Caillault, commandant supérieur des troupes du Levant, “Note de service: modification à la note de service N.5400/4S du 1 octobre 1938,” Le Quartier-général, May16, 1940. 1SL/1/V/875. CADN. Nantes, France. 499 Le Général de Corps d’armée Caillault, commandant supérieur des troupes du Levant à Monsieur l’ambassadeur de France, haut-commissaire de la République française en Syrie et au Liban, “Objet: lutte antivénérienne,” Le Quartier-général, May 13, 1940. 1SL/1/V/875. CADN. Nantes, France.

176 approved by a medical doctor, the authorities could “reduce to a large extent the danger that the venereal plague posed to the large numbers stationed in the Levant.”500

The Mixed Commission focused on “contaminated women” on all levels, with Escher’s name appearing frequently in the documents associated with the newly implemented controls.

The military authorities touted his credentials, stating that Escher played a role in the

“satisfactory” resolution of hospitalizing “contaminated or suspect women . . . in Aleppo and

Damascus and soon [in] Homs.”501 The irony of this situation may have escaped the bureaucrats involved in remedying the problem of “contaminated or infected women,” as sometimes those

“remedies” proved fatal. Yet Escher had played a role in a disastrous incident two decades prior and possessed firsthand knowledge of the events that led to the death of one individual, and the severe illnesses of scores of others, who were being treated for venereal disease in 1923. On

May 25, 1923, a military hospital in Damascus reported an emergency at the Service des vénériennes. Medical Inspector Emily, who was the head of health services of the French army in the Levant, provided medication for thirty-two patients, thirty-one for the treatment of gonorrhea, and these patients subsequently began to feel despondent, run a high temperature,

500 Conseiller pour l’hygiène et l’assistance publique and chef du service de santé des troupes des territoires Sud- Syrie Medical Lieutenant Colonel Tronyo objected to the regulations. In his summation, “obligatory and automatic hospitalization of infected clandestine workers is a process too harsh,” as it would place them in hospitalization with regular prostitutes and “under medical control, the ill clandestine woman must be able to be treated while remaining free.” Presumably, his objection stemmed from his concern that suspected workers have not been officially declared by a review committee as being a prostitute, and therefore should not be subject to incarceration while being treated. Le Médecin lieutenant colonel Tronyo, chef du Service de santé des troupes des territoires Sud-Syrie à Monsieur le délégué du haut-commissaire de la République française auprès de l’État de Syrie.” Damascus, April 26, 1940. 1SL/1/V/875. CADN. Nantes, France. 501 Le Conseiller d’ambassade délégué du haut-commissaire auprès du Gouvernement syrien Hauteclocque à Monsieur G. Puaux, ambassadeur haut-commissaire de la République en Syrie et au Liban, “Lutte antivénérienne,” Damascus, May 27, 1940. 1SL/1/V/875. CADN. Nantes, France. In a separate letter, the Governor of the Colonies, the High Commissioner, spoke to the prevalence of male prostitution in Lebanon and the high rates of venereal disease infection among male sex workers. He stated that they were immediately imprisoned and sent for medical treatment at the specialized medical facilities at the Prison des Sables. He stated that the Mixed Commission, which Escher participated in, made him aware of this situation. Le Gouverneur des Colonies E. Schoeffler, Conseiller auprès du secrétaire d’État du Gouvernement libanais à Monsieur Gabriel Puaux, ambassadeur, haut-commissaire de la République française en Syrie et au Liban, “Urgent: prostitution mâle,” Beirut, May 24, 1940. 1SL/1/V/875. CADN. Nantes, France.

177 vomit, and report a “violently painful tension of the buttock with slight redness” at the site of injection.502 One had already succumbed by the next morning, eighteen to twenty hours after receiving the shot due to improper sterilization.503 The others suffered from microbial infections and remained in a “worrisome state,” “suggesting the possibility of other deaths.”504 Included among the medical authorities called to the scene was Escher, who possessed, in the words of

Emily, “a very extensive personal experience with the incriminated method [for treating venereal disease], and the task of collecting, rather early, the first elements of the investigation.”505

Through their ability to rehabilitate the infected patients, the military limited the death toll to just one soldier, who happened to be from the Algerian infantry, who had come in to be treated for gonorrhea.506 While the doctor in charge worried about his reputation, Escher and his colleagues, who were responsible for evaluating the situation, found that no one person was to blame.

Undoubtedly, the news of people dying in a hospital while being treated for venereal disease circulated; therefore, it is reasonable to assume that those being forcibly treated would be reluctant to undergo such “remedies.” Nonetheless, seventeen years after this incident, medical authorities were calling upon Escher again to resolve a new crisis among military personnel.

502 Médecin-major de 2eme classe Brousse, “Compte-rendu au sujet des accidents observés à l’Hôpital de campagne de Damas,” Damascus, May 31, 1923. GR9NN/1078. DSS. ASHD. Vincennes, France. Médecin-major de 1ere classe Escher, Rapport du médecin-major de 1ere classe Escher, médecin-chef du Centre de Dermato- Vénéréologies, sur les accidents de gangrène gazeuses survenus à la suite d’injections de lait, à l’Hôpital de Damas,” Beirut, June 3, 1923. GR9NN/1078. DSS. ASHD. Vincennes, France. 503 In Emily’s summation, the medical establishment had successfully used injections of milk for diverse ailments and multiple studies had confirmed it to not be toxic. It was largely used in venereology, ophthalmology, and pediatric services for both civilians and military personnel. Médecin-major de 2eme classe Brousse, who oversaw the venereal disease unit at the Damascus hospital, stated that he used milk injections for the treatment of gonorrhea. Médecin-Major de 2eme Classe Brousse, “Compte-Rendu au sujet des accidents observés à l’Hôpital de Campagne de Damas,” Damascus, May 31, 1923. GR9NN/1078. DSS. ASHD. Vincennes, France. 504 Médecin-Inspecteur Emily, Rapport du médecin-inspecteur Emily, chef supérieur du Service de santé de l’armée du Levant, sur une série d’accidents, dus à des injections sous cutanées de lait, pratiques à l’hôpital de Damas, le 25 Mai 1923, Beirut, June 2, 1923, GR9NN/1078. DSS. ASHD. Vincennes, France. 505 Ibid. 506 Le Médecin-major de 1ere classe Louis, “Objet: compte rendu d’examen bactériologique,” Beirut, June 3, 1923, GR9NN/1078. DSS. ASHD. Vincennes, France.

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During the first meeting of the Mixed Commission in Beirut on May 10, 1940, Escher revealed what he believed to be the central failure of regulation, which was not the regulatory system itself. According to minutes from the meeting, Escher indicated that the “principal obstacle facing the fight against venereal disease [was] the insufficient suppression of clandestine prostitution. He [believed] that the Lebanese and Syrian police [were] insufficient in this respect.” This provoked a response from the chief of the Lebanese police, Captain Olivier, who asserted that the “repression in Beirut is effectively enforced,” a claim that he supported by providing the Mixed Commission with a list of achievements related to his administration. In response, Meyrier suggested that a control commission be established consisting of a French police officer, a French medical specialist, and an indigenous officer, all of whom would “have the power to impose and immediately collect fines of up to 250 Lebanese pounds” for those violating regulations or laws controlling sex work. The directeur de la Sûreté générale François

Colombani agreed with this suggestion and stated that the “fines may provide significant revenue that could be allocated to the health services dedicated to prostitution.”507 Therefore, a conversation that was held in the 1920s on financially penalizing sex workers to fund their medical incarceration and surveillance was held once again among French bureaucrats in the

1940s.

In fact, the French authorities established a special commission (which will be subsequently referred to as the “Special Commission” to differentiate it from the “Mixed

Commission”) to study the preventative measures taken in Lebanon against venereal disease prior to the Mixed Commission’s formation. Escher played a dominant role in this investigation, and he was reported to have been one of the members of the Special Commission who was

507 “Compte-rendu de la prophylaxie du paludisme et lutte antivénérienne: commission réunie le 10 mai 1940, au Haut-Commissariat,” Beirut, May 15, 1940. 1SL/1/V/875. CADN. Nantes, France.

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“responsible for the overhaul of the current regulations, which was inspired by the French decrees/laws of November 1939.”508 In consideration of the new revisions, the Special

Commission members blamed the current problems on clandestine workers and the multiple ways in which prostitution operated (i.e., though maisons de rendez-vous, “shady hotels,” and intermediaries): this was what made surveillance and control difficult to achieve under current legislation. The solution under new legislation, they proposed, was stricter punishment: “The

Commission is unanimous in calling for the reinforcement of all the present measures . . . by raising the rate of the penalties and by the elaboration in the new regiment of the new measures, which will pursue with extreme rigor all those who live or benefit from this clandestine prostitution.”509

Instead of investigating possible faults in the French system, which had been condemned almost globally as a failure, the French colonial administration decided to double down and to enact more severe punishments upon those who were already marginalized by engaging in sex work. The authorities confirmed the need to maintain an oversight body, which was in charge of reviewing allegations of clandestine work, and have them confirm a woman’s status before forcefully placing her on the prostitution registry, a system that had been in effect as a

“safeguard against all arbitrariness” since 1922. The Special Commission, for its part, requested

508 N. A. “Procès-verbal de la séance de la commission chargé d’étudier sous la présidence de M. le Gouverneur Schoeffler, Conseiller auprès du secrétariat d’État les mesures de prophylaxie a prendre contre les maladies vénériennes au Liban,” Beirut, N. D. 1SL/1/V/875. CADN. Nantes, France. It is likely that this meeting took place on April 10, 1940, as another letter appeared to have referenced it. The High Commissioner passed a decree on December 7, 1939, which acknowledged that both sexes must provide certificates of health and that members of both sexes who engaged in prostitution must undergo medical evaluations. F. F. O. M. Direction du Service de santé, Organisation de la lutte antivénérienne (Beirut: Imprimerie Channessian, 1940), 1–2. According to Metzger, the League’s 1937 Draft Convention for the Suppression of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, while never ratified due to the outbreak of World War II, covered both men and women. Metzger, “Towards an International Human Rights Regime,” 74. 509 N. A. “Procès-verbal de la séance de la commission chargé d’étudier sous la présidence de M. le gouverneur Schoeffler, conseiller auprès du secrétariat d’État les mesures de prophylaxie à prendre contre les maladies vénériennes au Liban,” Beirut, N. D. 1SL/1/V/875. CADN. Nantes, France.

180 that “sanitary surveillance” of artists be increased. According to the meeting minutes, “these so- called artists, without being prostitutes in absolute terms, did not constitute less of a serious danger in respect to venereal diseases.”510 These male commissioners acknowledged the delicacy of the matter; while they did not abolish the review process in place to supposedly help protect women, they did want more women to be forcibly reviewed under the process.

Not in My Backyard: The Immobility of Sex Work

As part of this review of the protective measures in place against venereal disease in Lebanon,

Escher asked if it was possible to close Beirut’s quartier réservé because, in his opinion, it was open to all and, therefore, an ineffective measure of control.511 In Chapter Two, I pointed out that the Annuaire médical made similar claims; it stated: “Several streets access this area, so that it hardly deserves the name of ‘quartier réservé.’”512 Inspector-General Martin, in his capacity as an advisor to the Ministry of the Interior, claimed to have already studied the possibility of eliminating the special neighborhood on multiple occasions and concluded that such a solution was not feasible due to “insurmountable” obstacles. These included indemnities that would need to be paid and objections from residents where the new quartier réservé would be located.

Therefore, the Mixed Commission members were not proposing to eliminate the quartier, only to move it to a more controlled location. Yet due to the perceived infeasibility of such a move,

Martin suggested that measures be taken to restrict traffic into the area and improve the quartier’s living conditions. Martin used the example of what had been accomplished in Aleppo and in various locations in Morocco, a solution that entailed the closure of the entire

510 Ibid. 511 Ibid. 512 Direction de l’hygiène et assitance publique de l’État du Grand-Liban, Annuaire médical 1921–1924 (Beirut: Direction de l’hygiène et assistance publique de l’État du Grand-Liban, 1925), 63 (Hereinafter, AM 1921–1924).

181 neighborhood.513 But, he stated that, in the case of Beirut, such restriction could only be partial, as there were no alternative routes for vehicle traffic passing through the area. Nevertheless, the

Governor of Lebanon at the time, Ernest Marie Humbert Schoeffler, asked for Martin to start investigating what the first stages of such a project might look like.514 The case of Batroun in

1940 showed the types of objections that officials faced by those residing near the quartier or

“containment area.”

Regulations specified the exact areas in which maisons de tolérance could operate. The confinement of prostitution to given areas helped to preserve public morality, and it was an attempt to avoid public condemnation by not placing sex workers in locations that attracted attention. Historically, this was no different than under the period of the Ottoman Empire. Even without the official “red-light districts” mandated by the authorities, prostitution clustered around particular areas. In Beirut, prostitutes were relegated to less economically well-off areas, such as

Ras Beirut and areas located in the Place des Canons (contemporary El Burj).515 Even with this attention given to presumed class sensibilities, citizens were not satisfied. The municipality of

513 Most likely, he was referencing the infamous Bousbir in Casablanca that operated until Morocco’s independence in the 1950s. See Taraud, “Urbanisme, hygiénisme et prostitution,” 97–108. The French believed this to be an outstanding enough achievement that the authorities built a model of Bousbir for the 1933–1934 World’s Fair in Chicago. Stephanie A. Limoncelli, The Politics of Trafficking: The First International Movement to Combat the Sexual Exploitation of Women (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010), 125. Not a lot is known about the Aleppo quartier réservé except what can be extracted from the regulations. Decree 19175/1031 of October 30, 1924, stated that “the district of Bahaita is assigned as a place of residence to femmes en carte to the exclusion of any other district.” It continued in a somewhat unclear fashion, stating “de la partie de la rue Bahatia comprise entre la place Bab-el-Fardj et l’entrée du quartier réservé.” Presumably, this phrase was demarcating the boundary of the quartier réservé in Aleppo. Traite des femmes et des enfants: extension de l’enquête sur la traite des femmes et des enfants en Orient: rapport concernant les territoires du Levant sous mandat français (Syrie, etc.), Geneva, July 31, 1932. 1SL/250/22. CADN. Nantes, France. 514 N. A. “Procès-verbal de la séance de la commission chargé d’étudier sous la présidence de M. le Gouverneur Schoeffler, Conseiller auprès du secrétariat d’État les mesures de prophylaxie à prendre contre les maladies vénériennes au Liban,” Beirut, N. D. 1SL/1/V/875. CADN. Nantes, France. 515 Samir Kassir, Beirut (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 78. Kassir states that “[p]opular usage preferred the very frank name ‘Whore Market’ (Suq al-Sharamit)—euphemized as the occasion demanded to ‘Public Market’ (al-Suq al-ªUmūmi)” (290). Samir Khalaf states that “the Bourj has been notorious, even infamous, for sheltering the houses of ill repute; derisively and popularly known as Souk al-Awadem (literally, ‘the Market of the Virtuous’!).” Samir Khalaf, Heart of Beirut: Reclaiming the Bourj (London: Saqi, 2006), 211. The origins of the suq are unclear, but, according to Khalaf, it began sometime in the 1880s or 1890s.

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Beirut repeatedly considered removing the reserve quarter from the city center, but eventually abandoned the measure.516 Yet after the Maronite authorities wrote a letter condemning the government’s support of prostitution, the authorities questioned whether the issue should be revisited.517 Even when the military established licensed houses in a manner that they thought was discreet, these locations still came under scrutiny. For some leaders, even city boundaries were a threat to the moral fiber of the community. The Maronite authorities complained of a violation of their community with the placement of a military brothel in Batroun.

Maronite complaints to the French authorities about sex workers’ immoral practices had been mounting for several years. In 1935, Antoine Pierre Arida, the Maronite Patriarch of

Antioch, wrote a letter to the Lebanese president, protesting the permissiveness of French authorities when it came to the immoral practices of prostitution, nude dancing, and gambling.518

Arida asked for the president to take action against the degradation of morals in Beirut, where

“public immorality has become more and more alarming” through multiple means of corruption including maisons de débauche, mauvaises femmes, and other offences, all of which ran counter to honest marriage, led to a decrease in births, “spread shameful diseases,” and increased suicide rates and the crime rate.519 The resolution to the problems plaguing his city, according to Arida,

516 According to Kassir, with the increasing cosmopolitanism of Beirut came the integration of the quartier réservé into the city’s fabric. He characterizes it as follows: “The red-light district just off Place des Martyrs—perhaps the one place where mixing across both class and religious lines occurred—no longer had to conceal itself. Its houses, organized in the European fashion and strictly supervised by the health authorities, were the theater of an undisguised sociability, albeit one reserved for men, and an unofficial headquarters for some of the city’s most prominent political figures.” Kassir, Beirut, 321. 517 “‘Information’: Memo from M. Riachy Representing the High Commission of Syria and Lebanon,” February 15, 1936. 1SL/1/V/596. CADN. Nantes, France. 518 Patriarche maronite au président de la Republique. Beirut, February 5, 1935. 1SL/1/V/596. CADN. Nantes, France. Malek Abisaab wrote about the relationship of Arida with the French colonial state in the mid-1930s. He argues that the Patriarch assumed an increasingly resistant stance toward the French colonial authorities, as differences between the Maronite community and the French powers swelled, particularly over opposition to the French-imposed tobacco monopoly in 1935. Malek Abisaab, “Warmed or Burnt by Fire? The Lebanese Maronite Church Navigates French Colonial Policies, 1935,” Arab Studies Quarterly 36, no. 4 (2014): 292–312. 519 Patriarche d’Antioche et de tout l’Orient à Monsieur l’ambassadeur, Bekorki, February 1, 1935. 1SL/1/V/596. CADN. Nantes, France.

183 rested in closing all maisons de tolérance , as most other “civilized countries” had done, and in preventing the entry of mauvaises femmes into the country. He asked this in the name of protecting public morality and the traditions of his country. In 1936, Arida once again registered his complaint that the government had admitted into Lebanon corruption detrimental to public morality.520 His frustration at the inaction of the French stemmed from his address in January

1936 to the individual charged with studying the general situation of the countries under the

French Mandate.521 In his twenty-one-page treatise, Arida provided historical context for the

Maronite position in the region and the fiscal, judicial, legislative, and administrative framework enacted by the Mandatory powers after World War I. During this time, he stated, in vague terms, there commenced a “wave of immortality” and “unanimous protests.”522 His complaints echoed his prior objections to French rule of 1935 and those of leaders of other communities, who, according to Arida, had never received responses from colonial officials.523 The French authorities appeared to not be persuaded by Arida’s message, for he addressed the public in a letter in December 1937 that caught the attention of the Mandatory power. In it, he restated his

520 Antoine Pierre Arida à Monsieur le président. Dimane, September 21, 1936. 1SL/1/V/596. CADN. Nantes, France. 521 Antoine Pierre Arida à Monsieur le président de la Commission designée par la chambre pour étudier la situation générale des pays sous mandat. Bekorki, January 21, 1936. 1SL/1/V/596. CADN. Nantes, France. 522 Sometimes religious groups perceived venereal disease as punishment for immoral sexual acts. Religiously minded moral outrage over scientific intervention in cases of syphilis was an inhibiting factor when it came to the eradication of the disease. Peter Lewis Allen’s The Wages of Sin: Sex and Disease, Past and Present outlines the influence of religious morality in the treatment of disease, especially the moral indignation that it aroused. Allen articulates the notion of disease as punishment for sexual deviancy, masturbation, and/or sexual excess, or as retribution for humankind’s straying from the path prescribed by God. For example, in reference to medical investigations into personal prophylaxis, Dr. W. M. Pusey in 1933 stated: “None of these have been successful; all of them have been repudiated and most of their authors heaped with obloquy, because any method of the sort has been regarded by a part of the community as immoral and encouraging sexual license. If syphilis is to be regarded as a proper punishment for sexual irregularity, then all attempts to prevent its spread are unjustifiable.” Pusey, The History and Epidemiology of Syphilis, 102–103. Thus, there was a moral tension that sinners should suffer the consequences of their sins that placed the treatment of venereal disease into a separate category from the treatment of other communicable diseases. Likewise, the French authorities’ argument that public health was the reason behind regulations over sex work must have been perceived as doubly problematic. 523 During this period, Arida became critical of the French policies that weakened Maronite interests, and wrote a letter to the High Commissioner that his opposition was not a “rejection of French colonialism.” Malek Abisaab, Militant Women of a Fragile Nation (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2010), 24.

184 demands for the closure of all maisons and called upon both the High Commissioner and the

Lebanese government to prohibit prostitution, “especially since it has been established that the existence of houses of prostitution in the cities of Lebanon with the authorization of the authority did not prevent clandestine prostitution and only aggravated the evil.” In strong words, he asserted that “[t]he governors who administer the country in the name of the people and its property would do harm to the Lebanese nation if they do not accede to his wishes in this matter.” 524

Therefore, it is no surprise that the Maronite Patriarch protested the maison de tolérance set up by the army in the locality of Batroun, the historical seat of the Maronite diocese under the

Ottomans. According to Arida, the military established the maison in the center of the city in plain view of the public. Moreover, due to the summer heat, the workers dressed in offensive ways, and this became a topic of scandal locally. In retaliation for the outrage, Arida signed an order of excommunication for all the inhabitants of the maison, though at the time he had not made the order public. In a notice to the French authorities, he said that the order to open a new maison took the town by surprise, as it remained “without precedent in our dear mountain.”525

High Commissioner Gabriel Puaux, in this position since 1938 until replaced by the Vichy government in late 1940, asked the military to investigate the matter and concluded that, in fact, the location of the aforementioned maison resided outside the city center. It is unclear from the documents whether officials moved the location, as a memo from the Chief of Staff of the

Supreme Commander of the Troupes du Levant reported that “it has not been installed in the

524 L’Ambassadeur de France, Haut-Commissariat de la République française en Syrie et au Liban à son excellence Monsieur le ministre des affaires étrangères, “Discours du patriarche maronite,” Beirut, December 22, 1937. 1SL/1/V/596. CADN. Nantes, France. 525 “Avis fait à la résidence patriarcale, à Kannoubine,” July 16, 1940. 1SL/1/V/596. CADN. Nantes, France.

185 center of the [town] but at its periphery as requested by the Maronite Patriarch.”526 The High

Commissioner asked the Administrative Advisor in Tripoli if the latter could “visit the premises and let me know if, in your opinion, the chosen location is discreet enough so that the holding of the residents and the patrons of this house is not a subject of scandal for the population of

Batroun.”527 The Administrative Advisor responded to his request, stating that he did not see that the maison could be moved elsewhere if it were to be maintained, as it was already located outside the city “but on a fairly short road.”528

In the midst of all this correspondence and deliberation, a telegram arrived for the High

Commissioner from the Vichy government indicating that the Maronite Patriarch’s complaints had come to its attention. In a somewhat confusing remark considering the history between the

British and French Mandatory powers, the Vichy diplomat argued that “[t]he fact remains that, under exactly the same conditions, Palestine has for a long time put an end to the system against which the patriarch stands,” insinuating that France could do the same in the Levant. 529

Authorities in Lebanon responded in a more confusing manner, clamoring to find out the situation in Palestine. The High Commissioner himself responded to the Vichy diplomat, affirming that he was going to immediately ascertain the situation as it actually existed in

Palestine.530 That the French authorities in Lebanon did not know that the British abolished legal sex work under their Mandate is surprising but, if accurate, would indicate that a lack of

526 Le Chef d’état-major, “Note pour le chef de bataillion, chef du Cabinet militaire du B. C. F.,” Le Quartier- général, August 24, 1940. 1SL/1/V/596. CADN. Nantes, France. 527 M. Gabriel Puaux, haut-commissaire de la République française en Syrie et au Levant à M. le conseiller administratif Tripoli, Beirut, August 31, 1940. 1SL/1/V/596. CADN. Nantes, France. 528 Le Conseiller administratif du Liban Nord à Monsieur Gabriel Puaux, haut-commissaire de la République française en Syrie et au Liban, Tripoli, October 5, 1940. 1SL/1/V/596. CADN. Nantes, France. 529 Télégramme diplomatie Vichy à haut-commissaire de Beyrouth, Vichy, September 7, 1940. 1SL/1/V/596. CADN. Nantes, France. 530 Télégramme haut-commissaire Beyrouth à diplomatie Vichy, Beirut, September 12, 1940. 1SL/1/V/596. CADN. Nantes, France.

186 communication existed between the PMC and the authorities on the ground. More likely, Puaux, who had been serving as High Commissioner since 1938, was probably aware of his tenuous appointment and, wanting to appease the new Vichy government, failed to acknowledge the historical—and frequent—tensions between the British and French authorities over the issue of regulation. As Elizabeth Thompson argued about the situation, “[a]lthough lukewarm to Vichy,

Puaux in desperation imitated the fatherly pose of its leader, Marshal Pétain.”531 It is reasonable that the newly installed Vichy administration that assumed power in June 1940 did not possess knowledge of the landscape of the Levantine regions nor this particular rivalry between the two empires several months after assuming power in the metropole. Nonetheless, Puaux said that he would be willing to follow the British example, something that had been fiercely resisted by the

French authorities in the past.532 At Puaux’s request, the French consulate in Jerusalem promptly

531 Thompson, Colonial Citizens, 230. 532 This is not the only time when inconsistencies become apparent. Some of the paradoxes in the French administration in the Levant were reflected in the actions of a man named Salim Haider. In 1937, as a young legal student, Haider described his personal encounter at the age of 10, in 1922, with his former caretaker Bassima, who became a sex worker in his hometown of Baalbek. Salim Haider, La Prostitution et la traite des femmes et des enfants (Paris: Les Éditions Domat-Montchrestien, 1937), v–vi. He stated that he was surprised to encounter her, as his father had told the young Salim that Bassima was dead. Haider described his shock at her gaudy makeup, her clothing (which was in poor taste), and her response to his impression that she was dead (that she wished it were so). He wrote in the preface to his thesis that this encounter inspired his thesis, La Prostitution et la traite des femmes et des enfants. It is not surprising that his address was directed to Marcelle Legrand-Falco, who founded Union temporaire contre la prostitution réglementée et la traite des femmes in 1926. What is surprising is that this same student, sent to France on a bursary from the French government, returned to his home region to become a civil tribunal judge in Mount Lebanon as an abolitionist working for a pro-regulation government. Le Conseiller pour l’Instruction publique auprès du Haut-Commissariat pour Monsieur le secrétaire general, “a.s. Congrés de Londres relatif à la prostitution et à la traite des blanches,” Beirut, April 23, 1938. 1SL/1/V/1441. CADN. Nantes, France. Haider came from Syria as a young man in the 1930s to study law in Paris, publishing his thesis in 1937 while becoming involved in the abolitionist movement in France. Miller, “‘Romance of Regulation,’” 402. In his thesis, Haider argued that the regulatory system was immoral and that medical surveillance was ineffective. Haider, La prostitution, 150–170. He concluded that “the regulations must disappear: illegal, immoral, unjust, contrary to the principles of French law, harmful to health: it has everything against it” (200). Unfortunately, traces of Haider in the archives are too infrequent to determine how his ideas could be reconciled with those of the Government of France on matters of sex work. As previously mentioned, in 1938 he appealed to the French government to be the representative of the États du Levant to an international conference on prostitution and trafficking that was to be held in London. He publicly spoke about prostitution and trafficking one year prior at a conference of the Foyer des jeunes, an organization that sought to intervene in the sexual exploitation of youth (the work of Foyer des jeunes in Beirut will be discussed in Chapter Five). These public engagements suggest that he vocally opposed the French system, yet authorities placed him in high positions of authority after paying for his education and after

187 confirmed that maisons de tolérance ceased to legally exist under the British Mandate; those who ran them were punishable by Articles 163, 164, 165, and 166 of their penal code.533

France’s Paternalism and Military Prowess

Even though Arida did not give up his mission to close maisons de tolérance in Lebanon, the

French authorities swept the matter aside, as more pressing concerns of controlling venereal disease among the troops during wartime took precedence.534 Following the establishment of the

Mixed Commission, Escher published through the Direction du service de santé an instruction manual on the organization of the fight against venereal disease in 1940.535 The 102-page document detailed items on medical prophylaxis that can be used to prevent and treat venereal disease, medical surveillance measures, and instructions on how to educate individuals and groups on venereal disease prevention.536 He prefaced the instructions by framing them as a concern for the entire nation and by stating that war had brought an increase of venereal disease among civilians and the military. He proclaimed that “the importance of venereal disease to the future of the [human] race is now well known.”537 While directing his attention toward the troops, he provided specific advice to the colonial troops, stating that the educational material that he was providing must be offered in Arabic and in the most simplest of forms. Yet he had

recommending him as their representative to an international conference. The reasons for this paradox are unknown, yet it does illustrate the complexity of the French administration during the Mandate period. 533 Télégramme de consul de France à Jérusalem à haut-commissaire Beyrouth, Jerusalem, September 17, 1940. 1SL/1/V/596. CADN. Nantes, France. 534 Arida did not give up his fight and wrote an open letter to the High Commissioner in the journal Le Syrie, again condemning the official sanctioning of sex work and demanding the closure of all establishments. “Note présentée par le patriarche maronite à S. Ex. Monsieur le haut-commissaire en memorandum,” N. P., January 13, 1941. 1SL/1/V/596. CADN. Nantes, France. 535 F. F. O. M. Direction du Service de santé, Organisation de la lutte antivénérienne (Beirut: Imprimerie Channessian, 1940). 536 Preventive education efforts among the troops during wartime had been shown to be unsuccessful in World War I, but it did not stop the doctors from recommending such an approach. In fact, the rates of venereal disease increased among the French army during the military’s education campaign. Rhoades, “Renegotiating French Masculinity,” 309, 311. 537 F. F. O. M. Direction du Service de santé, Organisation de la lutte antivénérienne (Beirut: Imprimerie Channessian, 1940), 1.

188 limited expectations: “Obviously, when it comes to North Africans, the results to be expected will be minimal.”538 In boldface type, he emphasized that the military had the authority and the power to surveil regulated prostitution, and that in times of war the military authority supplants the civilian one.539 Suspicious of sex workers and the threat of their manipulative nature, Escher underscored that unannounced medical visits must be conducted, “otherwise, the women at the time of the exam will always be camouflaged.”540 Escher returned to the theme of clandestine sex workers as posing an immense threat, as they existed everywhere: in the shops, in the cafés, and in entertainment venues. They could be married, single, and/or looking to make a little money on the side, and they often used taxi drivers as intermediaries when it came to making introductions between them and potential clients. Young boys serving North African troops operated in the shadowy realm of pederasty.541 The only ones deemed fit to combat the scourge were the French, and, according to Escher, members of the native population welcomed France’s efforts out of protection for their own children.542

538 Ibid., 5. Yet he stated that, in contrast to the North Africans, “experience has shown that in some Blacks, in the Malagasy and especially in the Annamese [Vietnamese], one can obtain results with tenacity and the desire to succeed.” 539 Ibid., 8. 540 Ibid., 9. It is unclear whether he meant that the women will hide themselves or use means to camouflage their illness, but most likely it is the latter. Either way, both meanings point to women wanting to evade medical inspections. Ironically, physicians would conceal the source of a wife’s infection from her in order to protect the husband, underscoring, again, how the considerations around the disease hinged on gendered constructs. Alex Smolak, “White Slavery, Whorehouse Riots, Venereal Disease, and Saving Women: Historical Context of Prostitution Interventions and Harm Reduction in New York City during the Progressive Era,” Social Work in Public Health 28, no. 5 (2013): 505. 541 The Association catholique internationale des œuvres de protection de la jeune fille established a section in Beirut on January 23, 1925, to protect all youth against exploitation, whose “couleurs sont le blanc et le jaune.” Association catholique internationale des œuvres de protection de la jeune fille, section de Beyrouth, Jesuit Archive, Saint Joseph University, Beirut, Lebanon. 12.D.11. From May 3 to 10, 1925, the Union catholique d’Egypte held a conference on the family, which asked for participants to respond to a questionnaire, which included questions on corrupting influences such as hotels, dancing venues, theaters, and cinemas, and inquired what measures were to be taken to combat these “contagions.” Jesuit Archive, Saint Joseph University, Beirut, Lebanon. 12.D.11. 542 F. F. O. M. Direction du Service de santé, Organisation de la lutte antivénérienne (Beirut: Imprimerie Channessian, 1940), 19.

189

As suggested by the Mixed Commission, the authorities drafted new regulations to modify the ones that had gone into effect in 1931 and 1933 in Lebanon and in Syria, respectively.543

Escher stated that the new regulations took “into account the particular conditions inherent in the customs and mentality of the people of this country.” He affirmed the decision to maintain regulation in the Levant, as “[a]lready in Algeria, and Morocco the question of the abolition of houses of prostitution has been repeatedly considered, but still, so far, specialist hygienist doctors followed by the administrative councils have rejected it as dangerous for the public’s health, given the state of the population’s mentality.” He continued in France’s defense against comparisons with Britain: “The English acted according to the spirit of their race and their laws. But according to the information obtained from my former students, [now] living in

Palestine, it does not seem that either sexual morality or the prophylaxis of venereal diseases has gained much [ground].” 544 He argued that venereal disease continued to flourish in Palestine and while maisons publiques did not officially exist under the British, “procuring and prostitution reign equally, but simply in a more hypocritical form; it is thus that in many hotels or cafés waiters easily give to those who desire it the address of hospitable and loose morals ladies, who are nothing other than what we ourselves [the French] call prostitutes.”545 Once again, Escher placed blame on clandestine sex workers as the greatest threat to public health and argued that

543 For regulations specific to Syria, see footnote 417. 544 Docteur Escher, Rapport du docteur Escher, professeur de dermato-vénéréologie au Facultés française et américaine de médecine de Beyrouth à Monsieur l’ambassadeur, haut-commissaire de la République française auprès des États du Levant, Beirut, December 9, 1940. 1SL/250/48. CADN. Nantes, France. In a 1925 report on women’s groups in Lebanon, E. F. Rieder’s article in the International Woman Suffrage News demonstrated that other groups had their eyes on what was happening across the newly formulated borders under the Mandate. Rieder noted that “Syrians have been watching for some time what was done for the women under the British Mandate in Palestine, and have noted that they were, if not given the vote, put on consultative councils and asked for their views.” E. F. Rieder, “Correspondence,” in International Woman Suffrage News, July 1925, 19, no. 10, 157. 545 Due to the legal practice of sex work being abolished in Palestine, as “the colonial authorities in Palestine transferred legislation and rhetoric from Britain to Palestine,” no official statistics were recorded to provide a source of comparison between Lebanon and Palestine on the prevalence of sex work. Deborah Bernstein, “Gender, Nationalism and Colonial Policy: Prostitution in the Jewish Settlement of Mandate Palestine, 1918–1948,” Women & History 21, no. 1 (2012): 82–83.

190 strict medical surveillance was the only way to bring disease under control. He argued that voluntary compliance had been a failure, even for those who could be educated, and “for all these reasons, the [Mixed] Commission deemed it impossible to suppress the maisons de prostitution or the regulation of prostitution.” Furthermore, the Mixed Commission recommended closing down the maisons de rendez-vous, having alleged that clandestine workers were known to operate out of them. Leaving no ambiguity in reaction to criticism from Britain and the abolitionists, “the medical control of the prostitute will have to be reinforced and, in the interest of society, such control has the right to be defended.”546 Writing to the High

Commissioner about the proposed law, médecin colonel Chaumet, the Director of Health

Services for the Troupes du Levant, stated that he and Escher saw the law from “two angles: that of morality and that of public health.”547 Accordingly, society must defend its health for, as he stated, “prostitution exists, it exists everywhere; it must be regulated . . . to render it the least dangerous . . . Let us divert the mass from vice, but, while waiting to have it abolished or at least diminished, let us try to mitigate the fatal effects.” In effect, he argued that until man could control his sexuality, sex workers had to be controlled for the sake of public health and the health of the French Empire.548

546 Docteur Escher, Rapport du docteur Escher, professeur de dermato-vénéréologie au Facultés française et américaine de médecine de Beyrouth à Monsieur l’ambassadeur, haut-commissaire de la République française auprès des États du Levant, Beirut, December 9, 1940. 1SL/250/48. CADN. Nantes, France. 547 Le Médecin colonel Chaumet, “Le Médecin colonel Chaumet, directeur du Service de santé des troupes du Levant et inspecteur général des Services d’hygiène et œuvres sociales du Haut-Commissariat à Monsieur le général de corps d’armée, haut-commissaire de l’État français en Syrie et au Liban,” N. P., March 26, 1941. 1SL/250/48. CADN. Nantes, France. Chaumet stated that the proposed law contemplated both those who were concerned for human dignity and those who wanted to free society of degradation, and, at the same time, doctors who were concerned about the physical dangers that “excessive sexuality placed on the race.” 548 Ibid. Akin to Escher, he contrasted the French laws with those of the British in Palestine, arguing that the “Anglo Saxons” created a façade in the name of respectability that merely covered up the reality. He stated that “many well- intentioned people invoke the example of Palestine. But what they do not know is that venial love is more clandestine and venereal disease is more prevalent [there].”

191

An advisor who reviewed the draft law proposed by the Mixed Commission surmised that the regulation on to the protection of public health was “a very delicate application, and risk[ed] sanctioning abusive infringement on individual liberties and provoking scandals.” He concluded that the articles of the law pertaining to public health were dangerous, as they left the tribunal consisting of a municipal official and doctor to render decisions without recourse (i.e., appeal).

Furthermore, he argued that the draft law needed to be reviewed by local government officials and that Article 17 reduced the age of sex workers to 18 years, when the colonial government had raised it to 21 years in 1932 in order to adhere to current international conventions.549 Other details of the law included those of Article 20, which permitted women to leave the maisons de tolérance between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. or even longer if they were granted permission by the police. The same article forbade them from going out on Sundays and on any official holidays. It prohibited sex workers from veiling their faces or going out to parks, cafés, or other public-gathering places. Furthermore, Article 20 required workers to submit to two unannounced visits per week and were expressly forbidden to undertake any “covering-up” measures

(presumably, this referred to the disguising of any ailments). Additionally, when available, a

French doctor designated by the Service sanitaires du Haut-Commissariat et de l’armée should be present at these visits, while either an officer from the police des mœurs or the gendarmes was always required. Furthermore, the police des mœurs had the right to enter the maisons de tolérance on any day at any hour, in order to ensure effective control.

The vague procedures proposed in this article stated that a three-person panel consisting of the Administrator of Beirut or his designee, the Prosecutor of the Republic or his designee, and a

549 N. A., “Note pour Monsieur le secrétaire général, règlementation de la prostitution,” Beirut, May 9, 1941. 1SL/250/48. CADN. Nantes, France.

192 member of the police force would decide the fate of women who were arrested under the law.550

The more fortunate ones were either to be “release[d] pure and simple, if the information collected and official report” did not sufficiently support the accusation(s). Otherwise, the police were to send her to “the doctors . . . who would carry out the medical examination of the interested person to see whether hospitalization was necessary.” If, after having been sent for a compulsory medical exam, the sex worker was to be found to be in good health, she would be released without being referred to the three-person panel for review of her case. However, in the case of a subsequent arrest, she would be.551 Only the women who “habitually lived” as clandestine prostitutes, “whatever the result of the medical exam,” were to be sent in front of the tribunal. This body was to hear from the “incriminated person,” review the case, determine whether the accusation was justified, and then decide whether this person was to be considered to be a prostitute. And “any person summoned by the Commission [the aforementioned tribunal] who does not appear without valid excuse will be registered as a prostitute.” Any woman who wished to renounce prostitution after being inscribed on the registered list of prostitutes had to file a declaration with the police and, for a period of three months, continue medical inspections

550 Article 48 of the 1931 law, which was amended by Legislative Decree 101 on June 20, 1941, stated that an administrative employee and medical doctor appointed by the Ministry of Health would form a committee to review cases of alleged prostitution. Samir Khalaf, Prostitution in a Changing Society: A Sociological Survey of Legal Prostitution in Beirut (Beirut: Khayats, 1965), 154. 551 The Wassermann test, used to detect syphilis during this time period, created “a positive reaction [that] was as much as a sign of syphilis as a skin lesion” and was “neither very sensitive nor very specific.” Pauline M. H. Mazumdar, “‘In the Silence of the Laboratory’: The League of Nations Standardizes Syphilis Tests,” Social History of Medicine 16, no. 3 (2003): 441.Yet even with knowledge of the production of false positives, officials used the results to incriminate and medically incarcerate women in Lebanon and Syria. The Institute of Bacteriology’s screening for syphilis through the Wassermann reaction showed a marked increase in utilization of the test for sex workers in Beirut. As mentioned in Chapter Two, from 1919 to 1924 the annual total of diagnostics went from 138 to 643 and the percentage of positive reactions was 25.2 per 100. AM 1921–1924. Subsequently, for the period 1925–1928, the rate increased to 28 per 100. AM 1925–1928. This number is based on the results provided from the specialized hospital and dispensary treating venereal disease. The Annuaire médical highlighted different regulations than what the colonial authorities provided to the League regarding the surveillance of prostitution. Under the heading “Arrêtés et Décrets se rapportant à l’hygiène et assistance publique,” the medical authorities highlighted the following: Surveillance de la prostitution Arrête 2346 du 11 mars 1924: Règlementation de la prostitution; Décision 2119 du 15 mai 1924: Médecins assermentes [doctors’ oath]; Arrête 2492 du 30 Mai 1924: Commission d’examen; Décret 943 du 23 décembre 1926: Commission d’étude pour règlement de la prostitution. AM 1925–1928, 132.

193 twice a week after which time the tribunal would decide whether or not to accept her renouncement.552

Unfortunately, it is unknown whether the law actually went into effect, as the number of records diminished during the war. Yet the regulation of sex workers appears on several other occasions, for example with mentions of (1) Lebanese officials in 1943 proposing that foreign dancers be subject to periodic medical exams like those given to native dancers and of (2) French and British authorities coordinating their efforts within the Levant to reduce the spread of venereal disease among Allied troops.553 The increasing concern about the spread of venereal disease among the military and civilian populations during World War II prompted officials to

552 N. A., “Note pour Monsieur le secrétaire général, règlementation de la prostitution,” Beirut, May 9, 1941. 1SL/250/48. CADN. Nantes, France. 553 In 1942–1943, the French security forces monitored the Muslim group “al-Gharraa” in Damascus, which officials believed allied itself with the Axis Powers and the National Bloc of Syria. Sureté générale,“Activité des autres partis arabes,” Damascus, N. D. 1SL/1/V/13. CADN. Nantes, France. In May, the group launched a public campaign against nudity in casinos and against the indecency of the artists troupe “Béba” in Damascus, critiquing the French authorities for authorizing obscenity that was offensive to Islamic morals. The French interpreted their campaign as a threat “against the actual regime and a provocation of trouble.” Sureté générale, “Information a/s de la Société ‘al- Gharraa,’” Damascus, May 16, 1942. 1SL/1/V/13. CADN. Nantes, France. In a note presented by “Les Cheikhs” (who were unnamed) to the President of the Council of Ministers, the authors stated that their demands to conserve their traditions and morals under the Mandate had not come to realization. Within the letter, their demands revolved around two themes: morality and education. They asked for the closure of bars and cabarets near mosques; the right to refuse the permitting of bars, theaters, and cabarets in these areas; the augmentation of agents of the police des mœurs and an improvement in the quality (i.e., character) of its personnel; and the closure of maisons de rendez- vous in certain neighborhoods. “Traduction de la note présentée par les Cheikhs au Président du Conseil des Ministres,” Damascus, May 11, 1942. 1SL/1/V/13. CADN. Nantes, France. The following month, in June 1942, the group wrote an open letter addressed to the President of the Syrian Republic. They condemned the state for “activities subversive of Muslim women,” holding the authorities accountable for clandestine prostitution and the downfall of an artist named Souad of Casino Syrie, who “even though she is from a good Muslim family, she has been allowed [by the government] to practice the artistic profession.” Sûreté Générale, “Information No. 1125 a/s de la Société ‘al-Gharraa,’” Damascus, June 23, 1942. 1SL/1/V/13. CADN. Nantes, France. The French saw the group as aligning itself with the British in hopes to gain solidarity among Arab countries under British control. Sûreté Générale, “Information de la Délégation: L’Association ‘Al-Garra’ [sic],” N. P., N. D. 1SL/1/V/13. CADN. Nantes, France. The organization “al-Gharraa” remained active during World War II, for in October of 1943 the group launched a campaign against maisons de tolérance focusing “on the abolition of Syrian brothels like in Egypt, Iraq and some European countries.” It resulted in their writing a mazbata (report) to the authorities requesting the closure of brothels in Syria. The document by the security forces reporting the activities of al-Gharraa mention that, at the same time, notables in the Chaghour neighborhood met to present a mazbata to the chef du gouvernement asking for the closure of brothels in their neighborhood. Sûreté Générale Damas, “Information a/s des maisons de tolérance,” Damascus, November 3, 1943. 1SL/1/V/13. CADN. Nantes, France. During this time, in Aleppo, an organization by the name “Club el Arkham” campaigned against bars, “cafés chantantes,” and other establishments where “Occidental morals” were introduced into Syria. The French labeled the group as xenophobic and religiously fanatic. Sûreté Alep, “Information: Clubs et associations,” Aleppo, June 10, 1942. 1SL/1/V/13. CADN. Nantes, France.

194 reconsider how foreign workers were regulated in the Mandate territories. Government officials, including representatives of the Lebanese interior minister, governor, police chief, and public health administration had identified “causes” of the resurgence of venereal disease: it was due to the exemption of foreign artists from medical visits, the raising of the legal medical examination age to 21 years, and women visiting barracks both in the cities and in the villages.554 They argued that foreign workers should be required to submit to the same medical surveillance as

Lebanese workers, that tighter surveillance be conducted on and more serious punishments be meted out to women visiting barracks, and that cabarets be subject to increased surveillance.555

They compiled a list of women artists of foreign nationality living in Beirut and divided them according to marital status. The list had their names, nationalities, professions, and establishment(s) where they worked. Most of them were Polish, while sixteen of them were

Greek. The French military delegate objected to the wholesale submission of foreign artists to the same inspections to which Syrian and Lebanese dancers had to be submitted. His rationale included the belief that no foreign artist would want to come to the region if they knew they had to undergo such scrutiny.556

The military attendees to this meeting shifted the blame to the aforementioned three-person tribunal who, in the words of the Commander of the Military Police, Major Pearce, did “not pronounce severe punishments.”557 He argued for more severe punishment for sex workers who

554 The Commission argued that women still practiced sex work under 21 years of age and that keeping the minimum age at 21 only resulted in more clandestine workers. 555 Sûreté générale, “Causes ayant provoqué la recrudescence des maladies vénériennes,” Beirut, January 11, 1943. 1SL/1/V/31. CADN. Nantes, France. 556 Boutillon, chef des Sections criminelles et C. E. à Monsieur le directeur de la Sûreté générale aux armées et inspecteur général des polices. Beirut, January 16, 1943. 1SL/1/V/31. CADN. Nantes, France. 557 The document entitled “Manifeste à l’opinion publique libanaise” dating from 1945 lists the types of cases potentially seen by the tibunal in Beirut. In a dramatic case, the manifest alleges that the general prosecutor in the Court of Appeals falsified accusations against a doctor in a case of vengeance. According to the declaration, the prosecutor abused his position of power and accused the doctor of attempting to violate his sister, whom, according to the Court’s assertion, was in reality “a public girl who is engaged in prostitution and has been fucked by all the

195 did not obey the laws and who left the hospital before completing their examination and/or treatment. According to Major Pearce, “the girl cannot be put off by the two or three days of imprisonment to which she is condemned,” which meant that two to three days of imprisonment had not been serving as enough of a deterrent. President of the Council of Ministers, Sami bey

Solh, in answer to Major Pearce, replied that he would contact the public prosecutor’s office to enact more severe punishments. Pearce stated that there would be increased police surveillance to punish and diminish clandestine operations. The meeting concluded with the encapsulating words spoken by President Sami bey Solh. According to the minutes of the meeting, it “ended with a word that he [Solh] was counting on the zeal of the police director and his men for the continuation of the work of repression [of clandestine prostitution].”558

The increased British presence in the region meant that they had direct influence on French colonial policy pertaining to sex work.559 Historically, this policy had encountered a great deal of

males of Zahlé [qui a éte baisée par tous les males de Zahlé].” Instead, the document charged that the prosecutor, in fact, operated a secret prostitution ring through his house and encouraged others to report the facts so it could be seen before a tribunal, particularly one of the alleged prostitutes in the affair. Sûreté aux Armes, “Manifeste à l’opinion publique libanaise,” Beirut, June 19, 1945. 1SL/1/V/84. CADN. Nantes, France. The exact origins of the manifesto and the efficacy of the claims cannot be substantiated, but the tone of the document suggests that it was authored by someone airing their grievances. The document said that the worker’s name was one “Madame Haddad.” Another unrelated correspondence from fifteen years prior spoke of a Rosete Haddad who worked in Zahlé prior to being expelled by the local authorities for being suspected of engaging in clandestine prostitution. The authorities stated that, at the time, she had left for Damascus but later returned to marry a gendarme. The police, notified of her intention to return to Baalbek, placed the gendarme’s house under surveillance as they would not “tolerate the return of this women judged undesirable,” an action that spoke to the antipathy that groups held toward sex workers. “Transmis en communication à Monsieur le Capitaine, Commandant d’Armes de la Place de Baalbek,” Baalbek, October 6, 1930. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. See the thesis conclusion for further details on this situation. 558 “Procès-verbal de la séance réservée à la répression des maladies vénérienne,” Beirut, January 14, 1943. 1SL/1/V/31. CADN. Nantes, France. 559 While prostitution was banned in Palestine, this did nothing to prevent the British troops from partaking in what was available to them while in the French territories. In 1941, the British troops saw an upsurge in cases of venereal disease. The British authorities claimed that between three and six military personnel were found to be infected each day while stationed in Beirut. P. Blanchet à Monsieur le général directeur du Service de santé, “Maladies vénériennes,” November 18, 1941, 4H419/2, État-major de l’armée de terre. DSS. ASHD. Vincennes, France. This led to the British commander over the regional troops Colonel Cameron’s request for a meeting between himself and French doctors in order to rectify the situation. Capitaine R. A. M. C. to Lt. colonel Smith-Dorien, “Venereal Disease,” November 12, 1941, 4H419/2, État-major de l’armée de terre. DSS. ASHD. Vincennes, France.

196 resistance as, in the characterization made by Secretary-General Henri Hoppenot (operating under the High Commissioner Henri Ponsot), “certain Anglo-Saxon” efforts attempted to challenge the French Mandate’s framework.560 The Allied Powers intervened in French authority over sex work surveillance within their Mandates. For example, according to French Security

Services, in 1943 British authorities filed complaints against the Beirut Police Commissioner

Fadel Azouri for negligence and failure to enforce “quality control” over sex workers.561 Azouri was immediately relieved of his duties.562 Subsequently, in 1944, the British military authorities stated that they had the right to inspect maisons, effectively arguing that they had rightful jurisdiction over sex work operations in the Levant while not permitting it in their own Mandated territory in Palestine.563 British authority over maisons proved to be a contentious issue, even though French officials acquiesced to Britain’s demands. Just one year prior, in 1943, French authorities in Zahlé objected to the British military police’s expulsion of sex workers from a

560 Le Haut-commissaire de la République française à Monsieur le délègue adjoint du haut-commissaire, “Alcoolisme, stupéfiants, prostitution dans les États sous Mandats,” Beirut, December 10, 1929. 1SL/250/22 CADN. Nantes, France. While these words of British criticism were spoken to the League regarding France’s regulation of sex work in 1929, they are to be continuously found within documents comparing the French Mandate in Lebanon and Syria to that of the British Mandate in Palestine, where sex work was abolished. The controversy over Baalbek was an indication that tensions between the two states over jurisdiction over sex work remained high during World War II. 561 “Procès-verbal de la séance réservée à la répression des maladies vénérienne,” Beirut, January 14, 1943. 1SL/1/V/31. CADN. Nantes, France. 562 According to Major Pearce, commander of the military police in attendance at the meeting discussing Azouri, the Police Commissioner failed to expel illegal prostitutes but Azouri argued that he could not expel women of Lebanese nationality. 563 “Le Sous-Comité de sécurité s’est réuni à la B. S. M.,” N. P., January 7, 1944. 1SL/1/V/101. CADN. Nantes, France. In a meeting with French military officials on January 7, 1944, while reviewing security protocols, Colonel Coghill of the British military asserted the importance of conserving the right of inspection by British military police. This discrepancy can perhaps best be understood through Bernstein’s argument that the civil authorities in Palestine resisted the regulation of prostitution over and against the demands of the military. When British military forces conquered Palestine in 1917–1918, Major General Money issued a decree regulating sex work, which the civilian authorities under High Commissioner Herbert Samuel overturned in February 1921. Bernstein, “Gender, Nationalism and Colonial Policy,” 85–86. Therefore, as the British military held control in the Levant, there existed no British civilian administration to counter their actions.

197 maison de tolérance in Baalbek.564 Accusing the British of abusing their power, the Battalion

Chief Administrative Advisor of Bekaa stated that the authority to enforce regulatory measures over sex work remained under the auspices of the French Delegate-General and Plenipotentiary.

According to reports discussing these accusations, British military police placed the women in an army truck and directed them to Homs after having expelled them from Baalbek.565 Less than one month earlier, the French authorities had asked for the two maisons de tolérance in Baalbek to revert to civilian control and no longer fall under the auspices of the French military. While they used to be of importance to French troops, and therefore surveilled by French military doctors and military commanders, they were no longer under French military jurisdiction: the troops were no longer stationed in the region.566 And although the British and Greek militaries had registered the brothels for their troops, the Bekaa Battalion Chief argued that they were primarily used for civilians and that they should therefore be monitored by the Lebanese civil administration.567 In fact, the British and Greek militaries wanted the two maisons to be permanently closed at this point and requested that French officials take the necessary measures to do so.568 The reason for this decision was that there was a lack of personnel: there were not

564 Le Chef de bataillon conseiller administratif de la Bekaa transmis à Monsieur le délègue de la France combattante auprès de la République libanaise Beyrouth, Zahlé, July 30, 1943. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. 565 Le Capitaine Reynaud, officier des Services spéciaux, chef du Poste de Baalbek, “Information,” Baalbek, July 24, 1943. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. 566 Le chef de bataillon conseiller administratif de la Bekaa à Monsieur Jean Helleu ambassadeur de France délègue général et plénipotentiaire de France au Levant, Zahlé, June 30, 1943. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. 567 Although another letter stated that the Greek military never had the authorization to use the two maisons. Le Capitaine Reynaud, officier des Services spéciaux, chef du Poste de Baalbek à Monsieur le conseiller administratif de la Bekaa, Zahlé, Baalbek, June 25, 1943. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. The chief of French security services in Baalbek declared that as of June 24, 1943, the Greek military was forbidden from using the two brothels in Baalbek. Le Lieutenant Moffat à Monsieur le capitaine Reynaud, Baalbek, June 24, 1943. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. 568 Le Lieutenant Moffat à Monsieur le capitaine Reynaud, Baalbek, June 24, 1943. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France.

198 enough doctors and administrators to comply with the demanding medical surveillance requirements for the maisons de tolérance.569

While the stress of war brought about a resurgence of sex workers and controls over their lives in the name of public health, the immediate prewar period also produced more transparency in terms of French motives for their colonial policy. The Mandatory authorities sought to protect

France’s military interests. And when their policies failed, they persisted to cite “recalcitrant” sex workers as the reason why.

Conclusion

In 1921–1922, while addressing their new, young military arrivals in the former Ottoman

Empire, the corps d’occupation français de Constantinople’s Division of Health Services advised them to avoid two things: alcohol and unregulated prostitutes. French military leaders impressed upon these men the need to “completely abstain from alcohol” and avoid

“frequent[ing] cafés, where one will sell you two costly poisons: alcohol and the pox.”570 The speech illustrated the French military’s perception of an environment that was saturated with danger. Sex workers not registered with the authorities were numerous and almost all of them had a venereal disease. These infected women, who were to be found in cafés, were never seen by doctors, and therefore had to be avoided if one wanted to be healthy and have healthy children.571 This dire cautionary approach was just one of several strategies employed by the

569 Brigadier Grécque, 2eme brigade à le capitaine Reynaud, officier des Services spéciaux, chef du Poste de Baalbek, N. P., June 9, 1943. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. In this correspondence, the Greek military official stated that his military could not provide a doctor to conduct daily medical inspections and “therefore requested that they be closed down forthwith.” 570 “Dictée pour les jeunes soldats, Corps d’occupation français de Constantinople, Service de santé,” N. P., N. D., GR9NN/1078. DSS. ASHD. Vincennes, France. “Pox” was the term used to reference syphilis, which was colloquially known as the “French pox.” 571 Le Médecin Principal de 2eme cl. Vidal, Rapport d’ensemble sur les mesures prises au corps d’occupation français de Constantinople concernant la propagande antivénérienne, December 2, 1922, GR9NN/1078. DSS. ASHD. Vincennes, France. For entertainment, they told the soldiers to visit the monuments and beautiful sites that Constantinople had to offer. In an internal memo, indeed the city seemed like a perilous place with “the dangers of

199

French military’s Division of Health Services in the region to counteract the spread of venereal disease.572

From the outset, France had defended its military interests and constructed strict surveillance measures as a matter of national security, though these were implemented in the guise of broader concerns about public health when imported into the Levant. The supposed perils posed by clandestine prostitutes underscored the French policy of containment: those who operated outside the confines of regulations and surveillance posed the gravest threat to the health of the population.573 Yet, as this chapter has illustrated, the regulations issued in the

Levant did not emanate in their “official form” from the military, but from colonial civilian authorities as a matter of controlling threats to public hygiene. The focus on dividing registered workers from clandestine ones created the effect a gradient system of sex workers based on perceived cleanliness. 574

the street and the cabaret.” The “ineffective” Turkish vice police (i.e., at enforcing regulatory prostitution) was sure to be a key reason why the fight against the spread of venereal disease would be extremely difficult. 572 The use of propaganda films was a recurring tactic to combat venereal disease. There was an entire industry dedicated to producing these kinds of films, which was developed through the military and through charitable medical organizations. Not infrequently, these films played on ideas of producing a healthy nation and family. In one example from this particular period, soldiers were shown film set during World War I with a storyline of the wife dying from syphilis and the children contracting the disease themselves. Le Médecin principal de 2eme cl. Vidal, Rapport d’ensemble sur les mesures prises au corps d’occupation français de Constantinople concernant la propagande antivénérienne, December 2, 1922, GR9NN/1078. DSS. ASHD. Vincennes, France. General Charpy, commander of the corps in Constantinople, directed an intense antivenereal disease campaign due to the concerning rate of venereal disease transmission among soldiers in 1921. He was pleased to see that the efforts paid off: there was a decrease in the number of incidents the following year, which was a noteworthy achievement among French military officials. Le Général Charpy, commandant le corps d’occupation français de Constantinople, December 5, 1922, GR9NN/1078. DSS. ASHD. Vincennes, France. 573 In 1923, the French provincial commanding officer in Lebanon ordered the distribution of an instructional manual to all ports operating without doctors. Le Général de Lamonthe, commandant provincial l’armée du Levant à le Ministre de la guerre et des pensions, March 27, 1923, GR9NN/1078. DSS. ASHD. Vincennes, France. Synonymous with the rhetorical devices employed by the commanders in Constantinople, this medical instruction manual used for the treatment of minor ailments under the direction of the commanding officers took a firm stance on the dangers posed by unregulated prostitutes. The women soliciting in the streets, working in bars or cafés, or any of those operating outside the reserved quarters were without medical control and, therefore, the principal agents of disease proliferation. Armée Française du Levant, Direction du Service de Santé, “Quelques notions médicales à l’usage des commandants de postes dépourvus de médecin,” N. P., N. D., GR9NN/1078. DSS. ASHD. Vincennes, France. 574 Scott, “Governing Prostitution,” 61. Scott elaborates that, by using comparative analysis, Parent-Duchâtelet quantified “essentialized notions of difference to be rendered problematic and questioned.” See footnote 337.

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Even with the outbreak of World War II, when military control of Syria and Lebanon emerged as a principal concern, the revisions to public policy were enunciated through civilian authorities. Henri Escher perhaps best illustrated how the crossover between military, medical, and civilian authority dealt with the threat of unregulated sexual services. Medicine critically established and buttressed France’s national and colonial policy on commercial sex, and physicians played a central role in reformulating regulations responding to the specific needs that they determined to exist in the Levant. This produced the material effect of strict control over sex workers, whose ability to even leave their homes as regular civilians was prohibited, as in a case where a sex worker in a BMC was detained by two police officers for leaving the facility without authorization.575 The police monitored the whereabouts of registered sex workers closely, as workers needed permission to even leave one facility to work temporarily in another, as in the case of Zeinab Ibou, who left the maison where she worked in Rayak for a BMC in Baalbek; the authorities interrogated her about her activities.576 The regulations provided for no freedom of movement, and provided no incentives to even leave the profession, which one could not do, of course, without permission being granted from the authorities. Even at their request, the authorities failed to grant them the ability to be taken off the official registry to the point where third parties sometimes intervened, such as in one case when a mufti in Bekaa requested the authorities to comply with the worker’s request to leave her profession.577

The creation of sex workers as suspicious subjects led to women, such as those operating under the broad category of “artist,” being scrutinized by police authorities as possible

575 Le Commissaire adjoint Osman Sabry à Monsieur chef du S. R. de Baalbek, Baalbek, October 31, 1930. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. 576 Le Sergent de gendarmerie Ajaje Baze à Monsieur le commissaire de la police Baalbek, Rayak, October 9, 1933. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. 577 L’Administrateur du district de la Bekaa à Monsieur le chef de bataillon conseiller administrative de la Bekaa, Zahlé, June 30, 1943. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France.

201 clandestine workers, due to the danger they posed “for the health and discipline of the troops,” according to one battalion chief in Baalbek.578 The women had to either “cease their commerce or be expelled” even though there was more often than not no evidence to substantiate the claim that a woman was a secret sex worker.579 Suspicion from the authorities proved to be grounds enough, and the women had little recourse beyond a special tribunal that comprised men who were affiliated with the institutions responsible for condemning the women to begin with. In sum, discursive effects produced lived effects, which were affected not only the lives of those working in commercial sex, but the lives of other working-class women living in the region. And working-class women were to suffer the consequences.580 As Carol Bacchi and Joan Eveline affirm, “problem representations have real and meaningful effects for lived/living bodies . . . representations are not opposed to ‘the real.” Rather, through the meanings they introduce, they are political interventions in ‘the real,’ affecting how people are treated and how they live their lives.”581

The colonial concern for protecting the vitality of the military materialized through attempts to convince the public, including international bodies like the League, that such efforts were made at the municipal level: they were not some far off machination of out-of-touch politicians on another continent. When criticism mounted of their scheme to control women through relegating them to specific areas and determining their whereabouts, the bureaucrats

578 Le Chef de bataillon Kratzert, commandant d’armes à Monsieur le lieutenant Marnier, officier du Service des renseignements du Baalbek, Baalbek, June 18, 1928. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. 579 N. A. à Monsieur l’administrateur du district Baalbek, Baalbek, June 15, 1928. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. 580 The class impact of discourses on sex work is investigated in Chapter Five, which is on the rescue industry that conflated domestic servants with sex workers. But this can also be seen in this chapter, as women working as artists were conflated with sex workers in regulations produced by the French colonial authorities in the Levant. This “concern” for women artists working abroad aroused the concern of the League, which conceived of it as a smokescreen for trafficking. 581 Bacchi and Eveline, “Approaches to Gender Mainstreaming,” 112.

202 responsible for maintaining the complex network of surveillance and procedures switched tactics and defended their actions through claiming such accusations as being unfounded and/or inaccurate, or through claiming that their actions were protected by national sovereignty and were therefore not the subject of international concern. As demonstrated above, regulations were

“not superseded by normative power but merged with medical . . . knowledges and practices, becoming part of a complex normative model of regulation and surveillance.”582

In sum, this chapter has illustrated the framework under which colonial authorities, including the military, constructed sex work in Lebanon and Syria throughout the French

Mandate period. While male French colonial bureaucrats fought to keep sex work “outside the law” as it did in the metropole by placing regulations on prostitution under municipal jurisdiction, evidence shows that colonial authorities continuously intervened on what was purportedly a local affair. World War II made the French colonial “public health” policy even more suspect as serving the interest of the general public of Lebanon and Syria, as military officials were called in to intervene on administering regulations over prostitution. French authorities saw their inability to control venereal disease not as evidence of the failures of their policy, but on the failures of sex workers in acquiescing to their authority. Therefore, stricter measures were considered the “solution,” a contention that abolitionists would challenge. This is what I will turn to in the following chapters.

Part Two of this thesis turns to the competing dominant discourse on sex work, which presented sex work not so much as a crisis for public health but as a crisis of human exploitation.

This began with the rise of humanitarianism in the Levant on the eve of the French Mandate, and it continued on to its end 1946 after World War II. This humanitarian, welfare-based discourse,

582 Scoular, The Subject of Prostitution, 46.

203 however, further contributed to the normative model of sex work, and did not dismantle it. In

Scoular’s words, the rescue discourses that emanated from moralists and feminists beginning in the mid-1800s “played a significant role in the reconstitution of prostitution in ways that did not necessarily reduce but in fact increased control” and the pathologizing of sex workers.583

583 Ibid., 51.

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Chapter Four

The Other Side of the Equation: The Rise of Humanitarian Discourses, the League of Nations, and the Armenian Question

As underscored in Chapter One and demonstrated in Part One of this thesis, the French authorities premised their regulatory system of sex work on patriarchal assumptions about sexuality, and they used their political and administrative power to legitimize and perpetuate disparate gendered discourses thereon. French officials used contemporary medicine and science to legitimate their colonial policy position on sex work, even as it faced mounting opposition from feminists, moralists, and other governments. In fact, France’s resolve strengthened in the face of public rebuke, as it sought to continue its entrenchment in the Levant through the maintenance of regulatory prostitution. Yet international and domestic interventions did impact

French colonial policy, even if French colonial administrations never actually abolished the regulatory framework during the period of the Mandate. This chapter, along with following chapter, will discuss the rise of internationalism in the early twentieth century. The interventions came about through the creation and subsequent actions of the League, and it sought to first reform and then ultimately abolish sex work in the Levant.

While the French colonial state in Lebanon and Syria focused its attention on validating its regulationist stance on sex work in the interest of public health, there was a competing discourse taking hold on an international scale. This internationalist approach to sex work focused on humanitarian interventions that were designed to protect women and children from exploitation.

The argument that believed that tolerated sex work was harmful to women and children came into direct conflict with that of the French colonial bureaucrats and military medical personnel who defended their position on regulated prostitution by maintaining that it was a matter of state

205 sovereignty.584 While the French authorities managed to maintain ultimate authority over the regulation of sex work in the Levant, international organizations exerted pressure through the utilization of discourses on the trafficking of vulnerable populations in order to achieve public accountability on management practices of sex work in Lebanon and Syria. This chapter will focus on how humanitarian efforts on behalf of Armenian women and children became a conduit for international intervention in the Levant under the banner of human trafficking. These efforts commenced before France eventually conceded that Lebanon and Syria were subject to the

International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children in 1930.

The Rise of Humanitarianism in the Near East

On October 14, 1888, the New York Times published an article with the alarming title “German

Slaves in the East: Public Sales of European Girls in Constantinople.” It read as follows:

A considerable sensation has been created both in the diplomatic world and among the foreign colony by the discovery two weeks ago that a market exists here in which European girls, imported for the purpose from Germany, Austria, Italy, and Russia are publicly being sold as slaves. . . . It has now been definitely ascertained that every week large shipments of German and Italian girls arrive here. . . . None are aware of the fate in store for them, having been lured to undertake the trip to the Turkish capital by means of promises of munificent remuneration . . . of respectable and honorable employments. . . . Some of them at once resign themselves to their fate, while those who are disposed to resist are speedily tamed by confinement in dark cells, hunger, and ill treatment. The feelings of utter helplessness and friendliness [sic] in a strange and uncivilized city, about which as a rule they have only heard in fairy tales, goes far to break all spirit of resistance. . . . [They] are partly bought up for export to Cairo, Alexandria, Smyrna, and other Levantine ports. It is a notorious fact that almost all the denizens of these houses throughout the Orient, extending from Constantinople to Cairo, are Germans, Austrians, and Italians.585

584 I use the word “tolerated” deliberately, as it was neither legal nor illegal until 1931 in the Levant, as articulated in the previous chapters. As detailed in Chapter Three, sex work occupied a liminal state that suspended sex workers in a state of ambiguity. 585 N. A., “German Slaves in the East: Public Sales of European Girls in Constantinople,” New York Times, October 14, 1888: 11. Frederick Davis Greene provides a similar account in his The Armenian Crisis in Turkey: The Massacre of 1894 (New York: N.P., 1895). In discussing the history of Turkish atrocities committed on Armenians, Greene states of women and children abducted on Easter Day 1822 by a Turkish admiral that “their youth and beauty saved them from the massacre … or to reserve them for the shameful fate of the harem. [T]hey were put on the market and sold in the bazaars of Smyrna, Constantinople, and Brussa” (98).

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The focus of this article was clearly on human trafficking and the fears for its racialized victims.

The piece’s alarmist proclamations were, in part, the handiwork of early European feminists and social moralists engaging in a transnational campaign against “White slave traffic.” In Women and Slavery in the Late Ottoman Empire: The Design of Difference, Madeline C. Zilfi claims that, while the selling of female slaves in Mediterranean port cities was endemic during the nineteenth century, it was actually illegal to prostitute a slave.586 Admittedly, slave dealers employed various tactics to get around this prohibition, one of which was engaging in the temporary sale of slaves.587 Zilfi notes that Europeans knew of the slave markets in

Constantinople and engaged in tourist voyeurism until the markets’ closure in 1846.588 And yet the panic surrounding White slave trafficking illustrated in the above-quoted New York Times article lets the reader know that, while the selling of European women was not legally practiced in the port of Constantinople, human trafficking was a vital industry there in 1888.

What this article also shows—as do the humanitarian efforts to rescue Armenian women and children from Muslim households in the late nineteenth century—was the existence of a discourse that conflates sex work and the horrors of trafficking. Narratives of the abduction of

Armenian women and children often depicted their forced participation in harems as sexual slavery and prostitution.589 However, forcing a woman or child to reside in a harem or becoming a concubine, while most definitely an act of enslavement, was not technically an act of if the woman or child does not end up performing sexual acts for money or other forms of renumeration. But whether it was misunderstood or blurred, this distinction was

586 Madeline C. Zilfi, Women and Slavery in the Later Ottoman Empire: The Design of Difference (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 199, 203. 587 Zilfi, Women and Slavery, 199, 203. 588 Ibid., 199, 202. 589 In this chapter, I refer to “harems” as they are often portrayed in sensationalized media accounts in the dominant Orientalist fashion at the time, which associate them with sexual promiscuity. These accounts obscure the nature of harems existing as separate living quarters for women in Muslim households.

207 ultimately irrelevant, as the vulnerabilities of women to sexual exploitation through illegal trafficking met with unprecedented rescue efforts on the part of humanitarian organizations.

To better comprehend how humanitarian interventions on behalf of women and children came to fruition in the Levant, one need only look at several key events that transpired prior to the French Mandate’s formation, all of which related to “rescuing” women from “sexual servitude.” The first coordinated movement against state regulation of sex work began in Great

Britain under feminist and social reformer Josephine Butler in opposition to the Contagious

Disease Acts (CDAs) in the 1860s, which found footing in the Levant several decades later under the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene (AMSH).590 The successful coordination and stalwart campaigning by diverse constituencies within Britain led to the repeal of the acts sixteen years after the original act first took effect.591 Tensions over the CDA pitted military authorities, state bureaucrats, and civilian doctors responsible for implementing and extending the acts against repealers who took offense to the official sanctioning of sexual double standards and public authorities’ toleration of immoral conditions.592 While successful in achieving its goals of abolishing the CDA in Britain, the coalition of repealers soon showed signs of discord. There was a schism in the coalition between abolitionist and social purity organizations. This division centered on whether the state had a duty to intervene in matters of prostitution and, if so, which

590 Judith Walkowitz characterizes the CDA as a “new interventionist approach to social problems” that attempted to counteract social deterioration that “undermined moral character.” Judith R. Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class and the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 72. This formulated a medical and moral imperative for the Victorian state to protect its military from both venereal disease and vices, which will be seen in the Levant as well, as sex work was commonly bundled with countering other vices such as gambling, opium and hashish trafficking, and alcohol consumption. 591 Katarina Leppänen, “Movement of Women: Trafficking in the Interwar Era,” Women Studies International Forum 30, no. 6 (2007): 523–533, 525. For details on this legislation and the concerted effort to overthrow it, see Joseph Bristow, Sexuality (London: Routledge, 1997) and Judith R. Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society. 592 Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society, 70. Walkowitz argues that the state’s controlling posture toward sex workers was an extension of Victorian public health policy already in existence that feared “moral and physical pollution.” Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society, 71, 74–75.

208 parties should be subject to state intervention. Ultimately, this British debate concerned how sex workers should be legally regarded and what methods should be employed to accomplish the ultimate elimination of prostitution. This distinction became important in international policy formulations and in the developing role of the League in 1921, evoking tensions between French colonial bureaucrats and abolitionists over the control of sex work in Syria and Lebanon.

The abolitionist stance, which was largely represented by the International Abolitionist

Federation (IAF) spearheaded by Butler in Great Britain and represented by Ghénia Avril de

Sainte-Croix in France, who became the League’s abolitionist group representative from 1922 to

1936 during a time of intensifying scrutiny of France’s colonial policy in the Levant. They held that government-tolerated sex work criminalized women and led to their exploitation. Wanting to eliminate regulated brothels, they saw the remedy in criminalizing activities that surrounded sex work, such as the procurement of prostitutes and the profiting off their wages, and in eliminating state policies that solely targeted prostitutes. Their overarching goal was to eliminate the sexual double standard of criminalizing women for the act and letting men emerge relatively unscathed.

In the prevailing view of abolitionists, by sex work being controlled in the name of public health, government acted as a pimp through the worker’s institutionalization. In addition, the authority given to the police des mœurs (vice squads) and medical authorities afforded these professionals a great deal of discretion when it came to deciding who was and was not a prostitute. Men, who occupied these positions of authority at this time, were able to surveil women and subjectively decide whether their behaviors were appropriate.593

593 To counter some of the male control, the League, through the encouragement of abolitionists, sought measures to encourage the hiring of female police officers to deal with “social issues.” None were hired in the Levant during France’s colonial tenure.

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In contrast to the abolitionist movement was the social purity movement, which was formed by various religious leaders. The latter sought increased state control over vice to combat prostitution. In 1899, the movement consolidated its voice under the International Bureau for the

Suppression of the Traffic of Women and Children. Its founding secretary, William Alexander

Coote, formed a coalition of religious reformers, state officials, and other elite members of

British society. As Stephanie Limoncelli notes, the International Bureau was more aligned with state interests than the IAF, which frequently came into conflict with the state.594 But both groups put gender inequity as an international concern, critiqued women’s subordination to men, and pursued their agendas through the League after World War I. While these groups did not have rescuing Armenian women and children as one of their objectives, they argued that the protection of vulnerable populations should be a shared human concern. Both groups were heavily involved in the 1904 and 1910 international conferences against White slave traffic, which produced international protocols and actions against the enslavement of women and children. These sessions served as precursors to what was to happen in 1921.

In the late nineteenth century, anti–sex-trafficking campaigns garnered enough support to hold international conferences on the suppression of White slave traffic in 1904 (yielding the

International Agreement for the Suppression of White Slave Traffic) and in 1910 (yielding the

International Convention for the Suppression of the White Slave Trade). At these conferences, the French regulatory system came under attack and received mounting criticism for the medical rationale that it employed to justify the regulation of sex work. Such criticism led to unification of Christian moralists, feminist reformers, and some members of the medical community.595

594 Stephanie A. Limoncelli, “International Voluntary Associations, Local Social Movements and State Paths to the Abolition of Regulated Prostitution in Europe, 1875–1950,” International Sociology 21, no. 1 (2006): 36. 595 Jessica R. Pliley, “Claims to Protection: The Rise and Fall of Feminist Abolitionism in the League of Nations’ Committee on the Traffic in Women and Children, 1919–1936,” Journal of Women’s History 22, no. 4 (2010): 97.

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These conferences both produced international agreements prohibiting White slave traffic, of which France was a signatory.596 The treaties placed an onus on states to have administrative structures in place to address the problem of women being trafficked across their borders by appointing officials to monitor the borders, report infractions, and punish those responsible for doing it. The international conferences sought to identify the root of trafficking and to determine why women and young girls left their homes and became objects of illegal trade. The 1910

International Convention for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic advanced the 1904

International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic by advocating for tighter regulations within each signatory state. Its chief concerns were solidifying laws that made the procurement of women a punishable offense and seeking international cooperation in the extradition and prosecution of offenders. Significantly, anyone who “procured, enticed, or led astray” underage girls or who used “violence, threats, abuse of authority, compulsion or fraud” to coerce women and/or girls of any age to engage in “immoral” acts would be officially committing punishable offenses.597 Maria Rodriguez Garcia labels this humanitarian work the

“moral recruitment of women,” whereby individuals perceived themselves to be operating on an

Walkowitz connects the campaign against White slave traffic to the campaign against venereal disease, locating the former in the fight to repeal the CDAs of the 1860s. Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society, 2. 596 As these agreements only focused on international traffic, French authorities held a leading role in these conventions, as it left their regulatory system, a domestic matter, relatively untouched while providing French officials with a level of moral authority when protecting vulnerable populations. This shifted after 1921, as abolitionist groups became more assertive in their criticisms of France’s domestic and colonial policies toward sex work, which French officials articulated as a threat to their country’s sovereign rights. 597 An ensuing debate in the League concerned the notion of age of consent. Imbedded in this debate are Orientalist objections to girls being wedded at ages that were considered in Europe to be unacceptable. See the League of Nations’ Child Welfare Committee publication from 1928, The Age of Marriage and the Age of Consent. In the 1930s, the League took a more paternalistic approach, making consent irrelevant. The perceived barbaric customs practiced by Turks of forcibly taking young brides and placing young girls in harems were particularly salient in the case of the atrocities committed against Armenians. For a discussion of race science, age of consent, and the League of Nations, see Ashwini Tambe, “Climate, Race Science and the Age of Consent in the League of Nations,” Theory, Culture and Society 28, no. 2 (2011): 109–130.

211 absolute ethic against a social evil, and sought to rescue women and children from exploitation.598

Once the League was established, its commitments to rescue work would be based on the stance taken by most Western relief organizations, which agreed that state and international powers ought to be deployed in order to stop what they perceived as the sexual exploitation of women and children. On this view, women engaging in sex work would have to leave the occupation, and humanitarian organizations would provide the means with which these women could be “saved.”599 Armenian women and children refugees’ forced migration to the Levant in the wake of the Armenian Genocide became part of this burgeoning humanitarian cause to rescue women and children, drawing upon preconceived notions of “White slave traffic” established by abolitionists in Britain and France in the prior decades.

The Armenian Genocide of 1915 and the New Face of White Slavery

The nascent League established an anti-trafficking agenda early on in its tenure, where state officials assumed responsibility over the prior international agreements and conventions that were established in 1904 and 1910. On September 30, 1921, the International Convention for the

Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children was introduced. It resulted from a conference attended by thirty-four states over a six-day period. The French delegation profusely objected to the convention, believing that it was produced too quickly and required further deliberation.600

The League subsequently created the Advisory Committee on Traffic in Women and Children in

1921 to combat the “direct or indirect procuration and transportation for gain to a foreign country

598 Maria Rodriguez Garcia, “The League of Nations and the Moral Recruitment of Women,” International Review of Social History 57, no. S20 (2012): 99–100. 599 Joyce Outshoorn, “The Political Debates on Prostitution and Trafficking of Women,” Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State, and Society 12, no. 1 (2005): 145. 600 Stephanie A. Limoncelli, The Politics of Trafficking: The First International Movement to Combat the Sexual Exploitation of Women (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010), 75.

212 of women and girls for the sexual gratification of one or more other persons.”601 The Advisory

Committee obtained data on the trade, and collaborated with national governments and international organizations to collate annual reports in relation to the 1921 Convention. France eventually signed on to the International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in

Women and Children on March 1, 1926, five-and-a-half years after the Convention’s introduction. Yet the French government fended off submitting its Syrian and Lebanese mandates to the Convention until June 2, 1930, when it finally conceded under intense international pressure.602 Citing concerns that the League’s Advisory Committee on Traffic in

Women and Children exceeded its mandate by infringing on state sovereignty and that the implications of prohibiting regulationism required further study (as that became the overarching agenda of the Advisory Committee), the French government repeatedly stonewalled adherence to the 1921 Convention.603 In the interim, it was the League’s Commission for the Protection of

Women and Children in the Near East that provided a conduit for interrupting the “modern day slavery” that was taking place in the Levant, as the public, in condemnation of the Armenian

Genocide, called upon the French to act.604

601 League of Nations, Report of the Special Body of Experts on Traffic in Women and Children, 1927, C.52.M.52.1927.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 8–9. 602 It did not include any of its colonies, protectorate countries, or territories under the Mandate. Under Article 14 of the 1921 Convention, any signatory “may declare that the signature does not include any or all of its colonies, overseas possessions, protectorates or territories under its sovereignty or adhere separately on behalf of any such colony, overseas possession, protectorate or territory so excluded in its declaration.” 603 Recall that in Chapter Two I drew attention to the fact that France provided a formulaic response replicated yearly in their annual report to the League’s Permanent Mandate Commission (PMC), stating that Ottoman Penal Code (OPC) effectively curtailed trafficking of women and children. Such rationale would make oversight of the League’s Advisory Committee unnecessary, as France claimed that “the trafficking of women, which is repressed by Article 201 of the Ottoman Penal Code, does not exist in the countries of mandate.” Rapport sur la situation de la Syrie et du Liban, année 1924. C.452(m). M.166(m).1925.VI. January 14, 1926. Geneva, Switzerland: 3. 604 As Watenpaugh argues, the “fiction of the mandate system imposed humanitarian responsibilities on colonial authorities.” He maintains that France harnessed the humanitarian cause to legitimize its position in the region. He then goes on to state that “the French pointed to their support for refugees as evidence of both a civilizing and humanitarian dimension to their rule.” Keith Watenpaugh, Being Modern in the Middle East: Revolution, Nationalism, Colonialism, and the Arab Middle Class (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 286.

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While the term “White slave traffic” was officially abandoned in the adoption of the 1921

Convention—a term that I will discuss in more detail in the following chapter—its use during the

1904 and 1910 conventions saw it remain in common parlance. Leila Rupp argues that “the portrayals of the sex trade often reflected and supported a feminist orientalist worldview” and that the removal of “White” from the directive failed to eradicate both imperial and orientalist overtones.605 The League’s work, including that on behalf of Armenians, assumed a paternalist approach that reified Western efforts to “rescue” indigenous populations. The three members in charge of the League’s reclamation efforts vis-à-vis Armenian women and children were present in the region as missionaries. Rupp points out that not only were Westerners engaging in imperialist rhetoric, they were also asserting “a bond of vulnerability among women that made morality their special province.”606 As one example, Michelle Tusan illustrates how Emily

Robinson of the Armenian Red Cross made a specific connection between White slave traffic and the Armenian Genocide. While overseas, Robinson wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, stating that “the Christian women and children [have been] forcibly detained since 1915 in

Turkish harems. White slave traffic is a crime here and is punished as such in European countries. It seems it has only to be conducted on a wholesale scale and by Turks to be quite permissible.”607 Tusan argues that Robinson was drawing upon the rhetoric of earlier White slave traffic campaigns (see above) to invoke a moral obligation on Britain to act as a protector of

Armenian women and children.608 This connection, between the “White slave traffic” humanitarian campaigns and the plight of Armenian women and children in harems, was

605 Leila J. Rupp, Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women’s Movement (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 151. 606 Ibid., 151. 607 Michelle Tusan, The British Empire and the Armenian Genocide: Humanitarian and Imperial Politics from Gladstone to Churchill (London: I. B. Tauris, 2017), 100. 608 Michelle Tusan, Smyrna’s Ashes: Humanitarianism, Genocide, and the Birth of the Middle East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 117.

214 repeatedly invoked in missionary and other humanitarian correspondence throughout the early twentieth century.

While foreign governments were late to intervene in the atrocities in Armenia, humanitarian relief organizations were already in operation in the region and reported their activities to newspapers, governments, and community groups to gain financial and logistical support for their relief efforts.609 The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions

(ABCFM) was one of the first such relief organizations in the region, and it began its outreach program in 1819.610 By 1863, it had established offices in Northern Syria, Asia Minor, and

Mesopotamia.611 While its primary goal was Christian proselytization, ABCFM’s extensive outreach program and social networks made its members effective chroniclers of events transpiring in the region. When the trafficking of women and children drew the public’s attention, the fact that more than half of this relief organization’s missionaries were women—and most of them were college-educated—placed it in a strategically advantageous position: its missionaries’ accounts were likely to be read and relied upon as credible accounts by interested parties seeking testimonials of Turkish exploitation of Armenians.612 It was in part due to the

609 The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, also known as the Blue Book (see below, footnote 623), was published in 1916 under the commission of the British government. Its compilation of eyewitness statements of the Armenian Genocide (1915–1916) relied heavily on missionary accounts. Yet, while missionaries conveyed the Genocide in terms of religious conflict, the person responsible for compiling the reports, Viscount Bryce, argued that it was not a case of Muslims against Christians but one of the Turkish government against those who, for various political reasons, did not “fit” into their empire, which the former wanted to be homogeneous. See Tusan, Smyrna’s Ashes, 124. 610 According to Suzanne Elizabeth Moranian, the Armenians’ usefulness to the Protestant mission failed to provide any meaningful outcome in terms of conversions. The ABCFM thought to alter Armenians’ religious practices to conform to those of Protestants, with the idea of it serving as a model for Muslims who would be enticed to convert. After the Genocide, it was evident that this would not happen. Therefore, after the refugee crisis was over, it planned for Armenians residing in Syria to join the evangelical affiliates in the region and to focus on Muslim evangelization. Suzanne Elizabeth Moranian, “Bearing Witness: The Missionary Archives as Evidence of the Armenian Genocide,” in The Armenian Genocide: History, Politics, Ethics, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), 124. 611 Moranian, “Bearing Witness,” 104. 612 Ibid., “Bearing Witness,” 105, 107–108. Moranian states that missionaries were instrumental in counteracting Ottoman propaganda targeted against the Armenians as they were sent out into the region. During this time, its missionaries in Beirut were being incarcerated “because of what they have been telling about the horrors in Turkey.”

215 efforts of the ABCFM and other relief organizations that the Commission for the Protection of

Women and Children in the Near East applied continuous pressure on the French government to officially report on criminal activities specifically related to women and children.613

The massacre of Armenians and their subsequent forced expulsion from Asia Minor in

1915 prompted international action to aid refugees from the region, and such action had a direct and lasting impact on the Levant. The League’s Commission for the Protection of Women and

Children in the Near East, which was created in 1921, sought to reclaim victims of trafficking and restore them to their families of origin.614 Frequently, the work carried out by relief organizations prior to the League’s inception was framed as being part of a need to rescue

Christians from Muslims, thus placing those providing aid under one large religious umbrella.615

It was into this religiously motivated context that aid from international humanitarianism commenced in a more secularized form. This confessional aid structure soon converged, however, with the racialized discourse surrounding the need to rescue White women from sexual

Letter from Missionary Isaac Newton Camp to James L. Barton, December 21, 1915, as quoted in Moranian, “Bearing Witness,” 110. 613 Other private relief organizations were operational in the region as well, and they assisted in filling the void left by the British and French governments, which were unwilling to send in resources to resettle refugees. Save the Children, the Lord Mayor’s Fund, and the Society of Friends Relief were among these private charities. See Tusan, Smyrna’s Ashes, 164–165. Daniel Gorman argues that the French and British did not have any national interests in Armenia, and that this is why they did not dedicate resources to rescue work, which left the Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East seriously short of funds in Syria. In order to secure funds for her efforts, Karen Jeppe, who ran the Commission’s Armenian efforts in Syria, employed the language of international humanitarianism to receive financial support from the Mandate powers. Daniel Gorman, The Emergence of International Society in the 1920s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 66–67. 614 Again, I refer back to Watenpaugh’s claim that I highlighted in Chapter One, which makes the intentions of rescue organizations suspect. According to Watenpaugh, recuperated genocide victims were subjects of resettlement, not assimilation. Keith Watenpaugh, Bread from Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015), 28. 615 According to Watenpaugh, missionary work provided the avenue for people like Karen Jeppe, discussed later in this chapter, to transition to secular institutions. In her case, it was the League. Watenpaugh, Bread from Stones, 138. But while she worked for a presumably “secularized” international institution, her work was still motivated by religious ideologies, as seen in her 1924 book, Rettung aus muhammedanischer Sklaverei: Wer hilft dazu? (Rescue from Muhammedan Slavery, Who Helps?).

216 exploitation that had been formulated in the 1860s, as discussed above.616 These two complementary discourses, whereby women and children were constructed as racialized subjects of sexual slavery and objects of religiously motivated rescuing impulses, provided a framework for intervention in the aftermath of the 1915 Armenian Genocide. It is important to note here that the Hamidian Massacres of 1894–1896, which caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of

Armenians, were the antecedents to the Genocide, and in this regard were critical to the formulation of this new international intervention framework. It is therefore to these events that I now turn.

These massacres of Armenians occurred in the Ottoman Empire from 1894 to 1896 as the state engaged in systematic atrocities against its minority Christian populations, garnering international attention. 617 Increasingly, British and American Christian groups demanded humanitarian responses to these tragedies, pressuring foreign governments to not be complicit by staying silent and failing to act. Underscoring the horrors of the events that unfolded in 1894, publications such as The Armenian Crisis in Turkey: The Massacre of 1894, Its Antecedents and

Significance, with a Consideration of Some of the Factors which Enter into the Solution of this

Phase of the Eastern Question recounted how “fifty choice women were set aside and urged to change their faith and become hanums in Turkish harems.”618 Another account of the 1894 massacre at Sassoun provided by the author, Frederick Davis Greene, who served for four years

616 As Limoncelli notes, the strategic employment of White slave traffic terminology was designed “to evoke sympathy toward and similarities with the earlier abolitionist movement against black slavery by alluding to what were understood to be the coercive and exploitive aspects of commercial sex in European brothels of the time.” Limoncelli, The Politics of Trafficking, 6. 617 I would like to thank Katy Kalemkerian for reviewing this chapter for accuracy on Armenian geographical references. Any remaining errors are my own. 618 This book called upon the United States to respond. It collated accounts of the atrocities committed under the Turks during the early phase of the Genocide. See Frederick Davis Greene, The Armenian Crisis in Turkey: The Massacre of 1894, Its Antecedents and Significance, with a Consideration of Some of the Factors which Enter into the Solution of this Phase of the Eastern Question (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1895), 22.

217 as a missionary with the American Board in Van (which was then part of Eastern Anatolia inhabited by Armenians), stated that “a lot of young women were collected as spoils of war. Two stories are told. 1. That they were carried off to the harems of their Moslem captors. 2. That they were offered Islam and the harems of their Moslem captors, refusing, they were slaughtered.”619

Another portrayal of the atrocities provided by Greene underscored the sexual savagery of the

Turkish soldiers toward their victims:

Men, women, and infants were treated alike, except that the women were subjected to greater outrage before they were slaughtered. The women were not even granted the privilege of a life or slavery. For example, in one place three or four hundred women, after being forced to serve the vile purposes of merciless soldiery, were taken to a valley nearby and hacked to pieces with sword and bayonet. In another place about two hundred women . . . knelt before the commander . . . but the blood- thirsty wretch, after ordering their violation, directed the soldiers to dispatch them in a similar manner.620

The text continues in this manner, illustrating the sexual exploitation of Armenian women at the hands of the Turkish military, which showed no signs of morality. According to the American

Protestant clergyman who authored of the introduction to the Armenian Crisis in Turkey, Josiah

Strong, this “new chapter of horrors” created the “demand for decisive action in the name of our common humanity.”621

News of the forced prostitution of Armenian women by Turkish soldiers appeared in the

English-language press and generated international concern. One site of such concern was the

American Purity Congress, which was held in October of 1895 in the American city of

Baltimore. According to an article in New York City-based The Sun, the congress focused on condemning governmental regulation of sex work as, unsurprisingly, morally reprehensible.

619 Greene, The Armenian Crisis in Turkey, v, 14. 620 Ibid., 6–7. 621 Josiah Strong, “Introduction,” in The Armenian Crisis in Turkey, vi. In his most influential work, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis published in 1885, Strong argued that the “Anglo-Saxon race” should civilize the world through Christianity.

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They adopted a neoregulationist stance, which required the imprisonment of those who engaged in commercial sex, including third parties. One delegate, Mariann W. Chapman, the President of the Women’s Club in Brooklyn, used the “plundering and assaulting [of] women and children in

Armenia” to illustrate the “lowest moral conditions of the human race.”622 This example meant to set the moralists apart from the human depravity existing abroad and not have them engage in reprehensible practices of depravity as was then being exhibited in Asia Minor. According to the

1916 publication The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire commissioned by the

British government, in Mezré, present-day Turkey, an Ottoman military campaign in 1915 reportedly arrived in the city, prompting the creation of “a public brothel . . . for the Turks, and all the beautiful Armenian girls and women were placed there. At night the Turks were allowed free entrance.”623

Another article, written in 1907, appearing in the American Christian Observer, claimed that both the Turkish military and Turkish government officials continued to forcibly submit

Christian women to sexual servitude, a practice that the author claimed drove Armenians into taking matters into their own hands because the European nations did not intervene:

The young men of Armenia, after ten years of fruitless effort to awaken the Christian nations to a realization of the situation, have with heroic desperation banded themselves into a brotherhood of revolutionists . . . pledged at any hazard to defend the honor of their women, even to the death; knowing that in every case it must be to the death, until, for very shame, the Christian people of Europe rise in their moral might and say, “this outrage upon womanhood must cease.”624

622 N. A., “To Stamp Out Vice: Purity Congress Outlines Plan for a General Campaign,” The Sun, October 17, 1895: 10. 623 Viscount Bryce and Arnold J. Toynbee, The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1916), 279, 291. This 684-page commissioned report compiled eyewitness and secondhand accounts of the 1915–1916 Genocide and was known colloquially as the “Blue Book” due to its blue cover. 624 Louise Seymour Houghton, “What Has Turkey Against Armenia?” Christian Observer 92, no. 37 (1907): 5. An article appearing in a 1915–1916 edition of the Atlanta Journal-Record of Medicine argued that religion and prostitution were not historically oppositional claims and that Armenian women frequently engaged in sex work in order to earn “dower money.” There is no source cited in this article for this claim about Armenian women, so it is hard to assess its value. Lee Alexander Stone, “The Prostitute: An Ethnological Study,” Atlanta Journal-Record of Medicine 62 (1915–1916): 500, 505-10.

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The 1916 Armenian American Relief Fund publication Cry of Armenia provided similar characterizations, this time of the 1915 exodus to Aleppo, drawing upon class-based affinities to invoke sympathy: “Among the 5,000 to start from Kharput . . . were graduates of Constantinople

College and of the Euphrates College. Among them were young women as intelligent, refined and cultured as Wellesley or Vassar girls. Their treatment at the hands of the gendarmes or their fate as occupants of Turkish harems is almost unthinkable.”625 The links drawn between the

Hamidian Massacres, the 1915 Genocide, and the abduction of orphaned girls are shown in an account of a missionary orphanage in Maraş.626 The unnamed source, only listed as a “Lady

Traveler,” stated that the young female orphans were originally from the orphanages established by Germans in the wake of the atrocities committed under Abdul Hamid. Orders came to expatriate the girls, yet the Swiss headmistress sheltered those that she could. The girls “were taken away and suffered the inevitable at the hands of their Turkish masters” after a telegram arrived from the “Consul in Aleppo” demanding their release.627 Lerna Ekmekcioglu argues that the Ottoman Turkish state used sex- and age-selective policies in its attempts to eradicate the

Armenian population. In that process, she states that innumerable women and young girls were either integrated into the Eastern slave trade or forced into prostitution by their captors.628 Vahé

625 American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, The Cry of Armenia (New York: American Armenian Relief Fund, 1916), 12. Another account, which was provided in a letter dated December 30, 1915, gave a similar account of “pretty girls” who graduated from college and were distributed to villagers and harems, with some of them making their way to Syria. Yet another letter in the same volume states that a female college instructor was taken into a harem. These letters can be found in Bryce and Toynbee, The Treatment of Armenians, 279 and 369, respectively. 626 The Armenian term vorpahavak, meaning “gathering of the orphans,” was applied to individuals not based on their sex or on their age sensu stricto, but based on whether or not they had any dependable male relatives who could protect them. Therefore, women who did not have any surviving male family members were considered orphans. See Lerna Ekmekcioglu, “A Climate for Abduction, a Climate for Redemption: The Politics of Inclusion after the Armenian Genocide,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 55, no. 3 (2013): 534. 627 American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, The Cry of Armenia, 14. 628 Ekmekcioglu, “A Climate for Abduction,” 528.

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Tachjian supports this point with the claim that the Committee for Union and Progress (CUP) deemed women and children as “spoils of war” to be used as “objects of sexual slavery.”629

The influx of Armenian women and children into neighboring territories led to their settlement in major cities such as Mosul, Aleppo, and Damascus.630 In these places, after losing their families and possessions, women faced high levels of alienation. Sometimes they had been raped prior to their arrival, bore illegitimate children, and were subsequently ostracized by their fellow refugees—circumstances that led them to engage in sex work.631 Furthermore, selling deported Armenian women as “sex slaves” into Muslim households provided supplementary income for many gendarmes.632 In Damascus, women were displayed naked so that purchasers could fully appraise their potential purchases. One contemporaneous account of the trade stated that “soldiers were pushing in front of them 300 or 400 naked Armenian girls and women. These were put up for auction and the whole lot disposed of, some for two, three, and four francs. Only

Mohammedans were allowed to buy. The salesman kept on exclaiming: ‘Rejoice oh ye faithful

629 Vahé Tachjian, “Gender, Nationalism, Exclusion: The Reintegration Process of Female Survivors of the Armenian Genocide,” Nations and Nationalism 15, no. 1 (2009): 65. The CUP, otherwise known as the Young Turks, was the political party in power in the Ottoman Empire responsible for the orchestration of the 1915–1916 genocide of Armenians. Three CUP officials were specifically implicated: Mehmet Talaat, Ismail Enver, and Ahmed Jamal (who was the military governor of Syria at that time). 630 In the nineteenth century, keeping official records on Armenian women engaging in sex work was fraught with difficulty due to their ambiguous national status. For example, even though the Patriarch of the Armenian Church in Baghdad reported rescuing Armenian women from sex work, Iraq’s League of Nations reports on the trafficking of women and children did not mention the existence of Armenian sex workers in the country. Since the reports did in fact list the nationalities of foreign-born sex workers, it is possible that Armenians were not considered “foreign- born,” and it is also possible that they were listed as Syrians. According to the 1925 Traffic in Women and Children annual report from the Iraqi government, twelve Syrian women aged 19 to 40 were deported from Iraq, and four Persian women were allowed to remain. The report also notes that those expelled were not part of the “White slave” trade but “were foreign only in virtue of the provisions of the Treaty of Lausanne and they have adopted the profession of prostitution either by choice or as the result of the War,” as mentioned in footnote 372. League of Nations, Traffic in Women and Children, Annual Report, 1925, July 13, 1926. C.415.M.151.1926.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: N. P. 631 Tachjian, “Gender, Nationalism, Exclusion,” 66. 632 One claim stated that they were displayed in the windows of government buildings and that those not purchased were forced to sleep with the gendarmes. See Bryce and Toynbee, The Treatment of Armenians, 643.

221 in the shame of the Christians.’”633 The Patriarch of the Armenian Church in Baghdad rescued

Armenian women from prostitution in Mosul, hailing them as “unfortunate sisters” who, in spite of their precarious status, still represented the honor of the Armenian nation and were worthy of being married to Armenian men.634 Accounts provided on these atrocities, mostly from ABCFM missionaries, significantly shaped Anglophone accounts of the Genocide. As Suzanne Elizabeth

Moranian argues, not only did their accounts impact public opinion through recounting the humanitarian crisis in magazine articles, newspaper stories, and church gatherings, they also established the foundations of public policy toward Asia Minor.635

The Francophone press was not immune to this phenomenon either. In Paris on January 18,

1917, the conference Femme arménienne highlighted the role of women in Armenian society and the place they held within the Genocide. Martin Niepage, a German professor in Aleppo, depicted the deplorable conditions that women and children faced, including the forced abduction of survivors into Turkish and Kurdish harems that was reported in the Anglophone press.636 Prominent Armenian feminist Zabel Essayan, among others, participated in the conference and wanted to “approach women’s experience as representative of the overall

Genocide and as a specific extraordinary development in which they were thrust out of their

633 Quoted in Katharine Derderian, “Common Fate, Different Experience: Gender-Specific Aspects of the Armenian Genocide, 1915–1917,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 19, no. 1 (2005): 11–12. Derderian cites another source bearing witness to Armenian women being prostituted at a local inn. A memorandum from from “a well-informed source at Bukarest” attested to the auctioning of Armenian women and young girls between the ages of seven and forty years old in the town of Marsovan (Turkey). See Bryce and Toynbee, The Treatment of Armenians, 23. 634 Ekmekcioglu, “A Climate for Abduction,” 550. Ekmekcioglu refutes Tachjian’s claim that “rescued” Armenian women were rejected by the Armenian leadership due to their tainted nature. She criticizes scholars for uncritically accepting Tachjian’s claim and subsequently replicating it in their work. As Ekmekcioglu states, “the whole vorpahavak [gathering of widows and orphans] was based on the assumption that however ‘polluted’ these women became, there was a way to ‘cleanse’ them and return them to the community” (525, n. 6). 635 Moranian, “Bearing Witness,” 124–125. 636 Archag Tchobanian, La femme arménienne (Paris: Librairie Bernard Grasset, 1918), 54–55.

222 traditional roles in the household.”637 She depicted Armenian women as choosing “death before dishonor.” In another text, Essayan underscored the high morality that these women possessed in the face of genocide: they would rather succumb to death than live in disgrace. In “Rôle de la femme arménienne,” she argued that the Armenian woman showed remarkable perseverance in the face of extreme tragedy, resisting both “promises and menaces . . . it was not until much later, out of strength, that she started losing her moral energy.”638 She asked her readers, “How could I, an Armenian, speak of the dishonor of the most beautiful, the most educated women of a whole nation?”639 Such tales of Armenian women’s “dishonor” were found in the memoir of prominent Armenian journalist Yervant Odian, himself a survivor of forced expulsion. He wrote

Anidzyal Dariner (Accursed Years), which was originally published in the Constantinople newspaper Jamanag in 1919, where he was editor.640

Odian’s autobiographical narrative of his exile to Der Zor (Deir ez-Zor) was tinged with the pathos of Armenian women’s precarious positions under their forced expulsion to Syria.641

His firsthand descriptions of the atrocities committed against Armenian women and children are a valuable source of information. Keith Watenpaugh characterizes Odian’s Accursed Years as a

“remarkable first-person account of surviving genocide” that “is comparable to the canonical human rights literature of Primo Levi or Elie Wiesel in its scope and reflective nature.”642 Of

637 Derderian, “Common Fate, Different Experience,” 5. Tusan argues that, starting in the late 1890s, the persecution of Armenian women and children was taken on as a British feminist cause. She states that British liberal feminists called upon “English womanhood” to invoke the need for intervention in Armenia. They created a corollary between the “Woman Question” and the “Easter Question.” Tusan, Smyrna’s Ashes, 35–39. 638 Zabel Essayan, “Chronique: Le rôle de la femme arménienne pendant la guerre,” Revue des Études Arméniennes 2, no. 1 (1922): 128. 639 Ibid., 125. 640 Yervat Odian, Accursed Years: My Exile and Return from Der Zor, 1914–1919 (London: Gomidas Institute, 2009), vii. 641 The concentration camps established in Deir ez-Zor were located in the Syrian Desert, where Armenians were forced to relocate in what were considered death marches, as they were denied food and water and faced staggering mortality rates. Christopher Walker, Armenia: The Survival of a Nation (London: Routledge, 1990), 205, 210. 642 Watenpaugh, Bread from Stones, 124.

223 particular importance are Odian’s detailed descriptions of Ottoman policies pertaining to women and children, which were “among the first Ottoman Armenian intellectual [accounts] to identify the large-scale transfer of children and trafficking of young women as not the by-product of genocide, but an element central to it.”643 According to Odian’s depictions, women made rational decisions for their survival while facing precarious circumstances. From his travels from Aleppo to Deir ez-Zor, Odian came across an Armenian girl either 17 or 18 years of age who was living with an Arab husband. When asked why she did not leave her forced marriage, she stated that if she were to leave him, then another man would forcibly take her.644 Upon reaching Deir ez-Zor,

Odian claimed that there was no sanctioned brothel operating in the region and, therefore, that sexually transmitted diseases were widespread among German soldiers residing there. As a response to this situation, the police transformed a Chaldean church into a brothel. The five or six women operating out of the newly formed brothel claimed to have been forcibly placed there, and, in Odian’s words, “a few Armenian women preferred to leave [factory] work, resign from honourable wages, and find their living in dirty voluptuousness.”645 Odian’s account described the situation of Armenian women residing with local men in Deir ez-Zor. He stated that the head of the civil government had Armenian women in his harem and as his servants and that there

“was at least one Armenian woman with every policeman, soldier or official.”646

Odian’s characterization of the predicaments that Armenian women faced after having

“dishonorable” relations with men is illustrated through his interaction with a “quite beautiful

643 Ibid. 644 Odian, Accursed Years, 149. 645 Ibid., 196–197. Odian later states that the German soldiers were not permitted to visit the brothel because it was not operating under the supervision of a German doctor. He claims that he was approached by the German authorities to secure four or five women for a new brothel, which he did. The establishment, however, never came into existence (209–211). 646 Ibid., 212–213.

224 and well-educated” woman upon returning to Constantinople.647 As he saw it, “I used the opportunity to give her a small moral lesson.” She claimed that Armenian women worked in brothels or took lovers to survive, to avoid being sent to Deir ez-Zor, and that they ran the risk of dying along the way. The shame of their experience prevented them from returning to their community of origin when the option to return from deportation presented itself. In response,

Odian asked her: “How many were there who were to be found in the brothels of Aleppo,

Damascus and Konia, who didn’t want to profit from this new freedom by returning to their homes because they had rotted in vice?”648 He was not the only one to ask such a question.

Armenian refugee women in the Levant posed a dilemma for the reintegration efforts, which aimed to re-establish Armenian nationhood. After the war ended, some prominent

Armenians expressed ambivalence toward women deemed corrupted due to improper sexual relations. Tachjian has produced important scholarship on this issue, in which he concludes that there was no consensus on whether to include women who had been raped, prostituted, and/or forced to bear children by Muslim men in the postwar nation-building efforts. While prominent individuals such as Vahan Malezian saw Armenian women as essential to national reconstruction, as Tachjian states, many Armenians living outside the Ottoman Empire were unaware of the sexual abuse and exploitation faced by refugee women.649 Those who were aware either thought women could be “reformed” or that women were polluted and, therefore, detrimental to the reconstruction efforts. Due to the social stigmas that they faced, many women and young girls chose instead to isolate themselves from other Armenians.650 Essayan

647 Ibid., 300–301. 648 Women adapted to their circumstances in a myriad of ways. Fahriye Yıldırım was an Armenian orphan who became a sex worker in Diyarbekir. She assumed control of the local brothels and employed other orphans such as herself. See Uğur Ümit Üngör, “Orphans, Converts, and Prostitutes: Social Consequences of War and Persecution in the Ottoman Empire, 1914–1923,” War in History 19, no. 2 (2012): 188. 649 Tachjian, “Gender, Nationalism, Exclusion,” 69. 650 Ibid., 69–70.

225 acknowledged this fact at the time, and urged women’s groups to treat refugee women and girls in these circumstances with compassion and to “inspire them with courage, provide them moral support, and examine and solve their complex situations calmly, with justice and humanity.”651

Yet another prominent feminist of the time, Haiganush Mark, did not speak of these women and children in such sympathetic terms. In an article published in the journal Hai Gin, Mark asserted that the “Armenian women who returned from the deportation are morally and physically dead.

In their veins most of them carry bad and disease-inflamed Turanian blood. They cannot scientifically provide a healthy generation for the nation.”652 Women in sexually precarious circumstances were a huge part of the humanitarian crisis, and in the aftermath of World War I the newly formed League began to help alleviate their hardships by providing rescue houses.

The media and governmental publications producing accounts of the sexual exploitation of

Armenian women and children informed readers what international policy would be under the auspices of the League’s Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near

East. The work on the ground in the Levant became coordinated by Karen Jeppe, who was herself inspired by Danish accounts of the horrendous treatments of Christian Armenians by

Turkish soldiers.653 Tales of women and children forced into sexual slavery, often in service to

Muslims, generated momentum for Western nations to take action in the Near East under the weight of the humanitarian crisis that ensued.

651 Essayan as quoted in Tachjian, “Gender, Nationalism, Exclusion,” 70. 652 Vahé Tachjian, “Mixed Marriage, Prostitution, Survival: Reintegrating Armenian Women into Post-Ottoman Cities,” in Women and the City, Women in the City: A Gendered Perspective on Ottoman Urban History, ed. Nazan Maksudyan (New York: Berghahn Books, 2014), 94–95. 653 Watenpaugh states that Jeppe would often make references to American slavery when describing the Armenian condition. He said that she employed this to not only for descriptive purposes but also to draw upon the nineteenth- century emancipation traditions. Watenpaugh, Bread from Stones, 136. Jeppe’s choice to work on behalf of Armenians, according to Watenpaugh, “was the conviction that some people or groups were simply more eligible for and deserving of assistance than others” (137).

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The League of Nations, Armenian Refugees, and Humanitarian Interventions

Reports of atrocities committed by the Turkish authorities against Armenian civilians provoked concerns in Europe and the United States about human rights abuses. Crimes perpetrated against women and children ranked high among the international community’s concerns, as articulated in the report of the Commission on the Responsibility of the Authors of the War and on

Enforcement of Penalties. Presented to the Preliminary Peace Conference on March 29, 1919, the report called for a special commission to systematically collect acts that included the “abduction of girls and women for the purpose of enforced prostitution.”654 This primary focal point, whereby girls and women were trafficked as sexual slaves, rested on the more explicit forms of forced sex work, where captors either sold young girls and women into the sex trade or functioned as souteneurs, or pimps. Samuel T. Dutton, serving as the US Secretary of the

Committee on Armenian Atrocities, worked on archiving atrocities committed by Turkish forces in order to hold governments “morally responsible” for their acts. He recounted one story of young girls attending a missionary school in Turkey. The Turkish officers divided the girls into three categories based on physical appearance: “Those that were the best-looking in the opinion of the Turkish officers were taken over by those officers. Those considered not quite so good- looking were given over to the soldiers, while those still less attractive were put up for sale to the highest bidders.”655 According to Henry Morgenthau, who was the American ambassador to the

654 N. A., “Commission on the Responsibility of Authors of the War and on Enforcement of Penalties,” The American Journal of International Law 24, no. 1–2 (1920): 114–115. Representatives Avetis Aharonian and Boghos Nubar of the Armenian delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference asked for the Allied Powers to “take all the necessary steps within and without the country to bring back to their faith all the women and children and the forced converts and liberate those that are locked up in the harems.” See Avetis Aharonian and Boghos Nubar, The Armenian Question before the Peace Conference: A Memorandum Presented Officially by the Representatives of Armenia to the Peace Conference at Versailles, on February 26, 1919 (New York: The Armenian National Union of America Press Bureau, 1919), 12. Tachjian, in “Gender Nationalism, Exclusion,” questions whether this included, in reality, all women and young girls. 655 N. A., “Armenian Women Put Up at Auction: Refugee Tells of the Fate of Those in Turkish Hands,” New York Times, September 29, 1915: 3.

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Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916, the torment did not end at the time of purchase. As he recalled during the mass deportation, “behind was left a small army of girls who had been sold as slaves—frequently for a medjidie, or about eighty cents—and who, after serving the brutal purposes of their purchasers, were forced to lead lives of prostitution.”656

Vahram Shemmassian’s work on the reclamation efforts of Armenian survivors in the

Levant points to the precarity of women and children on the eve of the League’s formation. A lack of resources, including shelters and employment, resulted in Armenian women being abandoned on the streets in Syria.657 An estimated two hundred women engaged in sex work in

Aleppo alone, either through the entertainment industry or through the regulated red-light district.658 As part of the regulatory system, the women submitted themselves to monthly examinations at the venereal hospital under the supervision of an Armenian doctor with

Armenian nurse assistants. An Armenian rescue home in Aleppo also conducted examinations.

According to a report from a doctor with the Near East Relief organization, an overwhelming number of the victimized women suffered from venereal disease and those infected had to pay for their treatment.659 The shame that the Armenian women felt over their condition made them resistant toward rescue efforts from the Inter-Provincial Union and the American Red Cross

(ARC). While, according to ARC records, twenty-seven women were rescued and being provided with temporary shelter, there was no long-term strategy in place to sustain the rescue

656 Henry Morgenthau, Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story (New York: Doubleday, Page, and Company, 1918), 317. 657 Vahram L. Shemmassian, “The Reclamation of Captive Armenian Genocide Survivors in Syria and Lebanon at the End of World War I,” Journal of the Society of Armenian Studies 15 (2006): 113–140, 132. Shemmassian stated that Armenians participated in the trafficking of Genocide survivors and the voluntary relief efforts that attempted to stop the practice. 658 Shemmassian, “The Reclamation of Captive Armenian Genocide Survivors,” 132. Watenpaugh makes a similar claim, stating that “approximately two hundred girls had seen sold into sexual slavery in the city’s extensive network of brothels.” Watenpaugh, Being Modern in the Middle East, 204. 659 Ibid., 133.

228 efforts.660 As of March 1920, an undetermined number of Armenian women continued to operate out of the red-light district of Aleppo.

The newly formed League promptly adopted the Armenian refugee crisis as an important humanitarian issue in need of redress.661 The General Assembly passed a resolution on

December 15, 1920, calling for a commission of inquiry on the deportation of women and children just eleven months after the establishment of the League.662 The geographical scope of the inquiry was to be Armenia, Asia Minor, and the countries adjoining Turkey, which included the French Mandate of Syria and Lebanon.663 Allied controlled territories were called upon to assist in the efforts of the soon-to-be appointed three-member commission.664 The New Armenia

660 Ibid., 134–135. 661 The League was facing public criticism for its ineffectiveness in handling the effects of the Armenian Genocide. The London Daily Telegraph proclaimed that “what has been done, or rather not done, with regard to Armenia affords a typical instance of the powerlessness of the League of Nations under existing conditions.” Cited in N. A., “Current Notes,” New Armenia 13, no. 5 (1921): 76. Watenpaugh claims that the League’s rescue work indicates a shift from prior humanitarian work driven by religious ideology to a more secular approach rooted in “social scientific knowledge-based approaches.” Keith Watenpaugh, “The League of Nations’ Rescue of Armenian Genocide Survivors and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism, 1920–1927,” American Historical Review 115, no. 5 (2010): 1319–1320. While I concur that this aspiration existed, those engaging in the work, such as Karen Jeppe in Aleppo, were clearly doing so as a result of their religious ideology. In addition, the report from the Fifth Committee to the Second Assembly characterized the work of the Neutral House, a joint institution of the League, the Ottoman Red Crescent, and Armenian organizations for rescued women, as “holy work” and encouraged the participation of religious affiliates, including the “French religious orders in Syria” and American missionaries. See League of Nations, Deportation of Women and Children in Turkey, Asia Minor, and the Neighbouring Territories, Report Presented by the Fifth Committee. September 22, 1921. A.113.1921.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: N. P. 662 League of Nations, “Deported Women and Children in Turkey and Neighbouring Countries,” Memorandum by the Secretary-General, Council Document 123, Geneva, Switzerland. 663 Ayşe Gül Altınay and Yektan Türkyılmaz argue that women and children were often placed in the same category as passive entities in need of male custody, a sentiment that resonated with the dominent patriarchal worldview of women as property and as a commodity. They attribute the erasure of Armenian women’s stories to this patriarchal construction. Women who disrupted the idealized nationalist narratives invoke anxieties and therefore needed to be silenced. Ayşe Gül Altınay and Yektan Türkyılmaz, “Unravelling Layers of Gendered Silencing: Concerted Armenian Survivors of the 1915 Catastrophe,” in Untold Histories of the Middle East: Recovering Voices from the 19th and 20th Centuries, ed. Amy Singer, Chistoph K. Neumann, and Selçuk Akşin Somel (London: Routledge, 2011), 43–44. 664 In January 1921, the League of Nations’ Secretary-General issued a memorandum stating that the work of rescuing children in war-affected regions was best left to voluntary organizations and that the League should not take an active part in the work. It is unclear how this document relates to the work conducted on behalf of Armenians and whether the ensuing commission was a compromise with regard to this assertion. League of Nations, “Children in Countries Affected by War,” Memorandum by the Secretary-General, Council Document 127. January 22, 1921. 21/4/20.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. Lord Balfour proposed a resolution of moral support offered to international organizations doing this humanitarian work. League of Nations, Relief of Children in Countries Affected by the War, Report Submitted by Mr. Balfour, February 23, 1921. M.21/41/13/IV. Geneva, Switzerland.

229 journal criticized the League for this action because it saw the League as deferring direct responsibility on the matter by not immediately appointing individuals. Instead, “the Council asked for ‘three persons already on the spot’ to be put in place.”665 The League argued that, due to the lack of diplomatic presence and due to warlike conditions in the areas affected, appointing people already in operation in the region would be more expedient.666 In addition, one member had to be a woman.667 And international women’s organizations played an instrumental role inserting a woman into the League’s decision-making process. As Rupp argues, Western feminists “asserted a bond of vulnerability among women that made morality their special province” and that led to the idea that Western women had to protect indigenous women in colonized territories.668 According to Charlotte Weber, Western activists saw shared patriarchal oppression as a unifier of women worldwide, which transcended boundaries of East and West, and yet their belief in “the superiority of European culture proved stronger than their belief in

‘global sisterhood.’”669 While outside the scope of the present chapter, such hegemonic approaches consisting of shared patriarchal oppression only reified Western preeminence in the rescue efforts.670

665 N. A., “Current Notes,” New Armenia 13, no. 5 (1921): 76. 666 League of Nations, Appointment of the Commission of Enquiry on the Deportation of Women and Children in Turkey and Neighbouring Countries, Report Submitted by the Marquis Imperiali, Representative of Italy, and Adopted by the Council in Paris,” February 22, 1921. C21.41.11. Geneva, Switzerland. 667 A similar outcome transpired in the League’s Advisory Committee on Traffic in Women. In 1921, the League appointed Anna Wicksell Bugge based on her ability to “feel as a woman for other women as well as for children.” She made it “her special business to care for and speak for that part of the native population.” Rupp, Worlds of Women, 151. 668 Rupp, Worlds of Women, 151. 669 Charlotte Weber, “Unveiling Scheherazade: Feminist Orientalism in the International Alliance of Women, 1911– 1950,” Feminist Studies 27, no. 1 (2001): 129. 670 This homogeneous approach is problematic, as it conflates all women into a universal category based on perceived shared oppressions as defined by the West. For more on this effect, see Chandra Mohanty’s “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses,” Feminist Review 30 (1988): 61–88.

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The Commission of Inquiry soon became an Executive Commission.671 The initial appointed individuals to the commission were Emma Cushman, nominated by the presidents of

Robert College in Constantinople, the Constantinople College, and the American Mission at

Constantinople; Dr. W. A. Kennedy, nominated by the British High Commissioner at

Constantinople; and Madame Georges Gaulis, nominated by the French representative on the

League Council.672 Karen Jeppe replaced Gaulis two months after the original announcement, before Gaulis even had time to serve on the commission. The Secretary-General announced the decision based upon Jeppe’s expressed interest in and existing knowledge of the region. The person responsible for Jeppe’s appointment was the League’s Danish delegate Henriette (Henni)

Forchhammer, who had worked extensively on White slave traffic abolition.673 While not personally acquainted with Jeppe, Forchhammer had concerns about the suspected bias of

Madame Georges Gaulis toward the Turkish authorities, and that compelled her to advocate for

Jeppe’s appointment, as Jeppe had already established her reputation in humanitarian work with

Armenians.

In 1903, Jeppe began missionary work in Urfa, where she worked with Armenian refugee children. She learned Arabic, Armenian, and Turkish during her time there and adopted two

Armenian orphans. She also began an agricultural colony, something she would replicate during her tenure with the League. In 1921, immediately prior to commencing her work with the

League, Jeppe moved to Syria. Likewise, Cushman began her work in the region in Turkey. Her

671 League of Nations, Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, Report of the Fifth Committee to the Sixth Assembly, September 23, 1925. A.111.1925.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. 672 League of Nations, “Deportation of Women and Children in Turkey and Neighbouring Countries,” Note by the Secretary-General, April 1921. Z6.21.68.103.IV.11. Geneva, Switzerland. 673 Eva Lous, “Karen Jeppe: Denmark’s First Peace Philosopher,” http://www.fredsakademiet.dk/library/ukjeppe.htm. Accessed January 10, 2017. Eva Lous, who worked as a research librarian and as the head of the women’s historical collection at the Royal Danish Library, compiled information on Jeppe’s life and posted it on the website of the Danish Peace Academy.

231 missionary work brought her to Constantinople with the ABCFM, where she lived from 1900 to

1907. After being relieved from her work with the ABCFM, Cushman went to Konya, where she set up a hospital under the ARC and subsequently worked for the Near East Relief organization.674 The appointment of missionaries to these high-level administrative positions was not coincidental. As previously noted, women’s missionary accounts of the atrocities committed at the hands of the Turkish military held currency with the Euro-American public, as they were perceived as being the truthful accounts of witnesses of crimes.675 Finally, while Dr. Kennedy did not conduct missionary work, he contributed to the collation of Turkish atrocities in his capacity as Field Director of the Lord Mayor’s Relief Fund of London.676 The initial League inquiry relied, in part, on Kennedy’s accounts during his time with the Lord Mayor’s Relief Fund to compile its initial evidentiary report on the “details concerning the retention of Christian

Women and Children by Moslems.”677

The work of the Commission of Inquiry in 1921 relied upon preexisting institutions in the region, which themselves were mostly developed from the groundwork established by missionaries. A home for Armenian women and children was established in Constantinople in

1921 called the Natural Home. Due to the number of refugees in the surrounding areas of

674 Emma Cushman, originally from New York, came to Asia Minor in 1899 and worked for the ARC during the , work for which she was awarded the Queen Alexandria War Medal. According to one account of her work, “only a woman would have conquered Turk and German with hospitality, and blinded the spies of the Turkish police with cups of coffee.” N. A., The National Magazine: An Illustrated American Monthly 49 (1920–1921): 449. Cushman had already been living in Asia Minor for two decades and was the head of the Near East Relief Trachoma Hospital in Constantinople at the time of her appointment. Charles H. Levermore, “Achievements of the League of Nations in Its First Year,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 96 (1921): 16. 675 Moranian, “Bearing Witness,” 125. 676 See N. A., “Armenian Girls Tell of Massacres: Escaped Victims of Turkish and Circassian Cruelty Recount Their Experience,” New York Times, June 1, 1919. This article relies on accounts recorded by Kennedy in his capacity as field director. 677 League of Nations, “Work of the Commission of Enquiry with Regard to the Deportation of Women and Children in Turkey and Adjacent Countries,” Note by the Secretary-General, August 25, 1921. C.281.M.281.1921.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. Other contributors included the Armeno-Greek section of the British High Commission, the Armenian Patriarchate, Near East Relief, American missionaries, officers, other private persons, and reclaimed women and children.

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Turkey, a second facility in Aleppo called the Rescue Home began its operations in March

1922.678 In September 1921, the Commission reported the reclamation of over ninety thousand

Armenian orphans, but it nevertheless had a great amount of work to do, as an estimated seventy four thousand orphans were still living in Turkish institutions and homes.679 Another report furnished to the Second Assembly expressed the dire need to continue the rescue work as

“innumerable women, mostly young, rudely torn from their health and homes, compelled to perform the most degrading tasks, are shut up in harems into which it is almost impossible to penetrate.”680

One of the tasks of the Commission was compiling information on the extent of the problem, with a particular focus on the vulnerabilities of young women and children.681 Charged with reunifying displaced Armenians with family members and their communities of origin, the

Commission sought to address obstacles to reunification. Among the reasons for reunification provided by successfully reclaimed children—more specifically provided by the older girls—was that they were threatened with being sent to work in a brothel if they revealed their origins to

678 During the Fifth Assembly, members decided that the work in Constantinople and Aleppo would be divided and that both missions would continue for one more year and end in 1926. League of Nations, Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, Resolutions Proposed by the Fifth Committee and Adopted by the Assembly, September 25, 1925. A.141.1925.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. Jeppe argued that, due to the influx of , especially at the station in Arab-Pounar opened in autumn 1926, it would be unreasonable to close down the League’s work and asked for another extension through 1927. League of Nations, Report of the Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East from July 1, 1925, to June 30, 1926, August 10, 1926. A.25.1926.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. 679 League of Nations, Deportation of Women and Children in Turkey and Neighbouring Countries, September 5, 1921. A.35.1921.IV: 7. Geneva, Switzerland. In a 1923 report, Jeppe estimated that there were thirty thousand Armenian women and children in the area surrounding Aleppo. She argued that this estimate demonstrated the continued need for the services that she provided through the League. Mlle Forchhammer, Delegate of Denmark, Rapporteur. League of Nations, Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, Report Submitted to the Assembly by the Fifth Committee, September 26, 1923. A.103.1923.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. 680 League of Nations, Deportation of Women and Children in Turkey, Asia Minor, and the Neighbouring Territories, Report Presented by the Fifth Committee, September 22, 1921. A.113.1921.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. 681 The chief aims of the work in Aleppo were “to rescue the women and children and to educate the rescued and give them a proper start in a new life.” League of Nations, Report of the Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, Part I: Aleppo Branch, August 24, 1925. C.451.1925.IV. Geneva, Switzerland.

233 others.682 Even several years after Jeppe had started her rescue work in Aleppo, she claimed in

1925 that while the reclamation of orphans had been successful in the region of Deir ez-Zor,

Ras-el-Ain still had approximately two thousand young girls and boys who were sold in 1916.683

Jeppe produced a propaganda film funded by the League to demonstrate the success she had had in Deir ez-Zor in rescuing women and young girls from Bedouin enslavement. It tells the story of

Astrig and Lucia, who, after being rescued as a result of Jeppe’s work, were rehabilitated at the

Rescue Home and unified with their Armenian family members. The 1926 silent film script was in Danish, Jeppe’s native language, which suggests that there was a distribution market for donors to help sustain her work as the League’s sponsorship approached its end.684 The film opened with the pronouncement that during the Great War “a large number of Christian women and children, especially Armenians, were carried away from their homes and driven into the desert and often sold to harems.” It goes on:

Some of these women are still living in Bedouin tents in the desert. To help these unhappy women out of their prison the League of Nations has established a Rescue Home in Aleppo, Syria. Dedicated agents from the League of Nations are searching for them in the Syrian Desert in order to facilitate their escape.685

The film strategically chose Christian women’s continued victimization at the hand of Muslims to invoke sympathy for their plight.

Jeppe operated under considerably more limited support than her counterparts in

Constantinople. She stated that fewer philanthropic societies were operational in the Aleppo

682 League of Nations, “Work of the Commission of Enquiry with Regard to the Deportation of Women and Children in Turkey and Adjacent Countries,” Note by the Secretary-General, August 25, 1921. C.281.M.218.1921.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. 683 League of Nations, Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, Extracts from the Minutes of the Thirty-Fifth Session of the Council, August 24, 1925. A.32.1925.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. 684 Danske Armeiervenner (“Danish Friends of Armenians”) was founded in 1902 by Aage Meyer Benedictsen, of which Jeppe became a member. It inspired her to conduct humanitarian work on behalf of Armenians. This early relationship between Danes and Armenians makes it unsurprising that the 1926 silent film was marketed in Danish. 685 Karen Jeppe, Director unknown. 1926. Danish Film Institute. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=590&v=O2zfv5x41cQ.

234 region and the lack of a relationship with the United States created an impediment for women and children to emigrate there from Syria.686 In addition, Jeppe’s work in Syria, while endorsed by the League, was not always met with support from the French authorities.687 The League passed a resolution at the inception of Jeppe’s work requesting for France to instruct their High

Commissioner to participate with the other High Commissioners of Great Britain and Italy to work in concert and provide “all possible assistance and powers” to the Commissioner of the

League.688 Yet the French authorities continuously attempted to curtail the League’s humanitarian work in Syria, seeing it as an overstepping of their jurisdiction.689 Like France’s refusal to submit its Mandatory states to the 1921 Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children, the French authorities argued that international initiatives must respect state sovereignty and that the Mandatory powers should have ultimate authority over all work conducted in Mandatory territories.690 Dzovinar Kévonian states that it was the extensive

686 League of Nations, Work of the Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, September 11, 1923, Geneva, Switzerland; Report by Miss Jeppe on the Work of the Aleppo Branch of the Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, August 16, 1923. A.69.1923.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. In addition, Kennedy stated somewhat ambiguously that “owing to the uncertainty of the outlook and the difficulties of communication, it has been impossible to keep in close touch with the work at Aleppo.” League of Nations, Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, Report by Doctor Kennedy on the Work of the Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, Constantinople, July 21, 1923. C.528.1923.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. 687 The League proposed to have a commissioner directly oversee the work of the Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, but the French government would not confirm the nomination of Dr. William W. Peet. Instead, the three-member commission was established with Dr. Kennedy serving as its chief administrator. Dzovinar Kévonian, Réfugiés et diplomatie humanitaire: Les acteurs européens et la scène proche-orientale pendant l’entre-deux-guerres (Paris: Sorbonne, 2004), 148–149. Kévonian’s research shows that Jeppe’s efforts were not welcome in Beirut. The Interim High Commissioner Paul Verchère de Reffye questioned why France was not reporting all the work they had done for refugees in Syria to the League of Nations, work that he deemed to “outweigh the results of Miss Jeppe.”General Maurice Sarrail stated that a “so-called commission of inquiry” was “neither requested nor authorized” by French authorities in Syria (396–398). 688 League of Nations, Deportation of Women and Children in Turkey and the Neighbouring Countries, Resolutions Adopted by the Assembly at its Meeting Held on Friday, September 23, 1921,” Morning Resolution No. 8, September 23, 1921. A.127.1921.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. 689 Watenpaugh notes the infrequency of French participation in the rescue efforts except for the loan of gendarmes. Watenpaugh, Being Modern in the Middle East, 286. 690 League of Nations, Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, Extracts from the Minutes of the Thirty-Fifth Session of the Council, August 24, 1925. A.32.1925.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. The President of the Council, as a representative of France, congratulated Miss Jeppe on her efforts in Aleppo, assuring her that the French government would provide her with ongoing support for the work. Yet he also underscored that

235 influence of feminist and evangelical associations on the Secretariat of the League that prevented an abrupt ending to Jeppe’s work.691

Aware of her tenuous situation with regard to the French authorities, Jeppe made sure to thank the Syrian government for having “generously received thousands of destitute refugees in their country.” She sought to make her work self-sustainable to alleviate the financial burdens placed on the hosting government by proposing an agricultural colony where the refugees could work and become “a centre of agricultural development and international reconciliation.” 692 This endeavor initially faced resistance from the French authorities, who considered it as unauthorized mission expansion. In 1924, however, Jeppe reported establishing the colony with the French government’s endorsement, but she lacked the funds to sustain it.693 Yet the French Mandatory authorities objected to the colony on the basis that it went crossed over from being humanitarian work into the realm of commerce and administration. Therefore, France asserted that her colonization scheme was outside Jeppe’s purview of operation in the Mandatory territories.694 In an apparent rebuke of France’s protestations, the British representative to the League wrote the following in his report to the Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near

East:

We are . . . told that the Commissioner is careful never to undertake more than can be carried out [“to rescue women and children and to educate the rescued and give the Mandatory power is responsible for the work carried out in the region and all humanitarian efforts “should not exceed their mission and encroach upon the administrative or economic domain.” 691 Kévonian, Réfugiés et diplomatie humanitaire, 401. 692 League of Nations, Work of the Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, September 11, 1923, Geneva, Switzerland. Report by Miss Jeppe on the Work of the Aleppo Branch of the Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, August 16, 1923. A.69.1923.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. 693 League of Nations, Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, Report by the Chairman of the League of Nations Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East from July 1923 to July 1924, September 1, 1924. Geneva, Switzerland. Jeppe, with the assistance of a Swedish philanthropist, established an agricultural colony four hours outside Rakka that was not directly connected with the work that she was conducting on behalf of the League. She sought to replicate the model under the auspices of the League. 694 League of Nations, Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, Extracts from the Minutes of the Thirty-Fifth Session of the Council. August 24, 1925. A.32.1925.IV. Geneva, Switzerland.

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them a proper start in life”]. . . . These statements provide to my mind that the Commission in Aleppo is working on a sound basis and with a view not only to the present, but to the future of the unfortunate people with whom it is concerned. The League of Nations has not in the past contributed great financial assistance to the work of the Commission, much of the funds having been made available by donations from voluntary organisations, but there is little doubt that the fact that the Commission operated under the protection of the League of Nations has done much to assure the success of its mission.695

Finally, in collaboration with the Mandatory powers Jeppe established a second colony in Sharb

Bedros that housed forty Armenian families and thirty older boys.696 She claimed that young girls also took refuge in the agricultural colonies and hoped that these endeavors would be a legacy of the League’s work and fully operational once her mission ended.

In 1922, Jeppe faced a setback when her organization’s facility in Aleppo burned down, which forced the women and children living there to temporarily live in tents until they were located to barracks some distance away.697 Jeppe conveyed this as a positive development, since she deemed the refugees to be ill-suited for city living and believed that they would fare better in a village setting. Despite the obstacles posed by the various authorities and by the destruction of the Aleppo facility, Jeppe persevered in her work in Syria until her death in Aleppo in 1935.

The Rescue House, which was established by Jeppe under the auspices of the League, was designed to rehabilitate its inhabitants within a six-month period: women and children were matched with family members or with other viable homes. If a permanent residence was not secured at the end of the six-month period, residents were transferred to a nearby camp for sleeping accommodations, where they could work and try to “find a place among their own

695 League of Nations, Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, Report by the British Representative, January 1, 1925. C.481.1925. Geneva, Switzerland. 696 League of Nations, Report of the Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East from July 1, 1925, to June 30, 1926, August 10, 1926. A.25.1926.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. 697 The barracks were built by the Armenian Red Cross of London to house up to two hundred people.

237 people.”698 A three-month extension was granted to a person’s stay if they were learning a trade—provided that the resident paid for more than half of their living expenses. Girls were expected to leave with relatives or with respectable families. If they were employed as servants, they could continue residing in the house and paying for the cost of their stay by practicing a trade or working in the house.699 A 1924 report claimed that 34 percent of the 165 persons residing in the house became self-supporting, primarily through embroidery. The idea of providing girls with respectable professions to keep them out of prostitution is something that will be discussed in the following chapter, which discusses the rescue work done by other organizations in the Levant. In the case of Jeppe in Aleppo, the Danish Friends of Armenians largely paid for the operating costs of an industrial school attached to the Rescue Home, a fact that she highlighted to show the increasing self-sufficiency of her work in the region.700 Her report on the activities of the home included medical care. In it, she talked about the pervasiveness of “women’s diseases [that] require much care before we can make up for the neglect.”701 What constituted a woman’s disease, however, remained undefined.

Jeppe’s work in the Rescue Home meant frequent encounters with Armenian girls and women who had been sexually exploited. She attested to the fact that all but one of the females

698 League of Nations, Work of the Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, September 11, 1923, Geneva, Switzerland; Report by Miss Jeppe on the Work of the Aleppo Branch of the Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, August 16, 1923. A.69.1923.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. 699 League of Nations, Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, Report Submitted to the Assembly by the Fifth Committee, September 26, 1923. A.103.1923.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. 700 The relief work organized by Jeppe in Syria placed outreach stations in various areas in the region. Due to insufficient funding, the Ras-al-Ein and Hassidge houses closed as reported in 1925. The agent in Ras-al-Ein died suddenly of heart failure, and the League decided not to resume efforts in that region, which was deemed to be “practically ‘clean.’” In addition, one of the agents working on behalf of the League was murdered in what Jeppe claimed to be retaliation for his work of rescuing Armenians from Arabs. League of Nations, Report of the Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, Part I: Aleppo Branch, August 24, 1925. C.451.1925.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. 701 League of Nations, Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, Report Submitted to the Assembly by the Fifth Committee, September 26, 1923. A.103.1923.IV. Geneva, Switzerland.

238 she had encountered had experienced rape and concubinage.702 Many were marked with tattoos on their faces and hands from their time with Bedouins, which permanently signified their former lives as slaves. As Jeppe stated, the “moral consequences of this procedure are often very distressing, because the poor girls go around feeling that they have been branded in their faces for life, which in fact has often prevented them from getting home; they simply dare not show themselves to their countrymen. . . . Rape, violence, fraud . . . are all employed by men who manifest a particularly odious form of fanaticism and carry off women and children to captivity and degradation.”703 The tattooing of genocide survivors created an outward display of personal trauma. As one tattooed female survivor recounted, “the houses on our street were made into bordellos: the government used to come and take away the beautiful girls living in the district . . . and the girls never came back. I hate to remember this.” According to these narratives, “Turks”

(presumably Turkish soldiers) deported women like her and released them into the Syrian Desert, where they were forced into prostitution.704 To generate public appeal to their plight, Jeppe wrote an article in the German-language paper Der Orient, seeking means to eliminate the tattooing on the foreheads of the Armenian women and girls in her care.705 The Secretary-General of the

League drew attention to the ongoing exploitation of young girls and women, circulating a

702 League of Nations, Report of the Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East: Aleppo July 1, 1926, to June 30, 1927, July 28, 1927. IV.Social.1927.IV.6. Geneva, Switzerland. 703 Jeppe as quoted in Lous, “Karen Jeppe.” 704 Grandma’s Tattoos. Directed by Suzanne Khardalian. 2011. Stockholm, Sweden. http://www.armenian- genocide.org/News.236/current_category.180/press_detail.html. 705 Aschot Hayruni, “Karen Jeppe im Kampf um die Rettung der Verschleppten Armenier,” in Issues of the Armenian Language 1, no. 4 (2015): 143–144. http://www.armeniandiaspora.am/images/menus/711/10.%20ASCHOT_HAYRUNI.pdf. Jeppe wrote: “Why are Christian girls tattooed by their Mohammedan owners? In the beginning, it was sometimes done to protect the girls from the Turkish soldiers, who searched everything for Christian girls. The most common reason, however, was to prevent the girls from returning to their people, for the Arabs and Mohammedans do not believe that the Armenians are reclaiming girls who are so visibly wearing the mark of Mohammedan slavery on their foreheads. The Armenians do not pay attention, they only demand purity of character. But the girls themselves are very unhappy and try all sorts of means to remove the tattoos.”

239 confidential document that claimed that “Turks” could enter refugee camps and “select women and girls whom they desired for any purpose.”706

Karen Jeppe does not provide documentation specific to sex workers in her reporting to the League, but instead makes comments alluding to their existence in the work that she conducted on behalf of the League. In one reference, she speaks of rescuing “two beautiful

Christian ‘dancing-girls’” from a “gypsy gang” in Deir ez-Zor.707 While it cannot be definitively concluded that they were performing as sex workers, other League entities used this reference as evidence of women potentially engaging in clandestine sex work. Furthermore, in the July 1926–

1927 edition of the journal Armeniervennen, an article appeared stating that two Armenian girls were abducted by gypsies during deportations. They “brought [the gypsies] a good income, not only as dancing girls but also as prostitutes.”708 In all likelihood, these are the same girls referenced by Jeppe.709 Kévonian analyzed the women and children by age and sex who were rescued in Aleppo, stating that 13 percent of the young girls who were more than eleven years of age in 1915 were forced into marriages and became mothers of children from those unions.710 As for girls between ages 6 and 11, they were forced into marriages according to local customs.

706 League of Nations, “Deported Women and Children in Turkey and Asia Minor,” Note by the Secretary-General, May 22, 1922. C.331.1922.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. 707 League of Nations, Report of the Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East from July 1, 1925, to June 30, 1926, August 10, 1926. A.25.1926.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. Furthermore, Yervant Odian in his memoir Accursed Years uses the term “dancers” for “girls brought for our pleasure” in Konya. Odian, Accursed Years, 266. 708 As translated and quoted by Matthias Bjørnlund, “The Aleppo Protocols: Histories of the Armenian Genocide,” (2014). http://www.armenocide.net/armenocide/orphan-children.nsf!OpenDatabase. Accessed January 13, 2018. 709 Armeniervennen served as the main publication of the Danish aid organization that Jeppe worked for in Urfa and Aleppo. Jeppe contributed to this publication, including her memoir, which was translated from Danish into English in 2015 and which was entitled Misak: An Armenian Life. 710 Kévonian, Réfugiés et diplomatie humanitaire, 158. I followed up with Professor Kévonian to inquire about whether she could provide any information on sex work, but she stated that she had nothing specific in her former research about the subject. Jeppe’s final report to the League stated that “thirteen percent of the rescued had been girls or young women who, in 1915, had been over 11 years of age. With very few exceptions, they were all violated as soon as they were captured.” League of Nations, Report of the Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East: Aleppo, July 1, 1926, to June 30, 1927, July 28, 1927. 1927.IV.6. Geneva, Switzerland.

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Unfortunately, Kévonian’s analysis does not provide details over and above those provided by

Jeppe’s report to the League.711

While the intention of the Rescue Home was to serve as a transitional residence for all women and children who were refugees from the Armenian massacres, Jeppe’s attitude reflected those of Armenian elites such as Haiganush Mark, who I discussed above. In her private correspondence, Jeppe showed her prejudiced views toward children who were the product of

Muslim fathers. As she stated in a letter to the Archbishop Ardavast Surmeyan in Aleppo, “I do not approve of these half-cast children. They are no good anyhow. . . . Why should we trouble to educate these foreign children, when we have so many Armenian children in need?”712

Undoubtedly reflecting her bias against Muslims, her concerns also stemmed from practical considerations. The Rescue Home was perpetually underfunded, and in 1919 Syrian Arab authorities determined that Armenian women who wanted to leave their Muslim husbands must relinquish their children born out of their unions.713 Therefore, any Armenian woman who sought refuge in the Rescue Home in possession of a child from a Muslim father could invite unwanted attention. Yet she also condemned women who chose to return to their Muslim spouse.

In her words, “[t]he woman who places her nation below her sexual gratification is not worthy of any help. May such women be lost forever.”714

711 Jeppe documented most of the people who came through her care at the orphanage, but did not usually provide specific personal information about them. In one entry, she tells of a 28-year-old woman who fled her Turkish husband but was “carried off to the Moslems in an insidious way through a Syrian policeman.” Register no. 581, Margrit Orguijan. Discharge notes on other individuals who were not successfully placed included “bad character,” “did not submit . . . to the rules of the orphanage,” “no good character,” and “did not behave well.” Two girls were recorded as having been sent to an Armenian asylum on the same day because they were “not fit for life in our house.” For an electronic database of Jeppe’s registry, see Dicle Akar Bilgin, Matthias Bjørnlund, and Taner Akçam, “The League of Nations in Aleppo: Armenian Women and Children Survivors 1921–1927.” http://www.armenocide.net/armenocide/orphan-children.nsf!OpenDatabase. Accessed January 19, 2018. 712 Jeppe as quoted by Tachjian, “Gender, Nationalism, Exclusion,” 75. 713 Tachjian, “Mixed Marriage, Prostitution, Survival,” 98. 714 Jeppe as quoted by Tachjian, “Mixed Marriage, Prostitution, Survival,” 100.

241

Other relief organizations operating in the Levant saw themselves as protectors of the

Christian minorities and invested their efforts in saving Armenian women and children from their Muslim captors in tandem with the work of the League. Many were prompted to such a call after the 1915 Genocide, including the Lord Mayor’s Fund operating out of Aleppo, Damascus, and Constantinople.715 Tusan states that these organizations regularly publicized their work through bulletins and engaged in fundraising activities for Western donors.716 Their efforts funded not only direct relief but political advocacy and education programs to continuously remind the Western public of the ongoing needs of the Armenian cause. Armenian women and children’s degradation at the hands of “immoral Turks” held a great deal of cachet with the West, generating ongoing support for relief efforts. As Watenpaugh states, “[t]he virtuous Armenian woman, victimized by the rapacious, terrible Turk and requiring rescue by the West, was a leitmotif in the forms of publicity and fundraising campaigns initiated by missionary and non- governmental relief organizations.”717

Many advocates for the Armenian cause had concerns about public fatigue and waning interest in the Armenian cause. The Vice-President of the Armenian Red Cross and Refugee

Fund appealed to common virtues with Europe in illustrating the ongoing need to assist in the efforts to create a homeland for Armenians. Decrying the West’s ignorance of the population, he

715 The Lord Mayor’s Fund helped support the operating costs of the Syrian Rescue Home in addition to three other British societies: The Armenian Ladies Guild, Friends of Armenia, and Bible Lands Society. Germany’s Dr. Lepsius Mission also contributed but the Lord Mayor’s Fund was the largest donor. From July 1, 1926, to May 31, 1927, it paid £4,000 of the Rescue House’s £6,370 operating budget. League of Nations, Report of the Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, July 28, 1927. 1927.IV.6. Geneva, Switzerland. The League furnished funds to initiate Jeppe’s work, including an allocation of £1,500 dedicated specifically to her work in Aleppo, but this diminished from £900 allocated for 1925–1926 to nothing for 1926–1927. Charitable organizations progressively filled her budgetary needs in Aleppo. League of Nations, Third Assembly of the League of Nations: Deportation of Women and Children, Resolution No. 27, September 28, 1922. A.142.1922.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. Kévonian claims that the reduction in governmental funding was due to the deliberate efforts of the French authorities to end the League’s work in Syria. Kévonian, Réfugiés et diplomatie humanitaire, 400–401. 716 Tusan, Smyrna’s Ashes, 120. 717 Watenpaugh, Bread from Stones, 154.

242 argued that their early adoption of Christianity, their alliance in the Crusades against Muslims, and their “kindred race and stock” warranted attention. He often used the following question to invoke empathy with the Armenians’ plight: “Who can think of the dragging of unfortunate

Christian maidens from their simple homes in towns and country villages to a life of enforced prostitution in the homes of these brutal Turks?”718 The Secretary of the ARC and Refugee Fund of Great Britain, Emily Robinson, wrote to the League in 1924 to remind its members that

Armenian women were still being held as prisoners of war years after the in

1918 between the Allies and the Ottoman Empire. In her words, “only men were released and the terms of the Armistice as regards to women have not been carried out. Some of us who have this matter much at heart earnestly trust that the League [will intervene]. The present state of things is hazardous in the extreme to the cause of peace in the East besides being a scandal and a disgrace to the civilization of the 20th century.”719

It is important to note that the other international bodies in the Levant operated outside the purview of the League and conducted rehabilitation work for “fallen” Armenian refugees in the

Levant. The Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU), which was founded in Cairo in April

1906, sought national rehabilitation and the education of the Armenian people. It founded orphanages and primary schools, and it provided material support to rural communities.

Immediately after World War I, the AGBU established an orphanage, a hospital, and a refugee

718 A Vice President of the Armenian Red Cross and Refugee Fund, “Letters to the Editor: The Crescent and the Cross,” Irish Times, August 30, 1923: 4. Laila Fawaz argues that “what one might call primordial identity can be reinforced by the traumas of war.” The forced dislocation of refugees may result in their strong adherence to their religious identity as a survival mechanism. The centrality of Christian identity was magnified by the “support from coreligionists in the areas they fled to, which reinforced mobile identities” via the support that Armenians received from local and international Christian groups. Leila Tarazi Fawaz, A Land of Aching Hearts: The Middle East in the Great War (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2014), 236–237. 719 Emily Robinson as quoted by Watenpaugh, Bread from Stones, 134.

243 home in Damascus and another refugee home in Aleppo.720 Several years later, it founded a workhouse for “adult female orphans” in Beirut and a trade school, orphanage, home for women, refugee home, soup kitchen, and camp for “mature orphans” in Aleppo.721 In February 1920, it assumed control of a women’s shelter that was established in Aleppo a year prior by local

Armenian women and refugees.722 Similarly, it took over management of the Armenian

Women’s Shelter in Damascus two months after its foundation in January 1919. Women and young girls who entered the shelters were “being saved from a life of prostitution” after they had fled from their Muslim captors and from other kinds of distress.723 The paternalistic approach of the shelters determined that the residents did not have autonomy when it came to determining their future. Those responsible for the shelters determined their future occupations and residence, even going so far as to select their spouses.724 Yet Tachjian contends that those managing the shelters regarded resources spent on “degraded” and “dishonorable” women as wasted and that

“they were convinced that these women would never succeed in passing the ‘cleansing’ state and

[that] their identity was lost forever.”725

The perceived desecration of Armenian national morals was apparent in Tachjian’s accounts. A particularly illustrative description was of a sex worker originally from Zeytun, who had relocated to Aleppo in the wake of the Armenian Genocide. During the young woman’s deportation from Zeytun with her mother, after the losing most of the men from their village, a captain took the two of them to Aleppo. During the war, the captain left them to join the efforts

720 AGBU, Armenian General Benevolent Union: Historic Outline 1906–1946 (New York: Gotchnag Press, 1948), 5–7. 721 Ibid., 8. 722 Tachjian, “Gender, Nationalism, Exclusion,” 69–71. 723 Ibid., 69–72. 724 Ibid., 69–73. Jeppe saw her colonization plan as a way to marry off Armenian girls into respectable households. League of Nations, Report of the Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, Part I: Aleppo Branch, August 24, 1925. C.451.1925.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. 725 Tachjian, “Gender, Nationalism, Exclusion,” 69–74.

244 at the front and a major assumed ownership of the house where the woman and her mother resided. This is when the young woman began engaging in sex work either of her own volition or by force—it is unclear. What is known is when she began serving the major and other military officers. As her reputation grew, she became “one of the most expensive whores in Aleppo, sought after by the rich and by high-ranking military men.”726 At some point, she ended up in the women’s shelter run by the ARC while her mother returned to their village. The Armenian diocese planned to repatriate the young woman but had to do so under the security of a guard as her life was being threatened “because of the ‘low life’ she had lived during the war years,” and great efforts were being made to “trace and punish her.”727

In 1926, toward the end of Jeppe’s tenure with the League in Syria, the trafficking of

Armenian women reportedly persisted. Bishops of the Episcopal Church protested the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne with Turkey on the basis that the latter was a “government . . . which has converted over 3,000 churches into stables, barracks and houses of prostitution, and which is now holding in revolting slavery over 100,000 Christian women and girls in Turkish harems.”728

Lord Frederick Lugard, who served as the British member of the Permanent Mandate

Commission (PMC) from 1922 to 1936, during which time he represented Britain at the

League’s Slavery Commission, urged for a new slavery convention to be drafted. He claimed that slavery persisted in the former territories of the Ottoman Empire.729 On September 25, 1926, the League’s Slavery Convention came into being. France did not ratify the convention until

March 28, 1931, and Lebanon and Syria were added several months later on July 25, 1931.

726 Tachjian, “Mixed Marriage, Prostitution, Survival,” 92. 727 Ibid., 93–94. 728 N. A., “Manning Condemns Treaty with Turks: Bishop, Replying to Borah, Sees Brutality Condoned and Honor Surrendered,” New York Times, April 19, 1926: 10. 729 N. A., “America’s Aid Asked to Stop Slave Trading: Many Complaints Received Relative to Enslaving of Armenian Women,” Christian Science Monitor, February 12, 1926: 1, 4.

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Conclusion

The League officially ended its ties to the Rescue Home in 1927, at which time Jeppe claimed to have served eleven hundred individuals there, with an untold number having been sex workers.

Even with the termination of the Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the

Near East, the rescue and rehabilitation work for sex workers was continued by humanitarian organizations operational in the region.730 Finally, in 1930 France finally signed its Mandates over Syria, Alexandretta, Lebanon, Djebel Druse, and La Hakakia on to the 1921 International

Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children. This provided official international intergovernmental recognition of the ongoing efforts required to protect vulnerable populations in the region in explicitly gendered terms. In fact, the entire inquiry into the plight of

Armenian women and children arose in connection with discussions on the trafficking of women and children during the First Assembly in 1920.731 There is no documentary evidence to suggest that the two entities charged with overseeing the trafficking of women and children—that is, the

League’s Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East and the

Advisory Committee on Traffic in Women and Children—collaborated in their efforts.732 Yet the

730 In the 1932 report of the French government on their colonies and Mandated territories, officials made an exceptional (and false) statement characterizing Armenia as it related to the trafficking of women and children. “It should be noted that, among the prostitutes, there is not a single woman of Armenian origin. The Armenian family forms a very solid unit, the members of which support one another. It is a striking fact that, after the exodus of the populations from Asia Minor, not a single woman became a prostitute in order to obtain a livelihood and in spite of the terrible poverty which they were suffering.” League of Nations, Traffic in Women and Children Committee, Summary of Annual Reports for 1932–33, Prepared by the Secretariat, January 15, 1934. C.2.M.2.1934.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. 731 Mlle Forchhammer, Delegate of Denmark, Rapporteur. League of Nations, Protection of Women and Children in the Near East, Report Submitted to the Assembly by the Fifth Committee, September 26, 1923. A.103.1923.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. It was the Romanian delegate who asked the Council to commence a commission of inquiry to report on the situation of Armenian women and children specifically. 732 A letter dated October 27, 1922, from the Commissioner of the League of Nations for Refugees Fridtjof Nansen to the Secretary of the Advisory Committee on Traffic in Women and Children Rachel Crowdy hints at scant coordination between the two committees working to protect women and children. Crowdy communicated with Nansen rather than with Kennedy about the latter’s decision-making on the work of the Deported Women and Children Commission of Inquiry in Constantinople. Letter from Fridtjof Nansen to Rachel Crowdy, Constantinople, October 27, 1922. Geneva, Switzerland.

246 former, which was operational from 1921 to 1927, led interventions in the region without the obligation of having France officially adhere to the protocols of the 1921 Convention.733

This chapter has illustrated how the Armenian Genocides (by this pluralization I mean to include the Hamidian Massacres of 1894–1896 in addition to the genocide of 1915–1916) produced the new faces of “White slave traffic” that garnered significant international attention, particularly among British and American Protestant groups which saw this as a plight of Christians against

Muslims. While Turkish authorities orchestrated the systematic campaign against the minority

Armenian population in religious terms, I examined how this atrocity was harnessed in international arenas, particularly by English-language publications, as demanding rescue efforts on behalf of fellow Christians. The fact that women and children were particularly vulnerable to exploitation provided further motivation to the international community to offer protection.

These precursors laid the foundations for relief efforts conducted through the League, and of particular importance were the rescue houses generated, in part, to reform and rehabilitate

“fallen” Armenian women in Syria. This inception of humanitarian intervention in the Levant provided the entryway for other rescue organizations to “save” women and children from perceived (and real) sexual slavery. The following chapter addresses the continued efforts of the

League, feminists, and moralists to intervene in the French regulatory structure operating under

733 The Assembly of the League of Nations adopted a resolution on September 28, 1922, which instructed the Mandate authorities to assist in the efforts to reclaim women and children. It went further to ask for the High Commissioners to “instruct their officials in these territories to give strong support and assistance to the members of the Commission.” League of Nations, “Deported Women and Children,” Memorandum by the Secretary-General, October 2, 1922. C.687.1922.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. Jeppe dedicated her life’s work to rescuing Armenian orphans, and produced multiple texts in relation to her efforts with a consistent theme of rescuing Christians from Muslims. These include Rettung aus muhammedanischer Sklaverei: Wer hilft dazu? (1924), Aus dem Flüchtlingsheim in Aleppo: Bericht über die Befreiungsarbeit aus mohammedanischer Gefangenschaft (1926), Neu- Armenien im Abrahamsland (1930), and Den armeniska kolonisationen i Eufrat-trakten (1930).

247 the Mandate after the Armenian refugee crisis ceased to be the centerpiece of humanitarian interventions in the Levant.

248

Chapter Five The Rescue Industry in the Levant: Whose “Needs” Were Being Served?

“The question of the regulation of prostitution in licensed houses had ceased to be merely a question of public health and public order. It was a question that touched the whole position and dignity of women. It was said that the suppression of licensed houses would only lead to the development of the system of private and clandestine prostitution. Even if that were true, the abolition of the system of regulation would, from the moral point of view, represent an advance, as the State would not then seem to be tolerating and sanctioning something which was regarded by all women as abominable.”

— Avril de Sainte-Croix, March 14, 1928734

As I explained in Chapter Four, the Armenian Genocide and the influx of women and children into Lebanon and Syria transformed the region into a site of humanitarian intervention. And the situation did not change after the conclusion of the League’s Commission for the Protection of

Women and Children in the Near East in 1927, which had labored to stop the trafficking of

Armenian women and children. Interventions aimed at rescuing women and children from perceived lives of debauchery continued to occur. While France maintained its stance on regulating prostitution in the interest of public health, abolitionists harnessed increasing international condemnation of state-sanctioned sex work to mount propaganda campaigns against the colonial power.735

734 Avril de Sainte-Croix, speaking at the sixth meeting of the Advisory Commission for the Protection and Welfare of Children and Young People held on Wednesday, March 14, 1928. League of Nations Advisory Commission for the Protection and Welfare of Children and Young People, Traffic in Women and Children Committee, Minutes of the Seventh Session. June 1, 1928. C.184.M.59.1928.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: N.P. 735 Returning to Bacchi’s question “what’s the problem represented to be?” sex work is framed as representing a public health problem to regulationists and as representing a humanitarian problem to abolitionists. Carol Bacchi, Analysing Policy: What’s the Problem Represented to Be? (Frenchs Forest, : Pearson, 2009), ix–xi. The avenue of influencing France’s domestic and colonial policy presented itself through the League of Nations, which framed the humanitarian problem in terms of trafficking. This provided the opening that various groups and individuals needed to challenge France’s claim to national sovereignty in the Levant by expressing the issue of women and children’s health and safety in internationalist terms. Therefore, this chapter looks at the abolitionist interpretation of sex work, the movement’s discourse around choices and judgments, and what interventions it proscribed based on its representation of sex work as inherently exploitative. See Carol Bacchi, Women, Policy, and Politics: The Construction of Policy Problems (London: Sage, 1999), 1–3.

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This chapter seeks to illustrate how these campaigns, which operated on the local, regional, and international levels, were sustained, what effects they had on shaping French colonial policy on sex work—specifically with regard to the reformation of said policy in Beirut—and how they managed to rescue “victims” from the Levant. Though ultimately not successful in eliminating tolerated prostitution in the region, these campaigns managed to effect policy in the form of increased international cooperation once France finally agreed to have its Mandates in Lebanon and Syria adhere to the International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children on June 2, 1930—nine years after it was passed. Framing the overall situation in the Levant as a humanitarian trafficking crisis, whereby women and children were constructed as victims of patriarchal and colonial policies, feminists, moralists, and the League rallied in defense of the defenseless, employing paternalistic rhetoric to intervene in the lives of those deemed vulnerable to exploitation.

Migration and the “Desperate Victim”

Considering the influx of Armenian refugees into neighboring regions, it is perhaps surprising that World War I led to a temporary cessation in joint international efforts to combat human trafficking. Specifically between 1914 and 1918, cooperation among abolitionist groups came to a halt due to a perceived decrease in the smuggling of women and children, a decrease that they believed was connected to travel and transportation disruptions that were a side effect of the war.736 The famed Oxford classicist and vocal war victims advocate Gilbert A. Murray said as much in the League’s September 24, 1921, Traffic in Women and Children report. He claimed that the war decreased international mobility due to travel restrictions and therefore trafficking

736 Karen Offen, “Madame Ghénia Avril de Sainte-Croix, the Josephine Butler of France,” Women’s History Review 17, no. 2 (2008): 245.

250 had ceased.737 This proclamation apparently did not consider the Armenian refugees who were expelled from their homeland. Nor did it account for mass migrations caused by economic hardship or, as Leila Fawaz argues, the many Syrians who fled military conscription.738 Many of these refugees, among which were both men and women, became entrepreneurs and professionals in places such as Egypt and the United States. Paul Huvelin, a French law professor from the University of Lyon, came to the region in the spring of 1919 to survey the economic viability of Greater Syria (as the region was referred to prior to the division into individual states). While noting that some of the emigration from the area was due to the political situation—mainly to escape oppression or conscription by the Turks—he remarked that it was not the peasants but the skilled class who were leaving: “Back home, the 500,000 Syrians who, it is said, have spread abroad throughout the world will not put their hand to the plow. Do not count on the return of emigrants to increase agricultural labor, and barely count on a slowdown in emigration.”739

Women constituted a significant part of these migrations from Greater Syria. Akram

Khater, in his book Inventing Home, discusses how women were widowed and children were orphaned during the war and how they often faced starvation. Therefore, out of sheer survival they went to the United States to become merchants. Yet even in their newfound homes abroad, these women had their morality constantly come into question. As one woman stated, “you ascribe licentiousness, depravity and immorality to the [female] qashé sellers, but you are wrong

737 Gilbert A. Murray, Traffic in Women and Children Report Presented to the Fifth Committee, September 24, 1921. A.132.1921.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: N. P. In another, contradictory, account, the “white slave traffic is said to have revived during and after the war, because the conventions of 1904 and 1910 had fallen into abeyance.” Charles H. Levermore, “Achievements of the League of Nations in Its First Year,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 96 (1921): 16. For more on Gilbert Murray, see Hugh Lloyd-Jones, “Gilbert Murray,” The American Scholar 51, no. 1 (1982): 55–72. 738 Leila Tarazi Fawaz, A Land of Aching Hearts: The Middle East in the Great War (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2014), 85–87. 739 Paul Huvelin, “Que vaut la Syrie?” (Paris: L’Asie française, 1921), 24.

251 because an immoral woman is not constrained from committing ugliness simply because she is living in palaces, or because she is imprisoned there.”740 The decreased migration claims put forward by Murray additionally did not factor in the international flows that came about due to sex work, as colonial administrators sought out women to work in sexual service for their troops.

Dr. Léon Bizard, who I discussed in Chapter Two, provided accounts of sex workers catering to soldiers during this time in the state-controlled brothels in remote locations known as bordels militaires de campagne (BMC) that had been in use in Algeria since the nineteenth century.741

The French military employed the same tactics in the Levant for their troops stationed in the region, and vigorously enforced a separate system of maisons de tolérance specific to military use, which necessitated the employment of both foreign and indigenous women as I went into some detail about in Chapter Three.742 According to Michelle Rhoades, wartime provided economic opportunities for sex workers who would migrate to military fronts in search of work that would pay a substantial wage, more than what women could make through other means of employment.743

740 Akram Khater, Inventing Home: Emigration, Gender, and the Middle Class in Lebanon, 1870–1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 99–100. 741 See Dr. Léon Bizard, Les Maisons de prostitution de Paris pendant la Guerre (Paris: Poitiers, 1922) and Dr. Léon Bizard, Souvenirs d’un médecin de la préfecture de police et des prisons de Paris (Paris: Grasset, 1925). Lieutenant-Colonel Christian Benoit, in an interview in 1995 at the commemoration of the closing of the last French military brothel closing, stated that the BMC introduced in France functioned to provide prostitutes to indigenous troops arriving from the colonies during the war and to prevent the spread of venereal disease. Stephanie Trouillard, “Prostituées et soldats: le couple indissociable de la Grande Guerre,” France24, December 30, 2014. https://www.france24.com/fr/20141213-sexe-prostitution-xxx-grande-guerre-bordel-militaire-poilus-soldat-putain- bmc-proxenete-syphilis. Benoit subsequently published a book on the topic in 2013, La soldat et la putain: histoire d’un couple inséparable (Villers-sur-Mer: P. de Taillac, 2013). 742 Louis Mourier, le sous-secrétaire d’État du Service de santé militaire à Monsieur le directeur du Service de santé des troupes françaises du Levant. Paris, May 13, 1919, GR9NN7/1078, Levant et Proche-Orient, Ministère de la Guerre, Direction du service de santé (DSS), Archives of Service historique de la Défense (ASHD); and M. Pouy, “Note pour l’état-major de l’armée-section d’Afrique.” May 13, 1919. Levant. GRN 9NN/1078. DSS. ASHD. Vincennes, France. 743 Michelle Rhoades, “No Safe Women: Prostitution, Masculinity, and Disease in France during the Great War” (Diss., University of Iowa, 2001), 81, 95.

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While most external migration peaked before and after the war, the flow of people did not come to a standstill, especially, as we have seen, with regard to internal migration. Financial devastation and the drive for survival in the face of starvation during the war drove rural populations into the cities in search of opportunities.744 Sometimes, these opportunities amounted to theft, prostitution, and street begging. In Jerusalem, a Turkish soldier claimed that respectable women and girls, regardless of their religion, solicited sex in support of their families.745 In

Beirut, sex work became more commonplace. The Iraqi sociologist Ali al-Wardi stated in 1931 that there was a cascade effect of selling during the war in Beirut: first one’s jewelry, then one’s clothes, and then, in acts of desperation, one’s body.746 Fawaz observes that the literature produced about this era also reflected this reality, for therein you can find narratives of mothers either selling themselves or pressuring their daughters into prostitution as a survival mechanism.747 These portrayals of financial devastation and desperation characterized the victimization associated with sex work.748

The section on Iraq in the League’s 1925 Annual Report on the Traffic in Women and

Children placed those who engaged in sex work into two categories, stipulating that they “have

744 Alain Corbin claims that part-time sex work increased in France as widows and wives were left to support themselves while husbands fought in the war, and that the military attempted to remove non-native sex workers from the frontlines, suggesting that it happened frequently enough to draw the attention of the authorities. Alain Corbin, Women for Hire: Prostitution and Sexuality in France after 1850 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), 334–336. In other contexts, the Great Migration in the United States commenced during World War I as African Americans moved from the southern countryside to the urbanized centers of the north. In Russia, hundreds of thousands of largely ethnic minorities fled into the interior of the country to avoid the invading German army. The claim, then, that migration ceased during the war is, at the very least, suspect on its face. 745 Fawaz, A Land of Aching Hearts, 117–118. 746 Cited in Fawaz, A Land of Aching Hearts, 118. 747 Fawaz, A Land of Aching Hearts, 118. 748 As Sherene Razack articulates, class, race, and gender are all critical components to understanding sex work. While her framework does not interrogate the impacts of war on women’s choices, it does call attention to the fact that poor and racialized women have fewer economic opportunities and that, within the context of political and military occupation, socially disadvantaged women are at “the lowest rungs of the prostitution hierarchy.” Razack’s contention comes in the context of her focus on the economic precarity of indigenous sex workers in Canada. Sherene Razack, “Race, Space, and Prostitution: The Making of the Bourgeois Subject,” Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 10, no. 2 (1998): 338–376.

253 adopted the profession of prostitution either by choice or as a result of the War.” As Edward

Bristow has pointed out, financial destitution did not constitute the main reason for many workers who entered the trade. The fluidity of the practice, whereby women would move in and out without it being their primary occupation, allowed them to navigate financial responsibility in an adaptable manner by working as a prostitute when financial needs necessitated the income.749 As I stated above in Chapter Three on the issue of regulationism, the increasingly restrictive controls over sex work and the increase in the use of public interrogation served the function of making socioeconomic boundaries more rigid, either driving sex work underground

(henceforth, “clandestine”) or forcing people to publicly register as such. This is not to insinuate that there were no individuals who entered this line of work due to economic hardship, as seen in the prior chapter on Armenian refugees, but reformers such as missionaries and feminists harnessed the “desperate victim” characterization to enact their humanitarian agenda, which was to prevent, to rescue, and to rehabilitate. Therefore, abolitionist arguments hinged on sexual exploitation—that is, the notion that sex work is never consensual or voluntary, inasmuch as the social structures that surround the industry are inherently patriarchal and therefore exercising male privilege. Yet, by engaging in a rescue industry that was constructed based on bourgeois ideas of respectability, those who sought to unsettle French policy employed paternalistic

749 Edward W. Bristow, Prostitution and Prejudice: The Jewish Fight against White Slavery, 1870–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 64. The League acknowledged that there was variability in the practice and that the identity of those engaging in sex work was far from fixed. A League report identified four kinds of sex workers: prostitutes, “semi-professionals” and “complacent girls,” artists and entertainers, and “inexperienced girls.” League of Nations, Report of the Special Body of Experts on Traffic of Women and Children, Part One. February 17, 1927. C.52.M.52.1927.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 18–22. For the permeability of the profession, see Judith R. Walkowitz, “The Making of an Outcast Group: Prostitutes and Working Women in Nineteenth-Century Plymouth and Southampton,” in A Widening Sphere: Changing Roles of Victorian Women, ed. Martha Vicinus (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977), 72–93.

254 rhetoric and undertook paternalistic actions that systematically produced a victimized class in need of protection.750

Speaking Back to the Metropole: Abolitionism, France, and the Production of Sex Work Literature

In order to understand the developments in the movement against regulated prostitution after

World War I, we need to go back to the prior century in France when the movement was in its nascent state. The abolitionist movement in France gained momentum in the late 1800s, and an explosion of literature on sex work emerged on the market. Louis Fiaux (1847–1936), a doctor and former municipal council member in Paris (1882–1884) who served as France’s delegate to the 1910 International Medical Conference held in Brussels, became one of the staunchest critics of the police des mœurs and wrote prolifically on this issue.751 He produced such works as Les

Maisons de tolérance: leur fermeture (1892), Sur la prétendue stérilité involontaire des femmes ayant exercé la prostitution (1892), La Prostitution réglementée et les pouvoirs publics dans les principaux états des deux mondes (1902), Un Nouveau régime des mœurs: abolition de la police des mœurs (1908), Enseignement populaire de la moralité sexuelle (1908), and L’Armée et la police des mœurs: biologie sexuelle du soldat (1916). Fiaux became a strong advocate for the abandonment of the regulatory system, conducting studies attesting to its failure to contain outbreaks of venereal disease and its fostering of abuses orchestrated by the police des mœurs.

The alternatives that he endorsed included legal protections for minors in the industry, the

750 As Louise Settle frames the problem in her book on sex work in Scotland, the dichotomy of victimhood versus agency largely frames the contemporary feminist debates. Louise Settle, Sex for Sale in Scotland: Prostitution in Edinburgh and Glasgow, 1900–1939 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016), 9. While acknowledging the economic hardships that might drive women to engage in the trade, employing the unchallenged rhetoric of “victim” to all cases deprives sex workers of historical agency. Michael Wilson and Erin O’Brien show how the “simplistic and ideal construction” of trafficking positions “victims as prototypically weak and helpless.” Michael Wilson and Erin O’Brien, “Constructing the Ideal Victim in the United States of America’s Annual Trafficking in Persons Reports,” Crime, Law and Social Change 65, no. 1–2 (2016): 43. 751 Fiaux worked alongside Josephine Butler on abolitionist campaigns.

255 suppression of pandering, and the provision of medical treatment for those infected with a venereal disease.752 His contemporary, Ghénia Avril de Sainte-Croix (1855–1939), while not as prolific an author as Fiaux, was just as involved as her colleague in the issue of sex work, having emerged as a leading figure in the abolitionist movement at around the same time. She worked on strengthening the institutional bridge between France’s domestic efforts and those of the international community, as she occupied a seat on the League’s Trafficking in Women and

Children Committee after World War I. Sainte-Croix chaired the White Slave Traffic Committee of the International Council on Women (ICW) and championed the change in terminology from

“White slave trade” to “traffic in women” in 1909.753 She continued on with the ICW as its vice- president for several decades. Her efforts did not go unrecognized. Sainte-Croix was from 1922 to 1936 the League’s official representative for international women’s groups advocating against the trafficking of women and children, and she played an instrumental role in shifting the

League’s focus in this regard to the East.

Yet even with this wave of outspoken criticism and mounting pressure coming from within the country prior to the establishment of the Mandates in Lebanon and Syria, France defended its current domestic policy on sex work and took it abroad to its new colonial possessions. France did so on the basis that the regulation of sex work was a municipal decision and therefore, technically speaking, not under state jurisdiction.754 Similarly, when questioned about France’s policy in the Levant, government representatives said that it was under local, not colonial,

752 See Louis Fiaux, La Police des mœurs devant la commission extraparlementaire du régime des mœurs. Vol. III (Paris: F. Alcan, 1910). 753 Offen, “Madame Ghénia Avril de Sainte-Croix,” 240. 754 The French delegate to the League’s Trafficking in Women and Children Committee stated in 1929 that “there is no French law to regulate prostitution. The system of regulation in France is merely a municipal police measure enforced by the mayors. . . . In these circumstances, the way to secure the triumph of abolitionist views is to work upon public opinion. The municipalities will not fail to take public opinion into account in such a matter as this.” Quoted by Alison Neilans, Report on Activities in Syria, 1931 (London: Association for Moral and Social Hygiene, 1931), 26.

256 jurisdiction (a point that I discussed in the previous chapter with regard to administrative structures). The colonial power’s refusal to act against regulated sex work led to mounting criticism of its practices. While French abolitionists continued to focus on the metropole, some of their attention started to shift to the colonies, as such a move validated their message of exploitation and allowed them to extend their fight against victimization, enabling them to put even more pressure on French officials to change their country’s policies at home.755 In effect, by focusing increasing attention abroad, abolitionists used the colonies to further their critique of the metropole, a tactical maneuver that gained increasing momentum in the 1920s and 1930s. As one example, abolitionists in France leveraged the 1932 League’s Enquiry into Traffic in Women and

Children in the East to further the international scrutiny of France’s colonial and domestic policies. In 1936, Jacques Meyrier, the President of La Ligue française pour le relèvement de la moralité, used the report, which discussed the extent of prostitution in the East, to put pressure on the government to amend its tactics of regulating sex work in Syria.756 In doing so, he drew upon the importance placed in the international sphere on abolishing regulation, claiming that the

French policy in Syria was giving official license to a condemned practice and perpetuating the trafficking of women and children.

However, while using the press to voice criticism may have been a beneficial tactic for abolitionists living abroad, not all foreign attention was well received by those abolitionists working within the colonies. One abolitionist working in Beirut succinctly stated: “Most of us

755 French feminists employed tactics of focusing on colonization for self-benefit in other arenas as well. In Historicizing Colonial Nostalgia: European Women’s Narratives of Algeria and Kenya 1900–Present, Patricia Lorcin shows how colonial feminists used Algeria as a focal point to inform the larger debate about women’s suffrage in France. Patricia M. E. Lorcin, Historicizing Nostalgia: European Women’s Narratives of Algeria and Kenya 1900–Present (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 130. 756 M. Meyrie, Délègue général du haut-commissaire à mon excellence Monsieur le ministre des affaires étrangères (Levant): prostitution en Syrie. Beirut, September 19, 1936. 1SL/1/V/596. Centre des Archives diplomatiques de Nantes (CADN), Nantes, France.

257 out here do not feel that publicity originating either in Great Britain or in America will be useful, and some of us here think that it may be harmful, and that it would be much better for all publicity to originate either in France or in Syria.”757 According to another abolitionist, while foreign attention could assist in generating momentum and funding efforts to eliminate legal sex work, it should be focused on providing background support for localized efforts: “The work in

Syria must be undertaken now by the Syrian people themselves.”758 Abolitionists working within the Levant, whether colonizers, missionaries, or indigenous, demonstrated their acute awareness of the political context in which they operated. Therefore, those advocating for a change in colonial policy did so with an eye to balancing the need to harness international momentum with the need to ensure the primacy of local efforts.

Foreign abolitionists’ interventions in the colonies were framed as part of a civilizing mission. A writer for the International Suffrage News claimed that educated women in Beirut remained largely ignorant of “White slave traffic” (a term that endured even after the League’s attempt to deracialize the issue of trafficking) and the level of tolerated sex work in the city under French authorities: “A bombshell was exploded in their midst when an American

757 Letter from James H. Nicol to Miss Neilans, February 16, 1932. Association for Moral and Social Hygiene (AMSH) 3AMS/D/33-46, Box 118. The Women’s Library Archives (WLA). London, England. This letter from Nicol, as part of the Syria Mission of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, was sent to British abolitionist Alison Neilans after her trip to Syria and Lebanon. While left unstated, Nicol, himself a foreign missionary, sought to not inflame tensions with France. Apparently, he perceived himself as being part of Syria as he engaged in abolitionist efforts in Beirut. 758 Unsigned letter to Miss Sawbridge, February 18, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33-46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. This letter continues to state that advice from British abolitionists and financial contributions are still welcome and needed to fund Syrian efforts. What is interesting is that this letter is asking for the AMSH to fund the activities of “Miss Brade” in Beirut, who is a British woman who only arrived in Beirut several years prior at the invitation of a Protestant abolitionist group, the Bourj Mission. Brade’s qualifications for the position rested on her graduating from the Josephine Butler School in England. Colonial and missionary abolitionists saw foreign intervention within a very narrow framework of physical location. Research by Ellen Fleischmann, “The Impact of American Protestant Missions in Lebanon on the Construction of Female Identity, c. 1860-1950,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 13, no. 4 (2002): 411-426 and Christine Lindner, “Long, Long Will She Be Affectionately Remembered”: Gender and the Memoialization of an American Female Missionaries,” Social Science and Missions 23, no. 1 (2010): 7-31 help situate how protestant missionaries, particularly women, saw themselves within the colonial framework.

258 investigator spoke to them [about] . . . white slave traffic. To learn that there were 600 prostitutes in their town was a shock to them; and some are now looking into the questions of the working of the French and British mandates.”759 In an Aleppo conference with the American Mission in

1933 on societal ills confronting families, the synopsis read that “mothers here are even more perplexed by these problems than mothers in America. It has all come upon them so suddenly.”760 The Europeans’ paternalist language, which reveals a deeply entrenched savior complex, is also quite clear in the opening comments of the Director of the Department of Justice of Dutch Indonesia, M. Enthoven, to the 1937 League’s Conference of Central Authorities in

Eastern Countries. Enthoven, underscoring Europe’s willingness to abolish sex work, stated that the Far East “is still very little acquainted with the problems to be dealt with” and that the colonial governments took initiative to convene a meeting in the East because the “event comes rather as a surprise to the East,” a comment that soundly resonates with the above-mentioned

International Suffrage News report on Beirut.761 The perceived ignorance and inability of the colonized to take action on their own behalf continued to be underscored in Enthoven’s opening address. He stated, for example, that “in the social sphere there are problems—and even primary problems—which no longer present any difficulties in the West but which are still awaiting

759 E. F. Rieder, “Correspondence,” International Woman Suffrage News 19, no. 10 (1925): 157. Also signing as Madame André Rieder, the New York City-born suffragist Emily Faber Rieder represented the IAW at the Damascus and Baghdad Eastern Women’s Congresses, as she was the IAW’s delegate to Damascus and Iraq. See “Nécrologie: Madame André Rieder,” International Woman Suffrage News 29, no. 5 (1935): 40, and Charlotte Weber, “Between Nationalism and Feminism: The Eastern Women’s Congresses of 1930 and 1932,” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 4, no. 1 (2008): 91. Rieder moved to Syria as a single mother after the dissolution of her marriage to Frenchman André Rieder. In Beirut, she taught school and published articles for women’s magazines. She later became a vocal pacifist who traveled globally; as part of her travels, she spent time in Constantinople, lecturing on issues of international peace. Noel Gillespie and Albert Schweitzer, “With Schweitzer in Lambarene: Noel Gillespie’s Letters from Africa,” The Wisconsin Magazine of History 54, no. 3 (1971): 68. 760 Letter from Elizabeth Webb to Miss Neilans. September 16, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33-46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 761 League of Nations Trafficking in Women and Children Committee. Conference of Central Authorities in Eastern Countries, Minutes of Meeting in Bandoeng (Java), February 2–13, 1937. December 20, 1937. C.476.M.318.1937.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 6.

259 solution in the East.”762 Therefore, it was an imperative of the West to intervene in the East to remedy social ills that had persisted there into the interwar period.

Meanwhile, Sainte-Croix took up the mantle as a spokesperson for abolition and became a central figure in the reformulation of international discourse on sex work. During the seventh session of the League’s Advisory Committee on the Traffic of Women and Children, Sainte-

Croix flagrantly challenged the French delegation’s defense of regulation. Even though a split existed in 1928 between those countries that legalized sex work and those that opposed it, Sainte-

Croix drew attention to the fact that all the voluntary associations on the Committee opposed it, a claim that received support from Britain’s representative “Mr. Harris.” During this exchange,

Harris contributed several pointed statements, calling the defense of regulation “a sinking ship” and “a lost cause,” and claiming that the French delegate “had gone back to the Middle Ages in his defense of the system of regulation.”763 Yet any alliance with Britain in critiquing French policy risked further entrenching the political and military rivalry between the two European empires.764 As had already been articulated by the abolitionists operating in Syria, any traction

762 League of Nations Trafficking in Women and Children Committee, Work of the Bandoeng Conference. December 20, 1937. C.516.M.357.1937.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 5. 763 League of Nations Advisory Commission for the Protection and Welfare of Children and Young People, Traffic in Women and Children Committee, Minutes of the Seventh Session, March 12–17, 1928. June 1, 1928. C.184.M.59.1928.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 28. The tensions of empire between France and Britain that played out regarding prostitution is worthy of further study. As addressed in Chapter Three on legal structures, Britain taking the moral high ground on abolishing sex work in Palestine came as a frequent reference in their antagonization of France. In an internal memo in preparation for an international Mediterranean health conference in Marseille in 1932, French authorities anticipated that the British would compare their results to that of Syrian port cities, in order to critique France for not abolishing prostitution. Letter from Docteur Cavaillon, médecin chef du Service central de prophylaxie au Ministère du travail et de l’hygiène. N. D. Levant. GRN 9NN/1078. DSS. ASHD, Vincennes, France. 764 This concern is expressed by Lord Lugard in a personal correspondence with Alison Neilans of the AMSH. In 1935, Neilans inquired whether Lugard would compare Palestine’s venereal disease statistics with those of Syria at the League’s annual meeting, to which he replied that it would not be appreciated by “touchy politicians.” He redirected her to write to the Health Secretary of the League Secretariat instead. Letter from Lord Lugard to Miss Neilans. September 16, 1935. AMSH 3AMS/D/33-46, Box 118. WLA. London, England.

260 made in reform would be better accomplished without a transparent partnership with Britain.

More effective measures needed to remain, at least in appearance, within the French Empire.

Like others engaging in abolitionism, Sainte-Croix believed in the prevention and rehabilitation of sex workers through philanthropy. Razack’s analysis of how sex work not only constructs the sex worker but reifies the White female middle-class bourgeoise as the universal subject is helpful here. The identity of the privileged woman as the universal woman depended on her work of saving those who did not embody middle-class femininity.765 As Razack succinctly states, “prostitution secured a bourgeois and white social order, and conversely, bourgeois social order requires prostitution.”766 Furthermore, middle-class respectability hinged on the notion of bourgeois women being the “guardians of morality,” and their subversion of patriarchal norms at this time relied on their disrupting the public sphere by engaging in work.767

Sainte-Croix, herself drawing on a bourgeois French identity, made a career out of protecting and rescuing prostitutes. She founded a philanthropic initiative in her homeland of France, Œuvre libératrice, to encourage economic alternatives and job training for precarious young women.768

The underlying class assumption of Sainte-Croix and others engaging in the social reformation of prostitution is that those who turn to prostitution are doing so due to a lack of viable

765 Amalia Lucia Cabezas argues that bourgeois idealizations of sexuality, including the virtuous wife and the virginal daughter, promoted the dichotomy of respectable versus transgressive women. Amalia Lucia Cabezas, “Discourses in Prostitution: The Case of Cuba,” in Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition, ed. Kamala Kempadoo and Jo Doezema (New York: Routledge, 1998): 82. Bourgeois women, both in Europe and the Levant, deployed their religious sexual morality in many cases to legitimize their position as reformers. 766 Razack, “Race, Space, and Prostitution,” 340. 767 While Razack argues that White middle-class women used work to subvert the “morality trap,” I see that feminists like Sainte-Croix relied on their mantle of moral guardianship to legitimize their transformation into outspoken “advocates” for the disenfranchised. Razack, “Race, Space, and Prostitution,” 346. Antoinette Burton’s study of colonial feminism in India is very instructive on this point. Antoinette Burton, Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women and Imperial Culture, 1865–1915 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994). 768 Offen, “Madame Ghénia Avril de Sainte-Croix,” 240, 244. Offen states that this work did not constitute “rescuing” sex workers, as its goal was to “prevent young women from registering as prostitutes or to extract those who had recently registered, often under threat, by providing them with lodging, job training, and health care for three months.” As this practice constitutes prevention and the rehabilitation of sex workers, I would classify it as rescue work.

261 alternatives.769 Under her coordinating efforts as the spokesperson for international women’s organizations to the League’s Advisory Committee on the Traffic of Women and Children,

Sainte-Croix reported annually on the primary concerns of these organizations.770 In this capacity, she vocalized the need to address both supply and demand. On the supply side, reformation entailed paying women higher wages on the premise that low wages forced people into sex work. In addition, these organizations advocated for the engagement of women working abroad during their leisure time. Sainte-Croix openly contradicted the French delegation in their defense of regulating sex work, challenging the system as being sexist. In her opinion, “in countries in which both men and women took a share in the government, licensed houses would not be tolerated.”771 Instead, Sainte-Croix advocated for respectable occupations to be provided to women as an alternative to tolerated brothels sanctioned by male government officials.

Sainte-Croix’s work at the League helped catalyze the emergence of a new kind of literature on sex work. This literature came under the category of “best practice manuals” on the prevention of sex work and on the rehabilitation of sex workers. The production of prostitutes as victims was central to the logic of the abolitionists. Those engaging in sex work were to be saved, and those who refused to leave their occupation were to be condemned.772 Little attention

769 This is similarly stated by Razack in “Race, Space, and Prostitution,” 345. Additionally, while bourgeois feminists engaged in racialized discourses constructing a binary between the Occident and the Orient, they rarely engaged in a racialized analysis outside of its sensationalizing effect. This discourse is played upon by the League and merits further study. Two examples are Ashwini Tambe, “Climate, Race Science, and the Age of Consent in the League of Nations,” Theory, Culture, and Society 28, no. 2 (2010): 109–130 and Liat Kozma, “The League of Nations and the Debate over Cannabis Prohibition,” History Compass 9, no. 1 (2011): 61–70. 770 Sainte-Croix sent the League questionnaire to Mrs. Rashid Rishany, who volunteered for a rescue mission in Beirut, in order to solicit replies on the condition in Lebanon. Letter from Alison Neilans to Miss Lorna Brade. December 10, 1935. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 771 League of Nations Advisory Commission for the Protection and Welfare of Children and Young People, Traffic in Women and Children Committee, Minutes of the Sixth Session, April 25–30, 1927. June 24, 1927. C.338.M.113.1927.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 32. 772 Molly McGregor Watson, in her dissertation on White slave traffic and France, argues that after World War I the focus shifted from the individual being saved to reforming public opinion. Molly McGregor Watson, “The Trade in Women: ‘White Slavery’ and the French Nation, 1899–1939” (Diss., Stanford University, 1999), 114, 139. While this happened on a global level, on the local level organizations focused on both. Watson also argues that the focus

262 was given to understanding the prostitute herself, and when it was given it was done so to position her as a victim in need of rehabilitation. The entire premise of these new books hinged on the assumption that sex workers’ interests were aligned with the interests of those doing the rescuing, and they therefore sought out the “solutions” to these women’s “predicament.”773 In the

1930s, the League published a four-part study entitled Enquiry into Measures of Rehabilitation of Prostitutes. The first part was Prostitutes: Their Early Lives (1938), the second part was

Social Services and Venereal Disease (1938), and the last two parts combined were Methods of

Rehabilitation of Adult Prostitutes: Conclusions and Recommendations (1939). Another book published in the same series, Prevention of Prostitution: A Study of Measures Adopted or under

Consideration Particularly with Regard to Minors, became available in 1943. In addition, in

1938 the League published a report entitled Suppression of the Exploitation of Prostitution.

Interestingly, these publications share a few strikingly similar characteristics with those published by hygienist Alexandre-Jean-Baptiste Parent-Duchâtelet produced a century earlier, although this is not to suggest that the authors held similar objectives or achieved similar outcomes. Yet both series of texts subscribe to the notion that sex workers formed their own class, a class that was socially marginalized based on unfortunate life circumstances— circumstances that either arose as a result of their own actions or as a result of actions that were beyond their control. As Parent-Duchâtelet surmised based on his findings, family origin—

“hereditary factors,” in the later words of the League—played an instrumental role in a woman’s

shifted from changing policy on the national level to changing it on the international level, which I also see as an overly simplistic argument. The abolitionists in France and the Levant simultaneously worked on both fronts. The focus on international policy change was employed to achieve a boomerang effect, whereby if fewer governments were to tolerate legalized prostitution, then there would be mounting international pressure to change internal policies, which is a point that Watson affirms. For the Levant, the local reformers appealed to provincial, colonial, and international governmental bodies to create regional reform. The structure of the Mandate system required such an approach. 773 See Jo Doezma, “Ouch! Western Feminists’ ‘Wounded Attachment’ to the Third World Prostitute,” Feminist Review 67, no. 1 (2001): 17.

263 decline into prostitution. Likewise, both series of texts seek out “mental qualities” that set apart sex workers from the rest of society, citing for example “defective development of the intellectual functions, rudimentary development of emotional life . . . constitutional inferiority

(psychopathic) and insanity.”774 Yet contrary to Parent-Duchâtelet, the League saw these deficiencies as making these women vulnerable to exploitation, and this was a key point for advocates seeking to abolish sex work.

According to a 1943 League report from the Advisory Committee on Social Questions,

“women became prostitutes, not only through their own failings, but also through destitution and the influence of others, who found in them a profitable source of revenue.”775 Therefore, there was a simultaneous impulse to reinforce perceptions of being victims in need of help and to make patriarchal assumptions about women lacking agency. As Alain Corbin notes, the dominant discourse surrounding prostitution provides the “obligatory link between poverty and prostitution [that was] created by the philanthropists . . . [and] reinforced by socialist analysis.”776 These linkages dictated that the remedies to sex work hinged on what Magaly

Rodriguez Garcia calls “moral recruitment,” which entailed the moral imperative amongst individuals to raise the standard of living for women, including financial security in times of illness and unemployment, payment to mothers of “illegitimate children,” and homes for single mothers to alleviate the financial burden of housing.777 Yet, even with the provision of social

774 League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Prevention of Prostitution: A Study of Measures Adopted or Under Consideration Particularly with Regard to Minors. November 1, 1943. C.26.M.26.1943.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 53. 775 Ibid., 10. What the report did not acknowledge is the amount of revenue that the entire industry brought in, an industry whose revenue and social clout relied on sex workers. Sex work produced an industry that included medical experts, academics, bureaucrats, rescue workers, police officers, health inspectors, prison guards, and other professionals that benefited socially and materially. 776 Corbin, Women for Hire, 46. 777 League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Enquiry into Measures of Rehabilitation of Prostitutes (Parts III and IV): Methods of Rehabilitation of Adult Prostitutes, Conclusions and Recommendations,

264 support, the “character and temperament” of prostitutes still posed an obstacle to recovery. They were often referred to as being “lazy . . . mentally abnormal . . . [and] erratic and unstable.”778

According to the League, “most professional prostitutes are women who had a particularly strong predisposition for this life or who could not earn a living in other ways because of mental deficiency or abnormality.”779 The characterization of the “feeble-mindedness” of sex workers ran rampant in studies pathologizing sex workers. In another conclusion made by the League in

1936, of the women assessed, almost half possessed “below normal” intelligence.780 This regard for the low intelligence of sex workers appears to reify assumptions that no rational, intelligent individual would adopt the occupation. The same 1936 report continued to argue the case for

“the need for a system of care of the feeble-minded and insane, which should result in reducing the number of such cases among prostitutes.”781 One can conclude from the League’s assessment that the idea of victimhood was first and foremost on its mind: “feeble-minded” prostitutes were being preyed upon, and the only way to remedy the situation was through cooperation between governments and social actors vying for legal and social reforms.

The international concern for victims of trafficking for purposes of sex work created an industry to protect and, if need be, “rehabilitate” sex workers. The 1904 International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, Article I, forged the path for this initiative. This

July 1, 1939, Geneva, Switzerland: 7. Magaly Rodriguez Garcia, “The League of Nations and the Moral Recruitment of Women,” International Review of Social History 57, no. S20 (2012): 100. 778 League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Enquiry into Measures of Rehabilitation of Prostitutes (Parts III and IV): Methods of Rehabilitation of Adult Prostitutes, Conclusions and Recommendations, July 1, 1939, Geneva, Switzerland: 8. 779 Ibid., 9. 780 League of Nations Advisory Commission for the Protection and Welfare of Children and Young People, Report on the Work of the Commission in 1936. May 5, 1936. C.204.M.127.1936.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 5. According to Dr. Kemp within the report, “a large number of the women . . . examined were found to be mentally abnormal. The intelligence of about half of them was below normal. Many were greatly retarded—that is to say, dullards—but a comparatively small number, actually not more than seven or eight per cent, were downright feeble-minded.” 781 Ibid., 6.

265 agreement, to which France is a signatory, “provided for the establishment in each country of some authority charged with the coordination of all information relative to the procuring of women or girls for immoral purposes abroad.”782 In the 1924 French Foreign Affairs Ministry’s annual report to the League on the status of Syria and Lebanon, colonial authorities highlighted two committees responsible for the protection of women and young girls (while simultaneously claiming that traffic was nonexistent in the region): an unnamed one only referred to as “a

Lebanese committee for the women of the country who come to Beirut” and a local section of l’Œuvre catholique de la protection de la jeune fille founded in 1924.783 The Catholic establishment’s connections to the French government and the League provided avenues in the region for its members to work on the salvation of vulnerable girls as the guardians or protectors of the vulnerable. The Association catholique internationale des œuvres de protection de la jeune fille used anecdotal stories to validate their claim as being indispensable to preventing the exploitation of young girls. According to their 1926 Annual Report to the League of Nations

Advisory Committee on the Traffic of Women and Children, “five girls who reached Marseilles

[were] accompanied by a young nun; they had come from St. Vincent in Beirut to join their father in Santos, Brazil. During the journey, these girls were the object of the attentions of two suspicious individuals.” Due to the nun’s interventions, the girls escaped harm’s way (although the type of harm is only alluded to): “Thanks to this active protection, they reached their father safely. This isolated fact made it possible to realise the safeguards offered to girls in a large

782 League of Nations, Report of the Special Body of Experts on Traffic in Women and Children: Part One. February 17, 1927. C.52.M.52.1927.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 26. Abolitionist Alison Neilans claimed that during her visit to the French community in Antioch on November 21, 1931, participants were reluctant to engage with her in discussion as many were connected to the colonial administration. Alison Neilans, “Summary of My Activities in Syria, October 26 – December 8, 1931.” AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 783 Rapport sur la situation de la Syrie et du Liban, année 1924. January 14, 1926. C.452(m).M.166(m).1925.VI. Geneva, Switzerland: 31.

266 number of cases by the houses of welcome of the association and its committees.”784 In the discussions leading up to the official inquiry into trafficking in the East in the 1930s, the

International Union of Catholic Women’s Associations positioned itself as being instrumental to the inquiry’s success. In a 1929 report, “Mlle Lavielle” of the Union made the case to the

League:

In connection with the proposed extension of the Enquiry of Experts to the Far and Near East, it seemed to the International Catholic Women’s Union that Catholic missionaries might be of great use to the experts, since they understood the life of oriental countries and were accustomed to the climate and the native languages. The experts would certainly find such missionaries of considerable assistance to them in their difficult task of investigating the habits and social conditions of races so vastly different from their own.785

The Belgian delegate M. Maus validated this claim, stating that the “Committee should be composed of people who were well acquainted with the East; and it was certain that Catholic and

Protestant missionaries who had been living there for a long time would be of considerable value in such a work.”786 In 1931, a joint group of abolitionists, including the Young Women’s

Christian Association (YWCA), gathered under the auspices of the Société pour la protection de la jeune fille to present material to the League advocating for the cessation of legal sex work in

Lebanon. While the details of this effort are unknown, it demonstrates the authority of the

Société pour la protection de la jeune fille in the international community and the organization’s confidence in serving as a bridge between local organizations and the League.787

784 League of Nations Advisory Commission for the Protection and Welfare of Children and Young People, Traffic in Women and Children Committee, Minutes of the Sixth Session, April 25–30, 1927. June 24, 1927. C.338.M.113.1927.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 43. 785 League of Nations Advisory Commission for the Protection and Welfare of Children and Young People, Traffic in Women and Children Committee, Minutes of the Ninth Session, April 2–9, 1930. July 20, 1930. C.246.M.121.1930.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 26. 786 Ibid. 787 It is plausible that the Catholic organization represented only Christian concerns and did not form a broader coalition of interests. In Nicol’s letter to Neilans, he mentions the involvement of Catholic, Protestant, and Maronite groups. According to Nicol, this marked a shift in Maronite–Protestant relations, as the Maronite priest reached out to the group, which “was in itself most surprising as the Maronites have always been very much opposed to any

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Egregious stories of the exploitation of unsuspecting women and vulnerable young girls generated international support for the intervention in the Levant of Western voluntary and religious organizations. As Ashwini Tambe points out in her book on the British colonial regulation of sex work in Bombay, female British abolitionists “used a campaign on behalf of

Indian prostitutes as a means to increase their own political currency within Britain.”788

Similarly, the Association catholique internationale des œuvres de protection de la jeune fille gained great international political currency for their protectionist stance toward vulnerable populations and mobilized it to sustain access to the East. Yet it is important to note that this organization did not rely exclusively on foreign intervention.789 The Catholic Church in the

Levant found close allies with the Maronites in their attempts to eradicate sex work from the region. Likewise, civic groups like the Federation of Women’s Clubs of Syria and Lebanon and vocal activists like Nur Hamada of the Syrian Women’s Federation took part in the opposition to the French imposition of regulated sex work in the region. Furthermore, coalitions of Protestant organizations forged their own paths in the region, as will be illustrated below in the case of the

Bourj Mission, the American University of Beirut (AUB), and the YWCA.

Campaigns to End State-Sanctioned Sex Work in the Levant

Voluntary organizations leveraged themselves as prominent opposition to French policy on legalizing sex work. Their activism shaped public discourse on sex work not only in Syria and

union movement with Protestant people.” Letter from James H. Nicol to Miss Alison Neilans, January 27, 1932. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 788 Ashwini Tambe, Codes of Misconduct: Regulating Prostitution in Late Colonial Bombay (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009), xii. 789 Likewise, women used their philanthropic work to enter acceptable occupations outside the home. For example, in 1929, the International Woman Suffrage News reported that “Miss Farsedah el Akle” of Brummana, Syria, attended the 1926 International Woman Suffrage Alliance Conference in Paris “to show her hampered country- women how they can take their place in the world beyond their houses.” Unsurprisingly, the same article concludes that “[t]he women, bound by Moslem tradition, need encouragement from the West to strengthen them to help themselves.” M. Darnley-Naylor, “Women of Syria and Palestine and the Need for Education.” The International Woman Suffrage News 23, no. 5 (1929): 68.

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Lebanon, but around the globe. In 1932, the French delegate’s report to the League illuminated the instrumentalization of voluntary organizations in shaping colonial policy toward regulation:

“There was a definite movement in favor of the suppression of licensed prostitution toward the end of 1932. It was reflected chiefly in a press campaign and various meetings held in Beirut, at which representatives of the Alliance des associations féminines, Association des jeunesses musulmanes, Manaret [sic] (Lighthouse) Associations, and Lutte contre la traite were present.”790

Furthermore, that year a collective community petition pointed out the dangers of and objections to public prostitution, demanding measures of protection “for women in danger,” was presented to the Government of Lebanon, yet it yielded no tangible results.791 While not abandoning official channels, abolitionist organizations in Beirut sought to concentrate their resistance to regulated sex work not through direct contact with the French authorities but through altering public opinion.792

On a larger, regional scale, central authorities in Eastern countries acknowledged that

“voluntary organisations have played [a part] in forming the more enlightened public opinion

790 League of Nations Traffic in Women and Children Committee, Summary of Annual Reports for 1932–33, Prepared by the Secretariat. January 15, 1934. C.2.M.2.1934.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 22. “The Lighthouse” referenced by the delegate was a project of the Bourj Mission, and it will be discussed below. 791 Ibid. As seen in Chapter Three on legal discourses, those employing their “voice” to speak on behalf of sex workers by using the petition system advocated by the League still did not gain much traction. The notion of “popular opinion” mocked whose opinion mattered, and, what seemingly became apparent to Syrians, France showed no willingness to alter its policies through the petition system. This is particularly apparent with the influx of petitions to the PMC following the French bombardment of Damascus in 1925. While France was suspicious of the League as an instrument of British policy, it enlisted the PMC’s support to buffer international condemnation of its assault on Syria in the face of a popular rebellion for autonomous rule. See Susan Pedersen. The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 151. According to Pedersen (213), a move in 1926 to hear petitioners’ grievances in person before the PMC found no supporters among the Commission. 792 Miss Brade, formerly involved with the Protestant rescue efforts of the Bourj Mission and instructor at the local American Junior College for Women in Beirut at the time of her writing the letter, stated that abolitionists had not dealt directly with French authorities partly due to lack of need but “partly because it is no use, but [instead] to try and form an enlightened opinion among the Syrians which is the only thing, at the moment, which really matters.” Letter from Brade to Miss Neilans. July 14, 1933. Letter from James H. Nicol to Miss Alison Neilans. May 29, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England.

269 which has influenced the policies followed by governments in social questions to-day.”793 While

France held a leadership position in early anti-trafficking efforts, after World War I it became increasingly uncooperative and defensive over its regulationist stance, continuously asserting national sovereignty.794 Therefore, abolitionists saw an entryway into French policy by answering the French government’s statement in 1929 that colonial policies would change once public opinion changes. Abolitionists saw this statement as an invitation. The French delegate to the League’s Traffic in Women and Children Committee stated that

[T]here is no French law to regulate prostitution. The system of regulation in France is merely a municipal police measure enforced by the mayors. . . . In these circumstances, the way to secure the triumph of abolitionist views is to work upon public opinion. The municipalities will not fail to take public opinion into account in such a matter as this.795

Yet French officials simultaneously argued that abolition can only be achieved once localities established proper social and medical facilities to treat sex workers. The French High

Commissioner claimed in an internal memo that regulation in Syria must be maintained as, in his words, “the low moral and intellectual level of the population” did not allow for sexual education of the youth as in France.796 In addition, in the assessment of Irene Soltau, who worked with voluntary organizations in Beirut, the British abolitionists incorrectly believed that the French were open-minded about in changing their position, and that France was genuinely waiting for a

793 League of Nations Traffic in Women and Children. Conference of Central Authorities in Eastern Countries Report, Bandoeng. February 13, 1937. C.228.M.164.1937.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 6. 794 French officials stated that, while they did not object to prostitution being studied by the League’s Advisory Committee, “the system of prostitution and licensed houses, considered in its administrative aspect, remains, in the French government’s opinion, a purely domestic matter government by the national legislation of the individual state or by the regulations of their autonomous administrative authorities: it is outside the competence of the Advisory Commission.” League of Nations, Abstract of the Report from Governments on the System of Licensed Houses as Related to Traffic in Women and Children. December 8, 1927. CTFE 336(1)Social.1927.IV.14. Geneva, Switzerland: 6–7. For more information on this evolution, see Watson, “The Trade in Women,” 114–116. 795 Quoted by Neilans, Report on Activities in Syria,1931, 26. 796 Haut-Commissariat de la République française en Syrie et au Liban. La lutte antivénérienne dans les États du Levant sous mandate français. N. D., N.P. GRN 9NN/1078 Levant. DSS. ASHD. Vincennes, France. From the annexes attached to the letter, the High Commissioner compiled the report in 1931, as it provided statistics on venereal disease from January 1, 1925 to April 20, 1931.

270 change in public opinion.797 Therefore, in her opinion, there existed a lot of work for abolitionists to do and such work had to be conducted internally in Syria.

In response, organizations in the Levant focused on a two-pronged approach in order to simultaneously galvanize public support for abolitionism and provide social support for those working in the sex trade. In 1936, the French delegate to the League acknowledged the mounting international pressure placed on their country to abolish sex work. A draft law in the metropole that year articulated this point:

[T]he great majority of doctors and legal men agree in accepting the solutions championed so long and with such enthusiasm by the proponents of the so-called “abolitionist” theories; also, it appears today from experience in a large number of foreign countries, as well as in certain number of French towns, that the so-called “regulationist” system, which is recognized as entirely ineffective from the public health standpoint . . . could be suppressed without any aggravation of the danger which it seeks to circumvent.798

At that time, already eighteen municipalities in France had abolished regulated sex work.

Abolitionists in the Levant noticed this and examined the consequences of such a change, and, as shown in Chapter Four, they attempted to use the changes they observed to their benefit.

According to a speech given by André Labrouquère, the French delegate to the 1937 League’s

Conference in the East, the efforts of voluntary and missionary groups resulted in a gradual shift in French policy:

Until 1929, the French Government had considered that the regulation of prostitutes and the abolition of brothels was not a matter for the Government, but rather for the municipal authorities. Under the pressure of public opinion some municipalities had already abolished licensed brothels. There had been no radical change in the view of the Government, but rather a gradual evolution under which the subject had assumed an international rather than purely internal aspect. The French Government thought that abolition was an ideal for the future and must take account of certain local conditions. How was that new French theory applicable to the Far

797 Letter from James H. Nicol to Miss Neilans, February 16, 1932. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 798 League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Report on the Work of the Committee in 1937 (First Session). February 15, 1937. C.235.M.169.1937.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 26.

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East? France always tried to bring her colonial legislation into line with the legislation of the home country, though such legislation had to take account of the difference in the population and of certain actual facts. . . . Abolition, in order to be successful, presupposed the education of women. . . . Abolition also presupposed the establishment of medico-socio centres of treatment, social workers, etc. . . . Measures were being taken to improve the material position of women, and thus enable them to escape from traffic. . . . It might therefore be said that the Government was taking great steps towards abolition by administrative, legal and medical means.799

The declaration made at the conference reflected the momentum of abolitionism on a global scale and provided a continuing framework for what work still had to be done in order to drive regulated prostitution into extinction.800 The work of regional conferences like the General

Conference on Muslim Women from the East, individual feminists such as Nur Hamada, and rescue organizations like the Bourj Mission and Civic Welfare League (CWL) can help one understand what transpired in Lebanon and Syria during this critical time period.

The Rescue Industry: Philanthropic Aspirations and Creating “Need”

The rescue industry, comprising missions and private voluntary organizations, made itself indispensable to the international enforcement of anti-trafficking legislation at both the regional and local levels.801 Their increasing power was highlighted repeatedly in League documents, one

799 League of Nations Traffic in Women and Children Committee. Conference of Central Authorities in Eastern Countries, Minutes of Meeting in Bandoeng (Java), February 2–13, 1937. December 1937. C.476.M.318.1937.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 36–7. 800 In preparation for the 1937 conference, in 1935 central authorities in the Middle and Far East agreed to meet in February 1937 to focus on several agenda items pertaining to the trafficking of women and children. These items included closer collaboration and the exchange of information between authorities; the control of migration; closer collaboration between state authorities and private organizations; the increased employment of women officials on the staff of authorities responsible for social welfare; and the possibility of abolishing licensed houses in the East. League of Nations Advisory Commission for the Protection and Welfare of Children and Young People, Report on the Work of the Commission in 1936. May 5, 1936. C.204.M.127.1936.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 8–9. The central authorities permitted organizations, missions, and experts to attend in an advisory or consultative capacity provided that they absorb the cost of their participation. League of Nations. Convocation of a Conference of Central Authorities in Eastern Countries, Report by the Representative of Chile. October 10, 1936. C.439.1936.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 3. The February 1937 Bandoeng Conference of Central Authorities in Eastern Countries “unanimously supported the abolitionist system as the final goal of future policy.” League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Report Submitted by the Fifth Committee to the Assembly. September 30, 1937. A.65.1937.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 5. 801 Missionaries and feminist organizations did not operate with similar agendas, though they converged on certain issues when it came to bringing civility to Syria. A 1911 article published by the founder of the International

272 of which is the Summary of Work on the 1937 League’s Conference in the East: “In many instances, missions and private organisations [engaged in ‘preventative and rescue work’] have been responsible or the inauguration of efficient government measures introduced to combat prostitution and traffic.”802 The League perceived rescue work and government agencies to be in a partnership, with missions and private organizations helping “victims of traffic” and the government enacting administrative measures to “combat traffic.” In fact, the League articulated the threefold responsibility of voluntary organizations with regard to their interfacing with colonial authorities: they were to simultaneously reflect and change public opinion; conduct social work not undertaken by the state; and serve the government in an advisory capacity.803

The enactment of such a responsibility can be found in a letter addressed to the technical advisors of the Beirut Police Unit. The head of the police, who was listed only by his last name

Bonchéde (who also served as the individual selected by the French government as the official local emissary to the League’s 1932 Travelling Commission), called attention to the fact that the police des mœurs (the municipal police responsible for enforcing regulations on sex work) directed women who were new to prostitution to submit to a medical examination. In this process, the accused women were not provided with an opportunity to explain their circumstances. In the words of the letter’s author, the procedure caused “undue harm” to young women, who were susceptible to continued exploitation if they were not permitted any other recourse. The alternative course of action suggested within the letter was “to summon these

Alliance of Women, Carrie Chapman Catt, notes that while the missionaries in Syria were positioned to bring modernity to the region, it is the responsibility of feminists “to convert the missionaries to a realization of present- day movements among women . . . we must convert the churches which send the missionaries to believe the equality of men and women.” Carrie Chapman Catt, “The Holy Land,” Jus Suffragii: International Women’s News 6, no. 6 (1912): 56. 802 League of Nations Traffic in Women and Children Committee, Work of the Bandoeng Conference, December 20, 1937. C.516.M.357.1937.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 55. 803 Ibid., 58.

273 women before the commissioner of [the police des mœurs], who should draw their attention to the degrading manner of life in which they are engaging and all the consequences of such a decision.”804 In effect, in the eyes of Bonchéde, condemning the life choices of those women who were suspected of being new to the profession allowed them the means to reconsider their decisions. This idea was based on the assumption that women new to sexual commerce were more likely to leave it if provided with the opportunity. Therefore, directing suspected sex workers first to medical exams and automatically registering them with the police would, in effect, contribute to the solidification of the decision to enter the profession. This shift in police protocol, to dissuade sex workers from continuing to ply their trade, bears the mark of the Bourj

Mission, which, under the supervision of Lorna Brade, liaised with police and hospitals to rescue sex workers who were detained by the authorities.805 However, before analyzing individual organizations’ impacts in the Levant, I will turn to the rise of regional abolitionist efforts that crossed individual borders in efforts to establish solidarity on eliminating trafficking and state- sanctioned sex work. These efforts merit attention, as they were at the crossroads between local and international reformation efforts and, as such, served a mediating function.

Prior to the League’s concerted effort to abolish the regulatory system in the East, women began to organize regional responses to colonial policies, a phenomenon that underscored the importance of developing a network of humanitarian support outside the shadow of the West.

While this trend of rising regional cooperation had commenced in Europe by the mid-1920s, the efforts of “Eastern” women seeking remedies within their own framework, outside the

804 High Commissioner of the French Republic in Syria and Lebanon, Report on Traffic in Women and Children in the Territories of the Levant under French Mandate, Beirut, September 3, 1930, 12–13. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 805 Neilans, Summary of My Activities in Syria October 26 – December 8, 1931. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England.

274 hegemonic dominance of Europe, gained traction only in the 1930s.806 As Ellen Fleischmann argues in the Palestinian context, the Arab Women’s Association (AWA) organized the First

Arab Women’s Conference during the year of its foundation in 1929 out of recognition that collective organization was the only method for sustained, effective action in a national context.807 Rather than operating in an adversarial capacity, the regional groups functioned in a largely complementary manner with their Western counterparts.808 While the rise in nationalism and mounting frustrations over colonial occupation incentivized this trend, as can be seen with the First and the Second General Conference on Muslim Women from the East and the All-Asia

Women’s Conference, a commitment to cooperation with the International Alliance of Women and a focus on the trafficking of women and children with the League underscored regional groups’ strategies of maintaining links with more established women’s organizations in the

West. Furthermore, as Fleischmann shows with the AWA, while the movements possessed

“nationalist-inspired spontaneity” they also included the “colonial community” and, therefore, had to navigate numerous complex relationships in order to maintain cohesion.809

The First and the Second General Conferences of Muslim Women from the East (referred to in some documents also as the “First” and the “Second Muslim Women’s Congress” or the

“Eastern Women’s Conferences”) illustrate the linkages among the local, regional, and international associations with regard to how they acted to combat the trafficking of women and children. The first conference, which was held in Damascus in 1930, addressed the issue of sex work. This inaugural event focused on the status of women in the “Orient,” and it included a call

806 Marie Sandell, The Rise of Women’s Transnational Activism: Identity and Sisterhood between the World Wars (London: I. B. Tauris, 2015), 171. 807 Ellen Fleischmann, The Nation and Its “New” Women: The Palestinian Women’s Movement, 1920–1948 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 115. 808 Sandell, The Rise of Women’s Transnational Activism, 172. 809 Fleischmann, The Nation and Its “New” Women, 117.

275 for the abolition of polygamy and the marriage of girls under 16 years of age; the creation of egalitarian divorce laws; the establishment of equal pay and employment opportunities; and increased access for girls to education. Additionally, the event’s delegates endorsed the resolution that “prostitution and white slavery must be fought.”810 Nur Hamada, the organizer of the event, gathered approximately one hundred delegates in Damascus. According to an article written about the occasion in the International Alliance of Women’s (IAW, formerly the

International Woman Suffrage Alliance or IWSA) bulletin Jus Suffragii, Hamada drew on her philanthropic experience that included the founding of a women’s league with five hundred members, the mission of which was to train orphans and provide education to girls.811 At the conclusion of this first conference, delegates agreed upon the appointment of four commissions to work on the following areas: marriage laws, social work, national industries, and the promotion of Arabic.812

810 Nour Hamada, “Premier congrès féministe oriental tenu à Damas le 3 juillet 1930,” International Woman Suffrage News 25, no. 4 (1931): 65. 811 N. A. “Le congrès oriental féministe de Damas,” International Woman Suffrage News 24, no. 12 (1930): 198. 812 N. A. “The Oriental Women’s Congress in Damascus: The President’s Report,” International Woman Suffrage News 24, no. 12 (1930): 189. On the last two points, the IAW’s representative Avra S. Theodoropoulos claimed that Syrian nationalists pressured the inclusion of Arabic “propaganda” and national industries. Avra S. Theodoropoulos, “The Oriental Women’s Congress in Damascus: The Alliance Delegate’s Report,” International Woman Suffrage News 24, no. 12 (1930): 199. The only acknowledgment that Syrian women were under colonial rule was in the following statement by the delegate: “As for the vote, it is out of the question in a country under a foreign mandate.” This externalizing pressure of educating girls and women in Arabic ignores a prior report given by Ibtihaj Kaddourah (also spelled Qaddura) in her 1928 report to the IAW newspaper highlighting the efforts of women’s organizations to instruct students in Arabic, “as nearly all our sciences and higher studies are taught in foreign languages.” N. A. “Syria,” International Woman Suffrage News 22, no. 7 (1928): 108. The type of reporting by the IAW representative reflects the sensational reporting of external observers in reflecting the patriarchal oppression that women faced in the region. Massara Kélani, representing Syria, reported to the 1932 Mediterranean Women’s Conference held in Constantine, Algeria, that the Mandate marked a regression in the status of Syrian women due to the closure in women’s schools and societies, which she states began to rebound in 1927. Massara Kélani, “Syria,” International Woman Suffrage News 26, no. 9 (1932): 105–106. Furthermore, these regional conferences’ defining objectives situated themselves within the nationalist frameworks. The 1932 conference, which took place in Damascus, , and Baghdad, is particularly significant in this regard. According to an article written about the conference, delegates interviewed “King Feisal and Emil Ali Nuri Pasha” (presumably this is in reference to Nuri al- Sa‘id), who had returned from Geneva after securing Iraq’s independence from the League’s British Mandate on October 3, 1932. The article stated that Iraqi independence from the Mandate incited women’s organizations to study the League. N. A. “Women’s Conference at Damascus and Baghdad,” International Woman Suffrage News 27, no. 3 (1932): 18. The links between nationalism, independence from the Mandate system, and Faisal

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Two years later, Hamada convened the second conference, which was held in three separate locations, namely, Damascus, Baghdad, and Tehran, in an effort to gain more support for the issues addressed in the first conference and to transform that support into action.813 This time around, Hamada elaborated on the issue of sex work and insisted that its resolution necessitated all women’s involvement. She expounded upon two articles that she wanted to add to the conference’s constitution, which would address the concerns that its participants had held over the practice of sex work in their respective regions. Articles 20 and 21 would articulate their condemnation of sex work, express the need for police to surveil and curtail clandestine sex work, and seek to establish rescue centers where sex workers who entered their line of work under duress can reside and can train to work in another trade or profession.814 Hamada focused on these articles because she was concerned that the very existence of sex work in public spaces served to corrupt chaste women and compromise their dignity and their relationships with their families, and she demanded “that prostitutes do not cross the limits of the place assigned to them, and do not mingle with respectable women.”815 She affirmed the role of the secret police (in

undoubtedly drew the French colonial authorities’ attention to the second Eastern Women’s Congress, which was held in Iraq. 813 The newspaper Les Échos de Damas reported that the High Council of the Eastern Feminist Alliance held a seven-day conference from September 3 to September 10, 1931, as a preparatory event for the meeting held in Tehran the following year. On the fifth day of the conference, participants addressed the fight against the trafficking of women and children and prostitution. N. A., “Une Nouvelle réunion féministe,” Les Échos de Damas, August 19, 1931: 2. 814 Article 20 states that secret and public prostitution are both forbidden, leaving ambiguity as to what the members meant by differentiating the two. In addition, the article stated that “police will be created to track and curtail these [presumably clandestine] practices.” In many regions at this time, this institution had already existed. Article 21 firmly situated the movement as endorsing the rescue industry by stating that “for women who, as a result of a fall and a mistake, have come by force to prostitution and who aspire to pick themselves up, centers and general workshops will be founded where they will work and live.” 815 H. Massé, “Le Deuxième Congres musulman général des femmes d’Orient à Tehran (novembre-décembre 1932),” Revue des études islamiques 7 (1933): 99–100. Ilham Khuri-Makdisi’s work on Ottoman Arabs residing in Istanbul makes mention of a similar perception held by Jurji Zaydan. According to Khuri-Makdisi, Zaydan blamed France’s permissive policies and the enticement of higher earnings for women’s entry into prostitution and held the concern that the effects of prostitution can contaminate the community in which they inhabit (or those that might inadvertently interface with them). Ilham Khuri-Makdisi, “Ottoman Arabs in Istanbul, 1860-1914: Perceptions of Empire, Experiences of the Metropole through the Writings of Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, Muhammad Rashid Rida,

277 reference to the police des mœurs) in enforcing the boundaries of the reserved quarters, and that clandestine sex work must be reported to the police station in order to prevent its presence at the beaches, public baths, promenades, and other places where sex workers might interact with the general public. Hamada acknowledged that the “the ladies present [at the conference] show[ed] their agreement by prolonged applause” upon announcing the formulation of the two articles to address sex work.816

Hamada implored members of the conference to participate in diminishing the corrupting influence of sex work in Eastern societies, stating that advanced countries have organizations to save and reform “lost girls.”817 Yet Lila Abu-Lughod’s claim, referencing a later period, that if one saves another from something then they are saving them to something as well rings true in this context.818 The message of salvation presumes the superiority of those doing the saving over those being saved, enacting a patronizing quality that leaves unanswered the question of whether or not the person being saved even wants to be saved. Another conference presenter, Mihr Tadj

Rakhchân, who preceded Hamada, implored women of the East to open their doors to befallen women, to alleviate their pain and help deliver them from their lives of misery. She accused society of closing its doors to the young women “so firmly that we leave them no possibility of escape and that we hear neither their cries nor their moans.”819 The presenters at these

and Jurji Zayhan,” in Imperial Geographies in Byzantine and Ottoman Space, eds. Sahar Bazzaz, Yota Batsaki, and Dimiter Angelov (Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2013), 178-179. 816 Ibid., 100. 817 818 Lila Abu-Lughod, Do Muslim Women Still Need Saving? (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 46– 47. 819 Massé, “Le Deuxième Congres musulman général des femmes d’Orient à Tehran,” 94. The link between the crying and the oppressed that was employed by rescuers can be demonstrated to have existed elsewhere. As quoted by Abu-Lughod, a book by women missionaries in Cairo argued that their voices must be used to amplify the voices of those less fortunate. The quote she uses that resonates with Rakhchân’s call is the following: “They [Muslim women] will never cry for themselves, for they are down under the yoke of . . . oppression.” Abu-Lughod, Do Muslim Women Still Need Saving? 47. Missionary intervention in the Armenian Genocide engaged with similar rhetorical devices as with the 1916 title work The Cry of Armenia by the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief.

278 conferences seemed to overlook the possibility that sex work could provide a means for economic survival, a means of independence, and a path to self-determination.820 Rakhchân called upon the participants’ sense of morality and national duty to intervene in the lives of the young girls in their countries. She challenged the members to be proactive, asking: “Do our feelings of humanity, patriotism, and altruism allow us to leave a crowd of young girls of our country, without their will, and blind, at the bottom of this hell where they burn and are destroyed?”821 Moreover, Rakhchân spoke of the religious duty to assist those fallen into debauchery. It was her view that God had mercy on those who repented for their sins.

In answer to Rakhchân’s call, Hamada provided an example of a philanthropic society associated with the AUB as the archetype from which to model the rescue industry. As she illustrated for her audience, the women philanthropists associated with the AUB would go to the maisons de tolérance where the workers would speak with them about “their situation, their past, their parents,” and the volunteers would offer, in return, “some moving words and give them advice.” What type of advice and knowledge bourgeois women associated with a university could offer a sex worker was left unsaid but proved to be convincing, according to Hamada: “As a result, very often, the tremor of repentance descends upon the bodies of some of those unhappy

820 While little is known in this period about how sex workers perceived these interventions, aside from texts mediated through interested parties, contemporary scholarship has demonstrated that rescue work was not always well received by those in the sex industry. Literature on contemporary sex work shows that sex workers resent these kinds of moralizing interventions. Unfortunately, we cannot know how sex workers in 1930s Lebanon responded, but we can guess that they may have also resented this kind of attention. Three scholars have discussed sex workers hiding from rescuers: E. Bernstein, “Militarized Humanitarianism Meets Carceral Feminism: The Politics of Sex, Rights, and Freedom in Contemporary Antitrafficking Campaigns,” Signs 36, no. 1 (2010): 61–65; Wendy Chapkis, “Trafficking, Migration, and the Law: Protecting Innocents, Punishing Immigrants, Gender & Society 17, no. 6 (2003): 923–937; and Gretchen Soderlund, “Running from the Rescuers: New U.S. Crusades against Sex Trafficking and the Rhetoric of Abolition,” NWSA Journal 17, no. 3 (2005): 64–87. 821 Massé, “Le Deuxième Congres musulman général des femmes d’Orient à Tehran,” 94–95.

279 creatures who weep with regret; in this case, the Americans take them with them and put them in specially organized centers to work and live.”822

A prominent individual associated with the AUB’s philanthropic community, Irene Soltau, occupied a highly active role with regard to issues related to social welfare. In an article reflecting her time in Lebanon, Soltau stated how the Federation of Women’s Societies (which is perhaps another name given to the Women’s Union in Syria and Lebanon, al-Ittihad al-nisa’i fi suriyah wa lubnan) even went into prisons to conduct welfare work among the sex workers incarcerated there.823 Unfortunately, Hamada did not acknowledge the AUB’s social welfare organization by name, yet the nature of the work appears to coincide with that carried out by the

CWL, which was founded eight years prior in 1924. Even if Hamada did not have this particular institution in mind, the work of the CWL encapsulated some of the challenges that rescue organizations sought to remedy regarding the pervasive moral conditions in the region.

The CWL, and its counterpart the Village Welfare Service, had a stated purpose of identifying, ameliorating, and generating propaganda on “problems of civic welfare.”824 The organization produced studies on homeless children in Beirut that read in the same pathologizing fashion as other reports on sex work (e.g., those of the League and other voluntary organizations). One CWL report concluded that children in Beirut engaged in pederastic

822 Ibid., 99–100. 823 Irene C. Soltau, “Social Responsibility in the Lebanon,” International Affairs 25, no. 3 (1949): 312. Irene Soltau came to reside in Beirut with her husband Roger Soltau, a Quaker professor at the AUB. During her time in Beirut, she entrenched herself in philanthropy, serving on the Executive Committee of the Bourj Mission and Preventative Work for Girls, which will be discussed below. The Lebanese Ministry of Education awarded Soltau with “the medal of the Lebanon National Order of Merit” for her prolific volunteer work on social issues in “Union pour la protection de l’enfance au Liban: 60 ans” (Beirut: United Nations Children’s Fund, 1997), 10. Whether the Federation is the same as the Union described by Hamada is difficult to ascertain, as they are both translations and, therefore, could be interpreted from French or Arabic as either “union” or “federation.” The Federation as described by Soltau conducted the very same work as the Union and operated as a conglomeration of women’s societies in Syria and Lebanon during the exact time period. 824 “Constitution of the Civic Welfare League,” N. D. Student Life and Activities (SLA), Civic Welfare League Yearbook (CWLY) 1936/1937. AA.4.3.5. Archives of the American University of Beirut (AAUB). Beirut, Lebanon.

280 relations in exchange for no more than 10 piasters. First driven by hunger, they soon participated in such relations out of habit, and “then this habit [became] for them an unhealthy necessity.”825

Furthermore, the report charged that women residing in the reserved quarters hired the street children to run errands, since municipal laws restricted the movements of sex workers.

Sometimes, the children would reside in the maisons de tolérance in violation of administrative laws.826 The CWL focused briefly on prison reform and took interest in preventing young girls from living precarious existences by training them, during night classes, in various administrative techniques not only to further educate them, but also to keep them occupied while not at work. Stuart Dodd, the AUB professor who wrote A Controlled Experiment on Rural

Hygiene in Syria and who I discussed in Chapter Two, occupied an active position within the

CWL. He authored an article entitled “Methods of Treating Prostitution” and volunteered with students at the City Welfare Center in Beirut for the “underprivileged class of Ras Beirut.”827

The CWL collaborated with the Foyer des jeunes in Beirut to produce reports on the state of street homelessness among youth and sex work in Beirut, in addition to providing the

825 I. Chemayel, Secrétaire pour l’Œuvre Populaire (Assour) du Foyer des jeunes, Rapport sur les enfants abandonnes dans la ville de Beyrouth (Liban), SLA CWLY 1934/1935. AA.4.3.5. AAUB. Beirut, Lebanon. A second report was written by Jean-Paul Trystram, secrétaire adjoint pour l’œuvre populaire d’Assour the following year in June 1936. In it, Trystram acknowledged errors made by those evaluating the conditions of abandoned children due to working through interpreters and not possessing knowledge of Arabic, working within the framework and habits of the West, and “our poor knowledge of the social environment we had to study.” Jean-Paul Trystram, Enquête sur le travail des enfants et les enfants vagabonds à Beyrouth, June 1936. SLA CWLY 1936/1937. AA.4.3.5. AAUB. Beirut, Lebanon. This report mentions that the children were often found at the Place des Canons, which served as the center of sex work in the city. A letter from the Director of Health Services for Military Troops in the Levant to the French Ministry of War’s Medical Division claims that in 1933 the growth of pederasty among indigenous troops showed a marked increase as evidenced by local police raids on clandestine brothels. Le Médecin-général Jude, Directeur du Service de santé des troupes du Levant à Monsieur le ministre de la guerre, 7eme Direction, Section technique, Section de médecine, March 10, 1933. Levant. GRN 9NN/1078. DSS. ASHD. Vincennes, France. 826 The report mentions the work of Foyer des jeunes, which on November 22, 1932, inaugurated a center to retrain children engaged in sex work to work as shoeshiners, porters, and the like. 827 A. Jurdak, untitled letter, March 24, 1939. SLA CWLY 1938/1939. AA.4.3.5. AAUB. Beirut, Lebanon. Unfortunately, the article written by Dodd, while referenced in the Yearbook’s index, was missing. Alison Neilans of the AMSH consulted with Dodd during her trip to the region promoting abolitionism. Letter from Alison Neilans to Rev. J. H. Nicol, The American Mission, Beyrout [sic], January 30, 1932. AMSH 3AMS/D/33-46, Box 118. WLA. London, England.

281 educational interventions mentioned above.828 In 1933, Jean Joussellin, a protestant pastor and secretary of the organization, published his book Enquêtes sur la jeunesse délinquante et la prostitution au Liban en 1932, which documented the frequency and conditions of both street homelessness among youth and sex work in general in Lebanon, with an emphasis on Beirut. At the time of his study, Joussellin claimed that public opinion remained mixed on the issue of regulated sex work and that more must be done to engage individuals, particularly financial and political elites, and to convince them to support abolition. Since the brothel owners would outspend small voluntary organizations in order to preserve regulatory statutes maintaining the status quo, Joussellin argued that the only way in which these organizations could fight back was through educating the public and pursuing their agendas without any ulterior motives. His characterization of reserved quarters as a “cancer” and “evil,” however, seem to contradict such a stance.829 He offered his book as a contribution to the debate on the French regulatory system in

Lebanon, providing the public with an examination of regulatory sex work with the support of statistics.830 Joussellin concluded, based on the numbers provided by the authorities, which he then subjected to his analysis, that regulation was ineffective when it came to diminishing clandestine sex work and the spread of venereal disease.831 In his words, “regulation ignores certain important elements, and as a result, it is unable to effectively stop the harm.” Joussellin

828 In 1936, an AUB professor Philippe J. Bianquis co-founded (along with Alfred Naqqache, , Father Le Génissel, Foyer des jeunes, and the YMCA) l’Union pour la protection de l’enfance au Liban to investigate what Lebanese saw as a crisis among youth. The organization perceived youth as a “high-risk” age group confronted with “severe moral and psychic trauma” brought about by “family-based, social and economic factors.” In 1939, it began operating under the auspices and funding of the Ministry of Social Affairs to help intervene in the rehabilitation of children taken into custody and held in detention by the state under penal law. Irene Soltau, described as an “expert in social problems,” began volunteering with the organization in 1939. “Union pour la Protection de l’Enfance,” 2, 3, 7. 829 Jean Joussellin, Enquêtes sur la jeunesse délinquante et la prostitution au Liban en 1932 (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1933), 44–45. 830 Ibid., 20–22, 30–31. Joussellin argues that the statistics issued by the government are misleading and underrepresent the percentage of cases of venereal disease among registered sex workers and overrepresents them among the clandestine sex workers. 831 Joussellin, Enquêtes sur la jeunesse, 28.

282 referred to numerous petitions addressed to the President of the Lebanese Republic in 1932 requesting the abolishment of the reserved quarters, which never received a response.832

Interestingly, he noted that one of the petitions was sent by an association of doctors of Beirut, and not by any of the women’s or religious organizations in the region.

The drive to bring a cross-section of the population over to the abolitionist cause can also be seen in the work of Alison Neilans of the British-based Association for Moral and Social

Hygiene (AMSH). During her time in Aleppo, she argued that the enlistment of reputable doctors into abolitionist organizations was imperative and scheduled time in her six-week visit to the region to meet with at least one surgeon (Neilans’s activities in the region are further discussed below).833 On a larger scale, the International Abolitionist Federation (IAW) in Geneva produced in 1931 a report highlighting various medical arguments against regulatory sex work. It contained a section on the broader medical movement in favor of abolitionism, which included the Union internationale contre le péril vénérien’s recommendation for an end to regulatory prostitution.834 Though the French authorities employed a myriad of reasons for maintaining the status quo, including those having to do with medical concerns, national sovereignty, and public

832 Ibid., 29. Alison Neilans, in a correspondence to Reverend Nicol of the American Mission in Beirut, stated that it was imperative for the signatories of the petition to the PMC to be Syrian but that it would be required to be vetted by the French government and, therefore, Syrians would be discouraged from placing their name on the document. Instead, she proposed that a coalition of Syrians, Americans, and English sign the petition and send it directly to the President of the PMC. She disregarded Brade’s suggestion to wait another year before submitting the petition. Furthermore, she stated that she could use her standing to secure a petition from abolitionists in France but preferred for it to originate in Syria. Alison Neilans, Personal Letter to Mr. Nicol, December 22, 1931. AMSH 3AMS/D/33– 46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 833 Neilans, “Summary of My Activities in Syria, October 26 – December 8, 1931.” AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. Neilans alludes to possibly meeting Joussellin during her trip to Beirut. Elizabeth S. Webb of the American Mission in Beirut states that Joussellin returned to France due to lack of funding, and she suggested that the AMSH fund his work in the region, as Neilans was seeking out a French speaker to engage in abolitionist work in Syria and Lebanon. Letter from E. S. Webb to Miss Neilans. October 25, 1934. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. Neilans turns down the suggestion, stating that the funds dedicated to the region were limited. Letter from Alison Neilans to Miss Webb. December 19, 1934. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 834 Fédération abolitionniste internationale, La Lutte contre la réglementation de la prostitution (Geneva: Fédération abolitionniste internationale, 1931), 6–9.

283 opinion, those seeking to reform global sex work developed strategies to get the latter to change their policy, a phenomenon which can be seen especially in the cooperative efforts of various organizations in the Levant to affect change.

Forging Ties? Local, Regional, and International Alliances

Returning now to the regional coordination that transpired during the early 1930s, Hamada was vital in helping organizations and missions in the Levant integrate their efforts against legal sex work and mesh with those of their local and international counterparts. The “immoral traffic in women” took on an increasingly central role in a pan-Asian women’s rights conference held in the intervening years between the First and Second Muslim Women’s Congresses: the All-Asia

Women’s Conference held in Lahore from January 19 to January 25, 1931. This regional conference adopted a total of eleven resolutions, with one endorsing the League’s anti-trafficking work and another seeking the abolition of all brothels.835 While Hamada received an invitation to appear at the conference as the official representative from Syria, due to an undesignated illness she was not able to attend.836 Nonetheless, contemporary newspaper articles indicated that she was indeed involved in it.837 In addition, the increasing momentum around anti-trafficking and

835 N. A., “All-Asian Women’s Conference Resolutions,” International Woman Suffrage News 25, no. 7 (April 1931): 101–102. 836 Ramananda Chatterjee, N.T., The Modern Review 49 (1931), 258. 837 In an announcement of the conference in the January 1931 edition of the International Women’s News, organizers still listed Hamada as a delegate; therefore, her decision not to attend appears to be last minute. According to the same newspaper, she wrote a letter to the conference organizers conveying her regrets. N. A., “The Asian Union,” International Woman Suffrage News 25, no. 6 (March 1931): 83. The All-Asian Women’s Conference, spearheaded by Sarojini Naidu, who was the leader of the Indian Nationalist Movement, also addressed education, health, work, and similar issues concerning the Eastern Women’s Congresses. Unlike the conferences organized by “Eastern” women, the Constantine Groups of the Union française pour le suffrage des femmes convened the International Conference of Mediterranean Women in Constantine, Algeria, from March 29 to March 30, 1932. Germaine Malaterre-Sellier, a prominent French feminist and suffragist, chaired the event that focused on legal, moral, and economic positions of women in both the European and North African Mediterranean countries. Malaterre-Sellier became the vice-president of l’Union féminine at the League. Massara Kélani represented Syria at the conference, where she claimed that over twenty local organizations were working for the women’s movement. Massara Kélani, “Syria,” International Woman Suffrage News 26, no. 9 (June 1932): 104–105. Other international women’s conferences, spurred on by nationalism, convened around this time and included the Arab Women’s Conference held in Jerusalem in October 1929, where approximately 100 Muslim and Christian women presented resolutions to the High Commission calling for their improved status. Rosa Welt-Straus, “Arab Women in Congress,”

284 abolitionism undoubtedly influenced Hamada’s decision to bring up the issues again in Tehran in

1932. Hamada’s objective remained consistent: she aimed to bridge local, regional, and international efforts in order to bring the causes and demands of Arab women to the global arena.

In a 1936 speech, while she was residing in the United States, Hamada listed her stated goals as writing a book on the women’s movement in Arabic for translation into English and observing feminist activities taking place in a different sociocultural context. Her words encapsulated her aims: “I organized an Alliance for Syria, with two conferences; then for all Arabian countries; then a General Oriental Alliance, of the Near and Far East . . . I am for equal rights between men and women and between the Orient and Occident, and seek to [sic] get the co-operation of women’s organizations, national and international, toward this end.”838

The path for Syrian feminists’ relationship within the region solidified as Hamada saw the merit in creating international affiliations and, in 1929, allied the Women’s Arabic and Cultural

Assembly with the IAW. Additionally, Hamada became the IAW’s Syrian branch representative.839 Hamada invited the IAW to send a representative to both of the conferences that she organized and requested that IAW observer Emily Rieder address the attendees in a speech at the Damascus event in 1930.840 Hamada followed up by providing a report to the IAW

International Woman Suffrage News 24, no. 4 (January 1930): 43. Another article claimed the participation of over 300 women from throughout Palestine, who protested the Balfour Declaration and the unfair treatment of Arabs. Florence Spencer Duryea, “Arab Women Awake: A First-Hand Account of the First Arab Women’s Congress,” Women’s Journal 15, no. 3 (March 1930): 13, 39. 838 “N. A. N. T.,” Equal Rights 22, no. 9 (1936): 4. 839 Weber, “Between Nationalism and Feminism,” 87. In 1933, the IAW and Hamada’s relationship seemed to have evaporated. Neilans wrote that, while Hamada held the designation of IAW representative from Syria, she “seem[s] to have gone up in thin air.” The society, which first rebuffed Ibtihaj Kaddourah’s efforts to be the regional branch representative, sought Kaddourah out for affiliation after Hamada ceased communicating with the IAW. Letter from Alison Neilans to Miss Brade. November 29, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 840 N. A. “Women’s Conference at Damascus and Baghdad,” International Woman Suffrage News 27, no. 3 (1932): 17–18. Rieder provided a short address in Damascus outlining the history of the IAW and its objectives. In Baghdad, she addressed a mostly male audience, putting emphasis on their role in women’s progress.

285 regarding the First Eastern Women’s Congress, which the IAW subsequently published in its monthly newspaper.841

The IAW took interest in both events, and, having accepted Hamada’s invitation, sent representatives to report back on the conferences’ activities. Yet, just several years earlier, the

IAW’s president, Margery Corbett Ashby, had stated that her organization’s policy was to “avoid any possibility of religious controversy,” believing that it remained up to the colonial administration to “bring forward a resolution dealing with the position of native women.”842 She had argued that the IAW maintained active communication with and visited women in Syria, claiming that the organization’s assistance in securing a female member a seat on the League’s

Permanent Mandates Commission (PMC) was a crowning achievement that proved beneficial for the region.843 In addition, the organization attempted to include the “buying and selling of wives” as an issue in the League’s Slavery Convention but failed to do so because, according to Margery

Corbett Ashby, the majority of colonial states themselves had yet to grant women political freedom.844 In 1935, several years after the two Muslim Women’s Congresses, the Arab Feminist

Union (AFU, l’Union féministe arabe) in Beirut, an umbrella organization overseeing twenty-

841 Nour Hamada, “The Oriental Women’s Congress in Damascus: The President’s Report,” International Woman Suffrage News 24, no. 12 (1930): 189. The IAW delegate, Avra S. Theodoropoulos, provided a corresponding report for the 1930 conference. 842 Margery I. Corbett Ashby, “Correspondence: ‘What Is the Alliance,’” International Woman Suffrage News 22, no. 7 (1928): 107. This letter from Ashby is part of a tense exchange with C. Nina Boyle, who had criticized the Alliance for betraying the women’s movement by engaging in pacifism and not taking a more active stance in Asia Minor against “certain desperate conditions, under which women suffer hideous personal and sexual coercion” (106). Boyle, in her position at Save the Children Fund, campaigned against sex trafficking and allied herself with the AMSH on abolitionism. 843 The League’s Assembly required that a woman hold a seat on the PMC, the first being Anna Bugge-Wicksell in 1921. According to Susan Pedersen, she prioritized protecting “helpless” women and children under the Mandates, though I was not able to find any mention of IAW’s involvement in her appointment. Susan Pedersen, The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 62. 844 Marie Sandell’s book The Rise of Women’s Transnational Activism: Identity and Sisterhood between the World Wars discusses the increasing non-Western presence in international women’s organizations, including the IAW, in the 1930s, which served to shift the agendas to focus more on non–Euro-American news. Additionally, international women’s conferences shifted to locations outside Europe, such at the 1935 IAW conference that was held in Istanbul, which was considered to be a bridge between the East and West. See Sandell, The Rise of Women’s Transnational Activism, 87–89.

286 nine affiliates throughout Syria and Lebanon, welcomed Corbett Ashby during her visit to the region.845 Because the AFU was an affiliate member of the IAW, the former—and its activities in the Levant—was important to the latter. In fact, the IAW wrote about the AFU’s first Arab

Feminist Congress in 1934, stating that the congress divided its work into various committees addressing pressing concerns in the region.846 Among these groups was a public health committee, which sought women’s participation in municipal legislation concerning public morality and which specifically requested the removal of brothels. A separate committee addressed the trafficking of women and children and the suppression of drugs. Its actions included the sending of a letter to the authorities regarding prostitution that received the attention of the Director of Quarantine Services and the Colonial Office of Political Affairs.847

Unfortunately, the specific contents of the letter and the authorities’ official response to it are unknown.848

Furthermore, Hamada’s affiliation with the IAW waned during this period, as she became a widow in 1932 and then subsequently moved to the United States for several years, where she remained active with the local Syrian community.849 Hamada’s activism eventually brought her to the League, as a 1938 report identifies her as being one of three representatives from the

“Superior Council of the Alliance for the General Oriental Women [sic]” to the Committee on

845 N. A., “Beirut,” International Woman Suffrage News 29, no. 6 (1935): 49. The AFU was listed as an official affiliate of the IAW in 1934, and Ibtihaj Kaddourah of Beirut, President of the AFU, was listed as the contact. 846 N. A., “Syrie: Résume d’un rapport du Congrès de l’Union féministe arabe,” International Woman Suffrage News 28, no. 10 (1934): 78–79. 847 N. A., “Syrie: Résume d’un rapport du Congrès de l’Union féministe arabe,” 78–79. 848 The CADN only had the cover letter from the Direction des Affairs Politiques requesting attention to the matter. 849 A photo of Hamada appears above the caption “East is West” in a dinner held in Baltimore in honor of Susan B. Anthony on February 15, 1934. It reads “Princess Nour Hamada Bey of Beirut, Syria, Founder and President of the General Oriental Women’s Alliance.” The title “princess” most likely comes from Orientalist ideas about the East, as Hamada was Druze and did not hold such titles in Syria. In the article, Hamada proclaimed the value in women’s global solidarity as “sisters . . . each in our own country . . . (can) . . . make true, over all the world a vision.” N. A., “East Is West,” Equal Rights 20, no. 4 (1934): 25.

287 the Status of Women meeting that was held in Geneva that year.850 While Hamada represented an individual bridge between Beirut, Syria and the world, other such bridges included not only other individuals, but social welfare organizations as well, such as the YWCA.

Avril de Sainte-Croix, who, as mentioned above, represented the IAW to the League’s

Trafficking in Women and Children Committee, acknowledged the YWCA’s successful expansion from Britain in 1855 into many countries premised on its goals of being the social and moral protector of women and girls around the world.851 In fact, the YWCA credited itself as having served in a critical capacity in Syria and Asia Minor during World War I. E. I. M. Boyd, writing on the organization’s efforts during the Great War, praised the unique position the

YWCA was in to document atrocities carried out against Armenian women and children, yet warned that the organization itself was simultaneously threatened with extinction due to its close association with Christian populations.852 Ruth Woodsmall, the Executive Secretary of the

YWCA in the Near East, characterized the relationship of her branch to the YWCA in Beirut as different from the relationship of her branch with the branches in Smyrna, Adana, and

Constantinople because Syrians expressed reluctance to what they considered to be foreign assistance, being “acutely sensitive to the invasion of new ideas if in any way this casts an aspersion on their own independent development.”853 Yet, she saw her organization as being in a position to meet a unique need in the region, “laying foundations for a woman’s movement soon

850 Erica Butler Bowden, “The League of Nations Committee on the Status of Women Holds Initial Meeting in Geneva, Switzerland,” Equal Rights 24, no. 9 (1938): 251–252. Naima Hanafy of Egypt and Bedir Hentis of Syria were the two other representatives from the “Superior Council.” 851 League of Nations Advisory Commission for the Protection and Welfare of Children and Young People, Traffic in Women and Children Committee, Minutes of the Ninth Session. July 20, 1930. C.246.M.121.1930.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 30. 852 E. I. M Boyd, “The World’s Young Women’s Christian Association during the War,” International Woman Suffrage News 11, no. 6 (1917): 81. He served as a member of the YWCA’s Executive Committee and as the editor of the International Women’s Quarterly. 853 Ruth Woodsmall, “YWCA Centres in the Near East,” International Woman Suffrage News 16, no. 2. (1921): iii.

288 to be independent of foreign leadership.”854 This assertion aligns with Patricia Lorcin’s research findings on European missions in Algeria. She states that French “settler feminists” sought to educate indigenous women on feminist causes so that Algerian women could self-implement the feminist agenda.855 As she argues, feminists in the metropole and colony both realized the importance of indigenous women to the civilizing mission.856 This process can be seen through the development of the YWCA from a purely Western entity to one that established and sustained a local branch in Beirut throughout the French occupation. In 1922, the YWCA began classes in two Beirut factories where women and girls worked in order to occupy them during their leisure time.857 This endeavor expanded into other types of training programs in language, hygiene, childcare, and crafts. In the 1930s, the YWCA and the CWL coordinated their efforts, with Najla Cortas of the AUB spearheading the endeavor on the “problems of social delinquents.”858 The considerations of the YWCA included “factory girls,” “beggars,”

“prostitutes,” and “night school for girls.” The association of factory girls with sex work shows the fragile life which working-class women were perceived to lead.

In 1931, members from the YWCA in Beirut met with Alison Neilans, the face of the

British organization known as the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene (AMSH), which was concerned with issues of social purity. Neilans, who was positioned as an institutional figure

854 The book The Dawn Wind: A Picture of Changing Conditions among the Women in Africa by Olive Wyon claims that the YWCA created “inter-racial harmony” in Syria, a region plagued by “racial friction.” Olive Wyon, The Dawn Wind: A Picture of Changing Conditions among the Women in Africa (London: Student Christian Movement Press, 1931). 855 Lorcin, Historicizing Colonial Nostalgia, 130. 856 This reflects the complicated process of colonial hierarchies, where colonial settler women held a higher status than indigenous women. Such stratification is seen in the fact that the French colonial government permitted French women the right to vote in municipal elections while not recognizing the citizenship of colonized women. In Rieder’s reporting on the progress of suffrage in Syria, she stated that “there is a little more hope for the woman in Syria under the French Mandate, now that at last the French woman seems to be given at least the municipal vote.” E. F. Rieder, “Correspondence,” International Woman Suffrage News 19, no. 10 (1925): 157. 857 N. A., “Industrial Girls in Syria,” International Woman Suffrage News 23, no. 7 (1929): ii. 858 Civic Welfare League, “C.W.S. Project for 1937–1938,” SLA CWLY 1937/1938. AA.4.3.5. AAUB. Beirut, Lebanon.

289 seeking to monitor the international trafficking of women and children, ardently opposed the double standard in sexual morality that was reinforced under regulated prostitution. She advocated the employment of female police officers in the hopes that they would provide more humane treatment to sex workers who came into contact with law enforcement. On February 27,

1935, she gave a speech in Westminster on British “sexual slavery” in the colonies, where she articulated her ideas on the need for both sexes to adhere to the same moral standards, and that prostitution, pornography, and venereal disease existed as products of a society that failed to accept its Christian moral responsibilities.859 So it is not surprising that she had earlier decided to travel to Syria and Lebanon, where she stayed from October to December 1931. While her initial motivation for going to the region included conducting an investigation and engaging in a propaganda campaign against prostitution, she limited her ambitions to the latter due to logistical constraints. She observed that the movement against French policies had already begun, even if it was still in its infancy, and that her trip, in conjunction with the activities of the Bourj Mission, would further pave the way to alter public opinion on prostitution. Yet, at the same time, she lamented that “Damascus was untouched ground so far as abolition is concerned.” On the positive side, she noted that, while the “subject had never been discussed by anyone before,” people seemed to be interested in it. 860 Her claim is highly unlikely to have been true, due to the mere fact that the inaugural General Conference of Muslim Women from the East had been held in the city in 1930, only one year prior to her visit.

859 Helen Rappoport, “Neilans, Alison,” in Encyclopedia of Women Social Reformers (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC- CLIO, 2001), 481–482. 860 Alison Neilans, “Summary of My Activities in Syria, October 26 – December 8, 1931.” AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. She notes that a representative from the Bishop of London’s Armenian Appeal Fund made preliminary arrangements for her in Syria. This fund facilitated the rescue of Armenian women and children after the Genocide.

290

During her time in Aleppo, which in her opinion had a more organized opposition than

Damascus to France’s policies, Neilans met with Karen Jeppe, who was heavily involved with aiding Near East refugees (see Chapter Four), and with various Armenian pastors in addition to other members of the Armenian community in order to gain insight from their experiences. She noted the differing policing practices of sex workers in Beirut as compared to Aleppo with regard to the practice of debt bondage of sex workers to madams, or brothel managers.861 In the former location, police were required to relieve sex workers from any debt if the worker expressed a “genuine” desire to leave the profession; yet in the latter location, workers had to repay their debts prior to leaving the brothel. This inconsistent policy contradicted French statements that workers were able to leave their profession at any time and that “debts contracted toward the tenanciers [were] not recognized.”862 Furthermore, she observed that sex workers caught practicing clandestinely under the age of 18 were routinely sent to religious or benevolent institutions, while those above the permitted age faced incarceration and were forced into registering with authorities.863

While Neilans noted in her report that the French administration seemed welcoming and open to her visit, others did not share her view. Irene Soltau asked Neilans not to publish her propaganda report regarding her trip to Syria and Lebanon in the Shield, an organ of the IAF.

861 Alison Neilans, “My Activities in Syria (Draft Only: Subject to Revision), Part II: Observations and Suggestions.” AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 862 The use of the term “inmate” when referring to sex workers residing in brothels is instrumental. The 1932 report provided to the League cited the exploitation of debts as a basis for trafficking of women. An unnamed missionary stated that a sex worker in the occupation for twelve years accrued debt to a brothel owner in Tripoli, who sold her to a brothel owner in Beirut. Left unexamined were the twelve years prior, whether the “inmate” felt that she entered the profession by force, or whether she wanted to leave the profession altogether. League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, Report to the Council. December 10, 1932. C.849.M.393.1932.IV: 93. Geneva, Switzerland. The term “inmates” being synonymous with women working in brothels is commonplace in the reports published during this period. 863 Alison Neilans, “My Activities in Syria (Draft Only: Subject to Revision), Part II: Observations and Suggestions.” AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 291

According to one account of Soltau’s admonitions, Neilans’s “visit to Syria did harm rather than good, because the French deeply resent such propaganda work by the English.”864 Yet according to Neilans, the Arabic press took interest in her visit, wanting to publish her speech at the

“Beyrout [sic] University,” which was presumably the AUB.865 Whether this AUB speech actually took place and, if so, how it was received, is currently unknown.866 The French government’s suspicions of Neilans, however, would only have increased had it learned of her correspondence with Margaret Nixon, Government Welfare Inspector in Palestine, to solicit the latter’s advice on the AMSH’s upcoming report on sex work in the Levant. Furthermore, Neilans inquired whether Nixon could leverage her position when meeting with the League’s Travelling

Commission in order to pressure France on the fact that the legal age of sex workers was 18 in

Syria, when the League had placed it at 21 (presumably, with the hope that France would raise the age limit).867 In the end, Neilans concluded that the AMSH’s “plans may not have been the best for Syria” due to the fact that it was perceived by those working on abolitionism within

864 Letter from Alison Neilans to Rev. J. H. Nicol, The American Mission, Beyrout [sic], January 30, 1932. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 865 Letter from Alison Neilans to Miss M. Nixon, January 27, 1932. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 866 I could not locate any articles related to this event in Arabic newspapers. I am thankful for the help of the AUB staff in the Archives and Special Collections of Jafet Library and Saab Medical Library for assisting me in my search. In a letter from Alison Neilans, she states that she never wrote an article for an A. S. Shehadi, editor of an Arabic language newspaper, although she sent him “various printed papers.” Letter from Miss Neilans to Miss Brade, June 28, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. Brade states that during her three- year tenure working in abolitionist efforts in Beirut that, “even Egypt has not used the Arabic press to the extent that we have done.” Letter from Miss Brade to Miss Neilans, July 14, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 867 Letter from Alison Neilans to Miss Nixon, January 27, 1932. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. It seems as though the French authorities were not the only ones resentful of Neilans’s visit to the region. As Neilans stated to Nixon, she felt like she was regarded as an interloper, especially by the Syrian Mission run by Reverend Nicol. In a subsequent letter to Nixon, she asks for the report on Syria to be kept confidential. Letter from Alison Neilans to Miss Nixon, March 7, 1932. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. Whatever his private sentiments may have been, Nicol wrote to Miss Sawbridge to state that Neilans’s visit improved cooperation among abolitionists and that there existed “tangible results at the time of her visit.” Syrian Letters of Mr. James H. Nicol, Chairman of the Syrian Mission (Beyrout [sic]) to Miss Sawbridge, October 14, 1932. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England.

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Syria and by the French authorities to be foreigners interfering in others’ business.868 As the

French government vis-à-vis the League had made frequent references to its objection to foreign interference in domestic affairs as it pertained to regulated prostitution, Neilans was most likely correct in her assertion.

Neilans’s characterization of sex workers in the Levant was reminiscent of other reports on those working in the trade. In her summary to the AMSH, Neilans employed rhetoric that harkens back to Parent-Duchâtelet’s infamous analogy of the treatment of the sex work industry to that of sewage. He stated: “Prostitutes are just as inevitable in an urban district as are sewers, dumps, and refuse heaps. The authorities should take the same approach to each.”869 Neilans’s declaration of the “repulsive features” of licensed sex work characterized it as “a recognised part of the city’s sewerage.” She articulated what she saw as the dehumanizing factors of regulation that played on women’s primal survival instincts for food and shelter. Furthermore, she underscored the stunted mentality of women engaging in the industry, as the majority of them did not show any desire to leave licensed houses or “exhibit any emotion at all regarding their position.” In this regard, she equated them with children in their mentality, assuming that they

868 Letter from Miss Neilans to Miss Sawbridge. July 3, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. In this letter, Neilans attempts to convince Sawbridge that they should not fund Bourj activities in Syria, particularly the salary for Miss Brade, who left the Bourj to work at the Junior College due to not being able to renew the contract on her abolitionist work. It appears that the dissolving relationship between the Bourj and the AMSH largely commenced due to personal differences between Neilans and Nicol. Initially, the AMSH proposed to fund Miss Brade for £50 for a period of three years but Neilans alleges that miscommunication on the part of Nicol resulted in this funding not ultimately arriving. Yet, in another letter to Nicol, she confirms the payment for the “abolition of the tolerated houses in Beirut.” Letter from Miss Neilans to Mr. Nicol, July 18, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. In fact, Neilans confirmed that the £50 allocated was not to pay off past debts of the Bourj Mission but to fund new activities. Letter from Miss Neilans to Mrs. Nicol. May 18, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. The tensions between Nicol and Neilans is clear in their correspondence, as he refutes her assessment and vaguely critiques her for being obstructionist in funding the Bourj Mission’s work. Letter from James H. Nicol to Miss Neilans. May 29, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. In the end, it appears that Neilans paid Brade directly to continue her abolitionist work independent of the Bourj Mission. Letter from Alison Neilans to Miss Brade. July 12, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 869 Jean-Baptiste Parent-Duchâtelet as quoted by Donald Reid in Paris Sewers and Sewermen: Realities and Representations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 23.

293 were devoid of interests. She placed the blame, though, not on the women themselves but on the system for rendering them that way, that was, as “machines.” At the same time, she also equated their behavior to that of the elderly, remarking on how they lacked physical vitality and that their bodies were atrophied from use and in a state of constant inertia, as they were “interested only in creature comforts.” For her, the tragedy lied in how the state apparatus had diminished the life of girls “in the very prime of their young womanhood.” In her words, “they are passive, inert, joyless—in fact all but dead.” 870 Several years later, the League’s Advisory Committee on

Social Questions arrived at similar conclusions. In its 1943 publication on the prevention of prostitution, it described sex workers’ “mental habitus” as “drab,” “poorly equipped by nature,” and “predestined to mediocrity which is neither interesting, nor thrilling . . . but sad, colourless, and deserving of pity.”871

Lorna Brade from the Bourj Mission served as the primary facilitator for Neilans’s trip to

Syria and Lebanon. The Bourj Mission, active since 1928, became well positioned to facilitate international discussions on sex work in the region, as the organization comprised one of the very few entities consulted by the League’s Travelling Commission in 1932.872 In fact, Neilans explained in her report that the Bourj Mission formed a preparatory group with the YWCA, university professors, and American and Syrian doctors in anticipation of the League’s visit.873

This group aimed to survey and gather information in order to make a solid case against

870 Alison Neilans, “My Activities in Syria (Draft Only: Subject to Revision), Part II: Observations and Suggestions.” AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 871 League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Prevention of Prostitution: A Study of Measures Adopted or Under Consideration Particularly with Regard to Minors (Geneva: League of Nations, 1943), 47. 872 Irene Soltau, active in the CWL at the AUB, also served on the Executive Committee of the Bourj Mission, along with the wife of Stuart Dodd, another AUB professor referenced in the present chapter. 873 Alison Neilans, “Summary of My Activities in Syria, October 26 – December 8, 1931.” AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. A follow-up letter to Neilans from Elizabeth S. Webb of the American Mission states that, while Neilans tried to solicit university professors to take the lead on formulating a report to the League, her efforts did not bear fruit. Instead, the Bourj Mission and the YWCA organized the group. Letter from Elizabeth S. Webb to Miss Neilans, January 25, 1932. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England.

294 regulated prostitution. Based on annual reports produced by the Bourj Mission, which began its activities in November 1928, when a group of approximately twenty Syrians, Armenians,

French, Danish, British, Swiss, and Americans gathered in Beirut to discuss what they thought was declining morality in the city, “the seemingly unlimited practice of prostitution in the segregated district in the center of the town” provided the impulse behind the gathering.874

Precarity among the Rescuers: The Bourj Mission and the “Beyhum Committee”

The Beirut-based Bourj Executive Committee’s explicit intention involved reforming both those who practiced sex work and those who purchased it. Based on numbers furnished to the

Committee by the colonial authorities, an estimated ten thousand to twelve thousand men purchased sex every night from the six hundred registered women in the city, half of whom lived in maisons de tolérance. To address the demand side of the equation, the Bourj Mission established a room in the reserved quarter called “The Lighthouse” to reform procurers. Through their efforts, the Committee claimed to have reached an average of 133 men per night from all classes, religions, and ages; some were as young as 12 years old.875 As Saturdays, Sundays, and

Mondays constituted the highest traffic days in the reserved quarter of Beirut, Lighthouse administrators ensured that their staff members were positioned to intervene, including inviting

“Moslem Sheikhs” to counsel men by appealing to their faith.876 Syrians comprised most of the people coming to the Lighthouse, so the director, Habib Salih Shartooni, presented educational materials from the Qur’an, the Hebrew Bible, and the New Testament, as well as medical

874 First Annual Report of the Bourj Mission and House of Hope, 1929–1930 (Beirut: American Press, 1930), 1. Archives of the Near East School of Theology (ANEST). Beirut, Lebanon. I would like to thank Christine Lindner who, during her time as the project director there, pointed out the Bourj Annual Reports in the School’s collection. Her direction provided the inspiration for my thesis topic. 875 First Annual Report of the Bourj Mission and House of Hope, 1929–1930 (Beirut: American Press, 1930), 3. ANEST. Beirut, Lebanon. 876 Report of the Fourth Year of the Bourj Mission and Preventative Work for Girls, March 1, 1932 – February 28, 1933 (Beirut: American Press, 1933), 4. ANEST. Beirut, Lebanon.

295 information from the American Health Movement in Arabic, Armenian, and French. The Bourj

Mission reports provided anecdotal information on the all-consuming effects of vice, as people spent all their earnings on sex and alcohol, living in “slavery” by “pouring all their earnings into the licensed houses night after night for years.” Those who proved receptive to the interventions described “the freedom which has come to them through what they have learned at the

Lighthouse.”877

On the supply side, the Women’s Committee of the Bourj Mission saw fit to address a gap in the organization’s services through the creation of a rescue home called the House of Hope.

After the police detained girls soliciting sex on streets and in cafés or operating out of small hotels illegally, they sent them to licensed houses, as no other option appeared to be available.878

The transitional facility was established in July 1929 by the Bourj Mission in Zuq Mikha‘il near

Juniya. This rescue home accommodated twelve girls and staff members, and it was first perceived by sex workers as a detention center, according to the Mission’s report.879 The initiative met with limited success, with only seventeen people, averaging seventeen years of age, ever entering the House over an eight-month period. It proved to be a short-lived endeavor.

The organizers attributed this to the recalcitrance of the sex workers, who “are professionalized and are not easy to change.”880 However, they did claim to have some success, with one

877 Second Annual Report of the Bourj Mission and Preventative Work for Girls, 1930–1931 (Beirut: American Press, 1931), 2. ANEST. Beirut, Lebanon. 878 First Annual Report of the Bourj Mission and House of Hope, 1929–1930 (Beirut: American Press, 1930), 6. ANEST. Beirut, Lebanon. To put the situation in Lebanon and Syria into perspective, the Greek authorities used the lack of halfway houses as a rationale for keeping brothels legal. In 1927, the Greek Ministry of the Interior reported to the League that the government authorized the opening of new brothels “exclusively for women so morally degraded that it was difficult for them to continue to live in any class of society, and Greece has no special homes for the confinement of such persons.” League of Nations, Abstract of the Report from Governments on the System of Licensed Houses as Related to Traffic in Women and Children. December 8, 1927. CTFE336(1)1927.IV.14. Geneva, Switzerland: 26. 879 Ibid. 880 Ibid., 6–7. In Gretchen Soderlund’s work on the contemporary rescue industry, she demonstrates that women often flee the safe homes, perceiving them to be another form of incarceration, rejecting notions of protection and rehabilitation. Soderlund, “Running from the Rescuers,” 66–67. As there are no documents attesting to sex workers’

296 reformed worker being “happily married,” another returning to her parents, and several others being under the counsel of their priest. To extend their reach, the Women’s Committee had collaborated with the Beirut Police Unit to go to hospitals in an effort to help more women and girls and bring them to the House, though the report alleges that some police officials may have been “in collusion with the house matrons.”881 Attempts to increase the effectiveness of the

House of Hope included the hiring of a probation officer and graduate of the Josephine Butler

School in England to manage the House’s affairs and the Bourj Mission’s outreach efforts.882

This individual was the same Lorna Brade who had escorted Neilans around Beirut during her trip to the city. However, the Mission suspended its work at the House of Hope and decided to concentrate Brade’s efforts on other areas of prevention due to financial constraints.883 As part of this new initiative, the Mission created what it called “study circles,” three in English and one in

Arabic, of approximately forty women each to educate themselves on the global phenomenon of sex work, venereal disease, various legal structures applicable to the sex trade, the causes of prostitution, and the actual conditions in what the report refers to as “Beirut and Syria.”884

Propaganda constituted an important piece of abolitionist strategy to change public opinion on legalized sex work.885 The Bourj Mission made this an integral part of their work, inviting

perceptions of rescue houses during the French Mandate, it is unknown whether women during this time period held similar perspectives, but it may be inferred due to the lack of success of such houses in attracting women. 881 Ibid., 7. 882 Ibid., 10. 883 Second Annual Report of the Bourj Mission and Preventative Work for Girls, 1930–1931 (Beirut: American Press, 1931), 3. ANEST. Beirut, Lebanon. According to their third annual report covering 1931–1932, the Bourj Mission opened a more modest house in Beirut that could house six people at a time. 884Second Annual Report of the Bourj Mission and Preventative Work for Girls, 1930–1931 (Beirut: American Press, 1931), 3. ANEST. Beirut, Lebanon. I refer to “Beirut and Syria,” as this is how it is written in the report, which probably references Lebanon, which at this time is still often referred to as “Syria.” 885 These efforts were not limited to the colonial framework in the greater Mediterranean region. Sabiha Zekeriya Sertel used her position as a journalist to attempt to alter Turkish policy on regulating prostitution. In her view, as reiterated by feminist abolitionists of her time, this entailed ending female financial dependency by way of increasing employment opportunities in respectable professions. A. Holly Shissler, “Womanhood Is Not for Sale: Sabiha Zekeriya Sertel against Prostitution and for Women’s Employment,” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 4, no. 3 (2008): 26. Furthermore, the short-lived Society for the Employment of Ottoman Muslim Women,

297 press into the Lighthouse to cover the types of engagement that their employees used with those involved in the sex industry. Its efforts paid off, with increasing regional attention being paid to the issue, in addition to coverage in Le Relèvement social providing international consideration in a global arena dominated by news about Europe.886 Probably due to the Bourj Mission’s successful campaigning, the League selected some of its members to be interviewed in an unofficial capacity by its 1931–1932 Travelling Commission.887 The Commission visited the

Lighthouse, commenting on the uniqueness of the project and reporting that “Beirut is the only place where they have found such a Mission carried on in the midst of a segregated district.”888

In addition, the Beirut Vigilance Committee, which comprised groups such as the

Federation of Women’s Clubs, the Society for the Protection of Young Girls, the YWCA, and the Bourj Mission, used the collaborative efforts of its member groups to draw further public attention to vice in the city by means of a campaign, and it prepared a report for the League’s

Travelling Commission.889 The public awareness campaign, which was conducted at the grassroots level, involved tea parties where members would invite friends “of various nationalities” to discuss the situation in Beirut and the efforts being made to abolish legalized sex

which was established in 1916, instrumentalized efforts to find employment for Muslim women in order for them to be able to earn a respectable living. Yavuz Selim Karakışla, Women, War and Work in the Ottoman Empire: Society for the Employment of Muslim Women, 1916–23 (Istanbul: Osmanlı Bankası Arşiv ve Araştırma Merkezi, 2005), 54. 886 Second Annual Report of the Bourj Mission and Preventative Work for Girls, 1930–1931 (Beirut: American Press, 1931), 4. ANEST. Beirut, Lebanon. Le Relèvement social is a publication of La Ligue pour le relèvement de la moralité publique, which was founded in 1883 in France to protect morality, and it focused on the perils of prostitution, gambling, and alcohol. 887 League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, Report to the Council, December 10, 1932. C.849.M.393.1932.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 508. 888 Report of the Third Year of the Bourj Mission and Preventative Work for Girls, March 1, 1931 – February 29, 1932 (Beirut: American Press, 1932), 2. ANEST. Beirut, Lebanon. 889 Ibid., 3–4; League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, Report to the Council, December 10, 1932. C.849.M.393.1932.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 507–508, 517–518. The Bourj report lists Mrs. Rashid Rishany, Chairman of the Women’s Committee, Miss R. C. Fitzpatrick, member of the Executive Committee, and Mrs. James H. Nicol as other members who represented the Bourj Mission within the Beirut Vigilance Committee (7). Reverend James H. Nicol, husband of one of the representatives, allegedly gave a speech in 1908 claiming that Muslims would “devour” Christians, which led to protests by Muslim and Jewish students at the AUB that resulted in a strike. Betty S. Anderson, The American University of Beirut: Arab Nationalism and Liberal Education (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011), 86.

298 work.890 The Bourj Mission eventually became disenchanted with the work of the Beirut

Vigilance Committee, with one of its members referring to the latter as “a piece of machinery without executive power—rather weak and wobbly—just a federation of societies.”891 Brade, who, as we saw, worked for the Mission, further characterized the organization as possessing “as much initiative as a stuffed pig.”892 Without any apparent irony, Brade acknowledged that the more effective abolitionist work was being done by a small group chaired by the Muslim activist she referred to as “Jamail Bey Beyhum [sic],” who sought membership in the Beirut Vigilance

Committee yet did not appear to have ever been included in the Christian organization.893

Bayhum’s group included a diverse set of interested abolitionists of “all sects and religions, and both men and women.”894 Unfortunately, there are scant records of this particular group or its activities, though the person being referenced is Muhammad Jamil Bayhum, a prominent

890 Ibid., 4. 891 Letter from Miss Brade to Miss Neilans, June 30, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. Despite this characterization made by Brade, the Treasurer of the Bourj Mission stated that they would continue their work with the Vigilance Committee, as it seemed that the AMSH had shifted its attention away from the Bourj to the Vigilance Committee’s activities. Letter from James H. Nicol to Miss Alison Brade, May 29, 1933; Letter from James H. Nicol to Miss Alison Neilans, May 29, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. Brade indicated in 1934 that she resumed a partnership with the Vigilance Committee in order to help in the translation of the League’s “La Traite des femmes devant la Societé des Nations” into Arabic. She notes the omission of the “law” section from the pamphlet, which, in part, was due to being “far too subtle for the Syrian public.” Letter from Miss Brade to Miss Neilans. February 4, 1934. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. It could be that Brade, no longer being under contract with the Bourj, spoke frankly to Neilans about her characterization of the situation in Beirut and, therefore, may not have been accurately reflecting the organization’s official perspective. 892 Letter from L. E. Brade to Miss Neilans, May 21, 1934. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 893 In a letter from J. H. Nicol to Miss Sawbridge, Nicol stated that “one of the most prominent Moslem men of the city” decided to participate in abolitionist efforts and sought to enlist the “Young Men’s Moslem Society” in the cause. “Syria Letters,” Mr. J. H. Nicol to Miss Sawbridge, January 13, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. Another letter from Elizabeth Webb, Secretary of the Bourj Mission, to Neilans, identifies the prominent Muslim man as “Jemeil Beyhum Beg [sic],” who asked to join the Vigilance Committee to be told by “the ladies” of the Committee that they would need to first consult their respective organizations. Brade did not want publicity given to the matter, as it might prevent a broader coalition from happening. “Syria Letters.” Mis Elizabeth Webb (Hon. Secretary, Bourj Mission, Beyrout [sic]) to Miss Neilans, January 21, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. This reference is to the prominent nationalist and anti-Zionist Muhammad Jamil Bayhum, who was an open critic of the colonial administration. 894 Letter from L. E. Brade to Miss Neilans. November 9, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. Brade notes that there were four doctors, a lawyer, teacher, a businessman and some women, “all of different religions.”

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Beirut Sunni who staunchly critiqued colonial policies and could have instrumentalized abolitionism as part of his anticolonial efforts.895 After her work with the Bourj Mission, Brade, who was still being funded by the AMSH, went to work in conjunction with what she referenced as the “Beyhum [sic] Committee,” which comprised “all Syrians [who] may do as they think fit” and who did not let their actions be dictated by external parties. Brade characterized the group as being in a good position to interact with French authorities and “take any necessary steps” toward abolitionism.896 In what can only be characterized as an imperial tone, Neilans informed

Brade in a letter that the AMSH was funding her position to work with the Bayhum Committee so that she could be “on equal terms” with the “Syrian group,” and instructed Brade “to keep them straight on Abolitionist principles.”897 In a gesture of cooperation, Neilans wrote a letter to

“Jamil Beg Beyhum [sic]” citing the AMSH’s long abolitionist credentials, including the fact that it had founded the British abolitionist movement, and used them as grounds for asking his permission to accept Brade into his committee. Brade told Neilans that she would not do the work without Bayhum’s explicit permission. In the letter to Bayhum, Neilans placed stipulations on her willingness to let Brade work with the Bayhum Committee, informing Bayhum that Brade should be given an official designation “such as Hon. Organising Secretary.” 898 Bayhum agreed to the arrangements and appointed Brade as the Committee’s secretary, and he stated that the two

895 In the book Reviving Phoenicia: The Search for Identity in Lebanon, Asher Kaufman states that during the Mandate period, Bayhum “stood out as . . . a devoted adversary of the French mandate and a dedicated activist in various Islamic associations and clubs.” Asher Kaufman, Reviving Phoenicia: The Search for Identity in Lebanon (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2004), 226. 896 Letter from Brade to Miss Neilans, July 18, 1933; Letter from James H. Nicol to Miss Alison Neilans, May 29, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 897 Letter from Alison Neilans to Miss Brade, July 18, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 898 Letter from Alison Neilans to “Beyhum Beg,” July 18, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England.

300 of them had previously worked together in Egypt and that he had found Brade’s work to be exemplary.899

While commencing on a promising note of cooperation, the Bayhum Committee soon fell into a state of disagreement. First, tensions existed within the group because some members wanted it to be a national society while others wanted it to remain international in its composition. In her correspondence, Neilans addressed this issue by stating that the members could call themselves “Syrian” or “Syrian and Lebanese,” as it did “not really mean anything” and will “stop any ill-feeling” among Committee members.900 Second, there were other indications that the effectiveness of the group was starting to decrease. In several letters to

Neilans, Brade complained that “Beyhum [sic] and Co. say they can do nothing” until the French authorities provide permission for them to exist as a committee. She wrote that she felt

“snubbed” by other Committee members, presumably due to her outspokenness.901 As a result,

Brade decided in future meetings to “lie low, however long and purposeless the discussions are,” charging that the meetings went on too long without accomplishing anything substantial.902 In her characterization of events, “it is difficult to keep to the point very often as there is frequently no point to keep to.”903 Brade’s sense of frustration grew to such an extent that she felt compelled to ask for the resignation of Bayhum himself from the Committee if he could not apply more pressure on the colonial authorities to have the French government officially

899 Unsigned letter to Miss Lorna Brade, August 30, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 900 Letter from L. E. Brade to Miss Neilans. November 9, 1933; Letter from Alison Neilans to Miss Brade. November 29, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 901 Letter from Miss Brade to Miss Neilans, February 4, 1934. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 902 Letter from Alison Neilans to Miss Brade, November 29, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 903 Letter from L. E. Brade to Miss Neilans, November 9, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England.

301 recognize the organization. The Committee eventually dissolved, after a brief lifespan of one year, leaving no evidence of its activities after 1934.904 However, the Bayhum Committee was not the only abolitionist and rescue organization in Beirut to fall on hard times. At around the same time, the Bourj Mission scaled back its activities due to a lack of funding.

It is unknown how long the Bourj Mission was actually able to endure, as the final annual report in 1933 stated that the organization lacked funds and, therefore, had to discontinue employing Brade and funding the rescue work that she led, though it also stated that, due to the effective propaganda value of the Lighthouse, this work would continue for another year.905

Numerous correspondences between members of the Bourj Mission and the AMSH, particularly

Neilans, verify that the active campaigning had placed the organization into an unsustainable debt. While the Bourj Mission solicited funds from the AMSH to continue its work, its efforts were unsuccessful. One possible reason for this failure to further solicit funding was the apparent underlying tension between the organization and the AMSH that had slowly bubbled to the surface. The Protestant women of the Bourj Mission felt that abolitionist work distracted them from their mission to prevent prostitution and rescue those within the industry.906 While rescue work constituted part of the overall abolitionist strategy, the Bourj Mission felt that abolitionism

904 Brade said: “When you have a Chairman who does not call a meeting and a secretary who does not send out notices and members who do not turn up, it is not very clear what there is that one can do.” Letter from L. E. Brade to Miss Neilans, May 29, 1934. She confirms the discontinuance of the Committee due to inactivity in a subsequent letter. Letter from L. E. Brade to Miss Neilans, December 14, 1934. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 905 Report of the Fourth Year of the Bourj Mission and Preventative Work for Girls, March 1, 1932 – February 28, 1933 (Beirut: American Press, 1933), 1–4. ANEST. Beirut, Lebanon. 906 Letter from Miss Brade to Miss Neilans, June 30, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. As Brade states, “They [the women of the Bourj Mission] feel (and have always felt) that although they are interested, they do not want to be responsible for abolition work . . . while they continue[d] with what they are really keen on-the personal rescue work.” In a relatively unrelated letter, Neilans affirmed that the AMSH did not conduct rescue work, and that it focused strictly on abolitionism, as rescue work would take all of the AMSH’s “finances and all our energy. We are obliged to confine ourselves to the abolitionist aspect of things, while realizing of course the great need for the work of personal rescue.” Here, Neilans was clearly stating that rescue work is part of the abolitionist strategy, but that AMSH focused on the propaganda side. Letter from Alison Neilans to Elizabeth Webb of the American Mission in Beirut, October 11, 1934. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England.

302 exacted a toll on their organization, rendering them unable to accomplish their central rescue mission.907 Yet the treasurer of the organization simultaneously claimed that the continuity of the work at the Lighthouse was essential “as being one of the most effective means for keeping the whole problem of prostitution and the necessity for its abolition before the eyes of the people of

Beirut.”908 Furthermore, seemingly feeling threatened that the AMSH sought to fund the Beirut

Vigilance Committee’s work instead of that of the Bourj Mission, the treasurer claimed that their organization constituted the “most active and aggressive group which is attacking this evil of prostitution in Beirut with a view to abolitionism.”909

While the House of Hope rescue home ceased to exist under the auspices of the Bourj

Executive Committee, the work of the Lighthouse continued, though without the financial support of the AMSH and Neilans. As of July 1, 1934, the Committee voted to focus its energies on propaganda by preparing abolitionist literature and pamphlets about the dangers of prostitution “with efforts for social and moral betterment” in Syria.910 Elizabeth Webb, writing on behalf of the Bourj Mission as its secretary, phrased it in the following way: “[We] gave up active work because we felt that the time had come for the people of the country to take it up.”

Yet, with regret, she states that “their [Syrian] societies have been too short-lived to accomplish much.” Therefore, hope for continuing abolitionist efforts rested on “Mrs. Rishani” and her

907 Stephanie Limoncelli states that there existed tensions between feminist and Christian organizations, the latter preferring to conduct their rescue work in silence. Stephanie A. Limoncelli, “International Voluntary Associations, Local Social Movements and State Path to the Abolition of Regulated Prostitution in Europe, 1875–1950,” International Sociology 21, no. 1 (2006): 49. 908 Letter from James H. Nicol to Miss Alison Neilans, May 29, 1933. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 909 Ibid. 910 Letter from E. S. Webb to Miss Neilans, October 25, 1934. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. Escher makes his appearance here as well. The Bourj Committee decided to publish, in Arabic, a pamphlet produced by Escher to be distributed through the Rescue Mission.

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Beirut Vigilance Committee, the very organization derided by Brade. 911 The future of foreign- organized abolitionist groups in Beirut seemed bleak.

The League’s Travelling Commission Comes to the Levant

In the late 1920s, the anticipated League inquiry into trafficking in the East influenced the increasing public scrutiny of France’s regulationist system in the Levant. Harnessing the French declaration, mentioned above, that public policy would change in accordance with public opinion, abolitionist groups in the region met in preparation for the event and concentrated their efforts on public campaigns against regulated sex work, as seen with the Bourj Mission, the

Beirut Vigilance Committee, and the Bayhum Committee. Neilans’s report to the AMSH mentioned that women’s groups in Beirut were coordinating with one another in preparation for the meeting with League representatives, and the CWL began gathering documentation on trafficking in the region. While the official inquiry did not commence until October 1930, preparation began after the League’s Trafficking in Women and Children Committee in its eighth session, which was held on April 26, 1929, passed a resolution calling for the inquiry into trafficking in the East, a measure that the League’s Council decided to act upon. On June 12,

1929, the League’s Council directed the Secretary-General to inquire into the willingness of the governments in the Near, Middle, and Far East to cooperate with such an investigation.

Acknowledging that the participation of governments hinged on respecting national sovereignty, the League confined the inquiry strictly to international concerns regarding trafficking. After receiving $125,000 from the Bureau of Social Hygiene (BSH) in New York, the League officially sanctioned the investigation on May 14, 1930.

911 Letter from E. S. Webb to Miss Neilans, February 26, 1935. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England.

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Given the BSH’s substantial financial contribution to the inquiry, it is not surprising that it was Bascom Johnson, the director of the legal section of the American Association for Social

Hygiene (AASH), who chaired the League’s Travelling Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in

Women and Children in the East. Two other League members joined Johnson on the Travelling

Commission: Alma Sundquist, a physician from Sweden, and Karol Pindor, a counsellor of legation from Poland.912 Johnson informed the French High Commissioner in Beirut that, in addition to the core Travelling Commission members, Werner von Schmieden from the

Secretariat of the League and a stenographer would be present during inquiry activities. Johnson asked that the High Commissioner make all persons available who would be relevant to the inquiry, persons that he divided into two categories: governmental and voluntary representatives.

The list of individuals from the government included police and security prefects; vice-squad officers; immigration and emigration controllers, specifically those working on the entrance and exit of prostitutes from their quarters; health inspectors; and employment officers. The second category consisted of persons from a broad range of organizations, including philanthropic societies, missions, and voluntary societies working in the fields of youth protection, anti- trafficking, and abolitionism. 913 Noticeably, those who were the subjects of the inquiry remained absent from the interview list. The Travelling Commission’s seventeen-month inquiry led its members to Damascus for two days and Beirut for eight days from February 23 to March 4,

1932.914 The investigation placed importance on the Travelling Commission’s report’s broad dissemination to enlist the support of public opinion in both the East and the West, stating that

912 League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, Report to the Council, December 10, 1932. C.849.M.393.1932.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 3, 5, 12. 913 Letter from Bascom Johnson to the High Commissioner. Sumatra, October 13, 1931. 1SL/1/V/22. CADN. 914 League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, Report to the Council, December 10, 1932. C.849.M.393.1932.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 15–16.

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“free distribution to the missions, institutions and associations of most value to the cause, and to organs of publicity anxious to enlighten public opinion, should be arranged for.”915

In Beirut, groups gathered in anticipation of the Travelling Commission’s arrival. The

Beirut Vigilance Committee prepared a report that it presented to the Travelling Commission in

February 1932. The report outlined cases of national and international trafficking in the region, in addition to cases related to “artists” that were subsequently reprinted in the official report issued by the League. The reports can be characterized as vague at best. One account by a social worker from Beirut recounted the following event:

In October 1931, I called at the Licensed house of Marica Spitidon and enquired of a girl (whose name I do not know) about another Greek girl in house named Nietsha (sic). She told me that Nietsha had gone to Constantinople as an artiste. I had previously heard the same thing from the proprietress of a pension for foreign artistes (Georgette). I do not know if any “trafficker” was implicated in this, although doubtless the girl’s employment was arranged by [a] variety of agents, in the usual manner.916

In their attempt to construct a narrative to fit the League’s framework of trafficking, the few examples given by rescue organizations operating in the Levant lacked concrete evidence or any systematic verification of “trafficking.” What is surprising is that the League still used these narratives to support their case for the international condemnation of regulatory sex work, perhaps attesting to the lack of evidence they had to work with. The emphasis on the importance of empirical information to formulate public policy in the League, with the aspiration that it would alter colonial governance in the Levant, meant that the voluntary organizations felt compelled to produce cases to present to the Travelling Commission, whatever their accuracy

915 Ibid., 5. In a private correspondence between Alison Neilans and Margaret Nixon, Palestine’s Government Welfare Inspector, Neilans, questioned the effectiveness of the Travelling Commission’s visit, stating that it only stayed two days in Beirut “and did nothing else.” Letter from Alison Neilans to Miss Nixon, March 7, 1932. AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England. 916 Beirut Vigilance Committee, Report Presented to the Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, February 1932. SLA CWLY 1936/1937. AA.4.3.5. AAUB. Beirut, Lebanon.

306 may be. As George Egerton argues, in the League the particularities of the constructed “myth” were neither entirely true nor entirely false, and usually it was a combination of the two. What was critical to generating social and political momentum was “that the elements of the myth are perceived and embraced as true.”917 Abolitionists within the Levant relied on the perception of widespread trafficking as being the reality in order to alter public opinion and, ultimately, colonial policy.

The League endorsed the Travelling Commission’s conclusions calling for increased international cooperation against the trafficking of women and children; recognition of the role that brothels had in Eastern international trafficking; and the collaboration of governments with missions and private organizations.918 Through the investigation, the League concluded that

“occidental” women in the region travelled there legally and sought clientele from “occidental men.”919 Put another way: “Nowhere in the East has the Commission found attempts to provide exotic novelty to brothel clients by offering them women of alien races brought for the purpose from abroad.” In Beirut foreign sex workers originating primarily from Greece, France, and Italy catered to affluent locals and foreigners. The higher rates charged by foreign sex workers made them unattainable by the average Syrian.920 The Travelling Commission attributed the decrease in international trafficking in the region as a result of the area becoming more suitable to family

917 George W. Egerton, “Collective Security as Political Myth: Liberal Internationalism and the League of Nations in Politics and History,” International History Review 5, no. 4 (1983): 498. While Egerton is addressing international security, his characterization is appropriate for this discussion. What is also instructive is what the reports leave out. The reports excluded those who entered sex work voluntarily or showed reluctance to leave their profession, as these narratives failed to adhere to the perfect victim. If reports did hint at the desire to stay in the occupation, abolitionists veiled these “hints” by contending that the women in question were either forced to stay, too narrow-minded to leave, or were in some sense deviant. 918 League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, Report to the Council. December 10, 1932. C.849.M.393.1932.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 4. 919 Ibid., 22. 920 League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, Report to the Council, December 10, 1932. C.849.M.393.1932.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 24.

307 life, which meant that fewer unmarried men were demanding commercial sexual services.921 The

Commission also observed that while there existed “many instances of cruelty to Asiatic prostitutes by brothel-keepers . . . there was a noticeable absence of vulgar appeal to sensuality, such as is often displayed by occidental prostitutes.”922 This characterization dominated accounts as the Commission constructed its report section on the racial nature of trafficking, bifurcating women and children into racialized victim groups originating either from the “Occident” or the

“Orient.”

The Commission arrived at a pointed indictment of regulation in the Levant, stating that the policy of requiring foreign workers to produce evidence of brothel employment prior to entering the region acted “as an official sanction of acts of international traffic, fraught with the danger of being misunderstood and interpreted as an encouragement by those who engage in this nefarious trade.”923 The report went on to state that “the existence of licensed brothels is a matter of internal social conditions which does not come within the competence of the enquiry, at the same time it is the Commission’s duty to consider the bearing of this system on international traffic in the East.”924 It concluded, without ambiguity, that “the principle factor in the promotion of international traffic in the East is the brothel . . . [and] [t]he more effective remedy against the evil . . . is in the Commission’s opinion the abolition of licensed or recognised brothels in the countries concerned.”925

921 Ibid. 922 Ibid., 22. 923 Ibid., 24 924 Ibid., 94. 925 Ibid., 96. Resolutions adopted by the Traffic in Women and Children Committee in 1934 after the final report was issued declared abolitionism as one of the final goals of the League, recommending “that educational measures be taken for the formation of a favourable public opinion in those countries in the East in which tolerated brothels still exist” and “that abolition should in all cases be anticipated or accompanied by administrative, medical and social measures in order to guarantee the permanence of its success.” League of Nations Traffic in Women and Children, Conference of Central Authorities in Eastern Countries Report: Bandoeng, February 13, 1937. C.228.M.164.1937.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 6. This claim bolsters France’s claim to the Committee in 1929 that it

308

In the “Near-East Territories under the French Mandate,” the French government selected

“M. Bonchède,” Inspector-General of the Beirut Police Unit, as their official government representative in the region; he would be “the channel by which all official information could be supplied.”926 In preparation for the Travelling Commission’s visit, the League provided questionnaires to the French authorities, who were required to provide an official written reply in addition to any laws, regulations, and other details that were pertinent to the inquiry.927 When disseminating the questionnaire to the authorities, the Commission stated that the League possessed no information regarding associations working to curtail trafficking in Syria and

Lebanon.928 While the inquiry sought the participation of official and unofficial “witnesses,” the report that it generated on Syria and Lebanon shows that rescue workers spoke on behalf of the sex workers: the voices of the workers themselves were not heard.929 Furthermore, while local interpreters were called upon to mitigate language barriers, notices published in local newspapers in advance of the Commission’s arrival were written in English and French.930 There is no indication, however, of any formal communications in Arabic or Armenian.

At the conclusion of the visit, the Commission recommended that the public be better informed about the social ills of tolerated sex work and that there be more employment opportunities for girls, endorsing the work of “missions and private associations engaged in

was not the laws that need to change but public opinion in order to place pressure on municipalities to enact abolitionist policies. 926 League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, Report to the Council, December 10, 1932. C.849.M.393.1932.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 12–13. A letter from the French diplomatic bureau informed him of the obligation on June 27, 1930. Bureau Diplomatique, “Note pour M. L’Inspecteur General des Polices,” Beirut, June 27, 1930. 1SL/1/V/22. CADN. Nantes, France. 927 Ibid., 16. 928 Commission d’enquête sur la traite des femmes et des enfants en orient “Note spéciale concernant la Syrie et Le Liban. Annex au questionnaire” N. D. 1SL/1/V/22. CADN. Nantes, France. 929 League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, Report to the Council, December 10, 1932. C.849.M.393.1932.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 17. 930 Ibid., 17.

309 preventative and rescue work in connection with prostitution.”931 Drawing attention to the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul’s effectiveness in working within orphanages to provide employment workshops and sewing classes, the section of the report provided by the French delegation to the

League stated that American, Italian, and “especially French” organizations were both numerous and very effective at preventing prostitution in the region.932 According to the Commission’s report, those women and girls who wound up entering the profession in the Levant included those employed in sex work who migrated to the region in search of work, those recruited from orphanages and the venereal disease hospital, domestic servants, and Muslim women who were discontent over being in polygamous marriages.933 Therefore, the best way for rescue organizations to effect change was to provide women with financial aid and/or provide them with the means to obtain financial security. For example, by endorsing greater employment opportunities for girls, the Commission believed that families would not resort to selling their daughters to avoid starvation.934 It cited the Damascus newspaper Shab’s report of February 28,

1932, that residents of Latakia living in a state of poverty would sell their children “like ordinary merchandise to buyers” from Beirut, Tripoli, Cairo, and Palestine.935 In particular, however, there was a special preoccupation among those engaged in the rescue industry with Alawite girls being sold into sexual and domestic servitude.

Alawites, Trafficking, and Servitude

A particular concern among those involved in the rescue industry was focused on the Alawite community. Articulated in terms of extreme poverty, the issue was that desperate families were

931 Ibid., 97. 932 Ibid., 436 933 Ibid., 424, 430. 934 Ibid., 97. 935 Ibid., 425.

310 allegedly selling their daughters into servitude. Fathers were either selling their underage daughters to brothels or selling them into domestic “slavery.”936 Several reports of such happenings were written by members of the Beirut Vigilance Committee, and they provide narrative evidence of the phenomenon. The first account, dated November 19, 1931, was from a missionary operating in northern Syria, who alleged that eighteen girls from Sahyoun, ranging in age from 10 to 15 years old, were brought by their parents to Idlib. In exchange for nine Syrian pounds in gold paid in advance, the families contracted their daughters out for a period of six years.937 In this account, no concrete evidence of sexual improprieties existed, but the story shows that these young girls were being sold into bondage to both Christian and Muslim families, and the details were left to the reader’s imagination.938 Another missionary from Beirut gave a more damning portrayal of the situation. According to this unnamed source, on

December 10, 1931, a police official recounted the story of an Alawite man who brought his 12- year-old daughter to Beirut and sold her for seven Syrian pounds to the matron of one of the licensed houses. Since the girl was underage and could not legally practice in a licensed house, the matron of the brothel took the girl to Dahr el-Bashek and “there used her to make money for her as though she had been a regular inmate at her house, the difference being that she gave her nothing up for earnings, but fed her only.” The missionary claimed that there were two similar

936 The narrative of prostitution preying on the vulnerability of the poor is often used by abolitionists. For example, Constantin Levaditi, in his capacity as representative of the Institut Pasteur at the 1923 Conference on Syphilis Prevention held in Paris, denounced the mise en carte system (whereby sex workers registered with the local authorities but did not work at brothels) as a method of making prostitutes out of girls born into impoverished families. Constantin Levaditi, La Prophylaxie de la syphilis, conférence faite à l’Institut Pasteur (Paris: Institut Pasteur, 1923), 12. 937 Beirut Vigilance Committee, Report Presented to the Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children, February 1932. CLA CWLY 1936/1937. AA.4.3.5. AAUB. Beirut, Lebanon. 938 Missionary accounts labeled Muslim women as living in “domestic slavery” and in need of saving. A French missionary who spent thirty-two years in Algeria appeared to the IAW to provide interventions, stating that girls were sold into marriage by their fathers or close male relatives. The missionary stated that these “domestic slaves” had no rights to divorce, property or their children. N. A. “Lettre de Genève,” International Woman Suffrage News 25, no. 4 (1931): 64.

311 cases known to the Beirut Police Unit. In addition, the same police official told the missionary of nine clandestine houses in Beirut, which he had tried for two months to have closed down.939 It is unclear from the missionary’s report whether these nine illegal brothels housed Alawite girls unlawfully sold into sex work.

Some accounts attested to the precarious existence of impoverished Alawite girls who were sold into domestic service, characterizing a domestic trade of sorts in young girls. In one account, a missionary characterizes the practice as surprisingly commonplace and banal, and remarks that “reputable” Alawites were not aggrieved by the act. When being consulted about the frequency of girls being “mortgaged,” a Christian convert from the Alawite state posed the following question to the missionary: “What else would you do when the family needs food or clothing, and there is a girl in the family?” Even when being confronted with the allegation that the girls were being sold into brothels, he contended that “he could not see any harm in mortgaging a girl of 7 or 8.” The missionary stated that the exchange with this man can “show what the public opinion of that district is even among the more enlightened people.”940 Jean

Joussellin’s book, Enquêtes sur la jeunesse délinquante et la prostitution au Liban en 1932, which I mentioned above, claimed that due to inexact information it is impossible to calculate the extent of the problem, only that the girls were of extremely young ages, from 7 to 10 years old, and that some “will be too easy prey of people who will abuse them and quickly rush them into debauchery.”941 However, while abolitionists appeared to be preoccupied with the alarming trend of the domestic trafficking of Alawite girls, their propaganda campaigns to change public

939 Beirut Vigilance Committee, Report Presented to the Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children, February 1932. SLA CWLY 1936/1937. AA.4.3.5. AAUB. Beirut, Lebanon. 940 Ibid. 941 Joussellin, Enquêtes sur la jeunesse, 36.

312 opinion did not extend to the Latakia region, perhaps due to the remote location and to their decision to focus on more urban settings, where sex workers congregated in higher numbers.

A decade later, concerns about trafficking in Alawite girls still entered activists’ conversations. The minutes from a meeting of the CWL in 1945 concerning child labor indicate the persistence of the perceived problem of selling Alawite girls into homes for domestic service.

To remedy the persistent concern, the YWCA representative suggested that house inspections of those employing domestic servants should be conducted to establish “a strict control of the sale of girls, or traite des blanches [trafficking of Whites].” In response to this suggestion, representative William Hawi of the so-called “Phalanges” claimed “that the conditions of those sold girls are much better in the families [who purchased them] than with their parents.”942 What

Joussellin characterized over a decade prior still proved to be the case in 1945: even though some

Alawite girls may have found themselves in respectable houses, others were reportedly sold by their parents into veritable slavery and were vulnerable to sexual exploitation.

Domestic Servants, Working-Class Women, and Moral Failures

The linkages established between domestic servitude and immorality were not new, nor were they exclusive to the Alawite situation. While discussions during this period focused on the susceptibility of Alawite girls to being sold into deplorable conditions due to the rampant poverty that existed in Latakia, the fluidity between working-class women and sex workers was a concern in the agendas of many individuals and organizations around the world.943 Domestic

942 Antionio Abrajim Tebshraney. “Report on the First Meeting of the Welfare Committees of Beirut,” February 2, 1945. SLA CWLY 1945/1946. AA.4.3.5. AAUB, Beirut, Lebanon. 943 Essentialist tropes of women in the Middle East provided contradictory information. In reference to the report on the Mandates, “Mlle. Dannevig asked whether the 20,000 unemployed women and children referred to in the report were in moral danger or whether their families looked after them. M. de Caix replied that, in the East, no women lived alone; they remained in the family circle. As a result of unemployment among women, the family resources were diminished, but nothing had been changed in the position of the women of the country by reason of the fact that they were unemployed.” League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission, Minutes of the Twenty-Seventh Session including the Report of the Commission to the Council, June 18, 1935. C.251.M.123.193.VI. Geneva,

313 servants occupied the space of what Michele Gamburd calls “the marginal insiders and intimate outsiders.”944

The idea that domestic servants posed a threat to the sanctity of the household resonated in much of the discourse of the time, driving a fear of the moral laxity of those in working-class occupations. The earlier foundations of this discourse can be seen in Parent-Duchâtelet’s documentation of the precarious existence of working-class women in his study De la prostitution dans la ville de Paris, considérée sous le rapport de l’hygiène publique, de la morale et de l’administration, which I discuss in some detail in Chapter Two. Other medical doctors in France bolstered fears of domestic servants contaminating the home. In 1892, Oscar

Commenge surveyed medical literature in the 1870s and 1880s in his book La Prostitution clandestine à Paris, in which he drew attention to the alarming rate of servants contracting syphilis while engaging in clandestine prostitution.945 Corbin claims that domestic service became a “breeding ground for prostitution” with the influx of young girls into urban centers and the increasing exclusion of domestic servants from the formulation of the “close-knit bourgeois home” in turn-of-the-century France.946 These concerns proved enduring, as several decades later in 1922, Dr. Léon Bizard, a vocal advocate for the abolition of state-sponsored sex work in

France, wrote a book entitled La Syphilis et les domestiques, in which he reiterated the connections between domestic service, sex work, and disease. Steven Hause and Anne Kenney,

Switzerland: 29. These types of inconsistencies are not isolated. Britain’s 1935 report on Transjordan states that “no formal precautions have been made [regarding trafficking of women and children] because such measures are unnecessary in a country composed of small villages or nomads where everyone knows what the others do and where children and women are very jealously guarded.” League of Nations Traffic in Women and Children Committee, Summary of Annual Reports for 1934–35, Prepared by the Secretariat, February 5, 1936. C.88.M.32.1936.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 20. 944 Michele Ruth Gamburd, The Kitchen Spoon’s Handle: Transnationalism and Sri Lanka’s Migrant Housemaids (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), 102. 945 Dr. Oscar Commenge, La Prostitution clandestine à Paris (Paris: Schleicher Frères, 1897). In particular, see the section entitled “Domesticité et prostitution” (337–379). 946 Corbin, Women for Hire, 206.

314 talking about the French women’s suffrage movement, show the implication of turn-of-the- century French feminists in this class debate, which actually left them divided. Socialist feminists charged that the Congrès international de la condition et des droits des femmes represented the interests of bourgeois women at the expense of working-class women. This accusation stemmed from the fact that most delegates rejected a proposal calling for a day off for domestic servants out of fear that it could lead to prostitution.947

Ray Jureidini states that maids occupied integral parts of the middle-class Lebanese household, and that they were subjected to dissonant perceptions: the maid was seen as either asexual with her “sexuality [being] implicitly or explicitly denied” or as a “highly erotic and sexual being.”948 The major implication of this dissonance is that “the maid’s sexuality becomes legitimate and available for the taking and . . . she becomes a source of chaos and seduction, and hence a threat to the integrity and well-being of the family.”949

While domestic servants violating socially acceptable norms preoccupied Lebanese bourgeois sensibilities, women’s work in general generated a certain degree of controversy. In

Akram Khater’s discussion of women’s transgressions in Lebanese emigrant communities, women’s employment was framed as a disease that led to “lewd, filthy and wanton behavior” affecting the honor of families and even communities. He states: “Women’s bodies and sexuality

947 Steven C. Hause and Anne R. Kenney, Women’s Suffrage and Social Politics in the (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 70. 948 Ray Jureidini, “Sexuality and the Servant: An Exploration of Arab Images of the Sexuality of Domestic Maids Living in the Household,” in Sexuality in the Arab World, ed. Samir Khalaf and John Gagnon (London: Saqi, 2006), 130–131. 949 The notions of the mental fragility of women and their poor judgment permeated Lebanese politics. When the Lebanese writer Niqula Haddad gave a sympathetic perspective on “fallen women,” Rashid Rida expressed discomfort with Haddad’s seemingly compassionate treatment of prostitutes. He beseeched others to use it as a cautionary tale, encouraging parents to read it and to not minimize the significance of the character’s sinful acts. He feared that excusing the immoral acts will lead women astray from making moral judgments. Fruma Zacks and Sharon Laevi, Gendering Culture in Greater Syria: Intellectuals and Ideology in the Late Ottoman Period (London: I. B. Tauris, 2014), 138–139.

315 thus became contested sites of cultural and social politics which found expression in the private conversations and letters as well as across newspaper columns.”950 In the case of domestic servitude, such preoccupations found their way into official studies and reports. Reports on sex work, in addition to studies produced on the topic, validated popular fears of moral transgressions among working-class women. The characterizations relied on the claim that sex workers were using domestic service to mask their true occupation or, conversely, the claim that domestic service provided the pathway into prostitution. An example of the first claim is in the

1927 League’s Special Body of Experts report, which concluded that madames operated under the false pretense of housekeepers in countries where madames were not permitted.951 The second claim proved to be more commonplace. Neilans, for example, encouraged the Bourj

Mission to include reference to the precarity of working-class girls in its official report to the

League in 1932. She stressed that the report should represent the “lack of protection from seduction for young girls in domestic service” and the “sale by contract of young girls into

‘domestic service’ by parents or guardians or others.” Presumably, the latter reference was to

Alawite girls. Neilans surmised, with an assured confidence, that “local knowledge would confirm” that “inmates of licensed brothels are chiefly composed of orphans, ill-used or unhappy young domestic servants, divorced wives, and some of the lower-grade ‘artists.’”952 Such rhetoric made its way into the final 1932 League report on the East. The Inspector-General of the

Beirut Police Unit stated that “the pensioners [sex workers] are recruited, for the most part, from

950 Akram Khater, “Like Pure Gold,” in Sexuality in the Arab World, ed. Samir Khalaf and John Gagnon (London: Saqi, 2006), 85–6. 951 League of Nations, Report of the Special Body of Experts on Traffic in Women and Children: Part One, February 17, 1927. C.52.M.52.1927.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 26. 952 Alison Neilans, “My Activities in Syria (Draft Only: Subject to Revision), Part II: Observations and Suggestions.” AMSH 3AMS/D/33–46, Box 118. WLA. London, England.

316 the orphans and former domestic servants who have turned out badly.”953 Four years later, according to the 1936 report from the Advisory Commission for the Protection and Welfare of

Children and Young People:

[C]ertain difficulties arising out of domestic service were indicated, and it was felt that these were chiefly due to the conditions of the work, which involved living in a social environment of a different character from that in which they had been brought up themselves. The lack of privacy was combined with loneliness and also with the lack of opportunity for recreation after the long hours of work.954

This report links anxieties over the working class and their leisure time, necessitating the need to intervene in both the professional and personal time of domestic workers. And it is no surprise that such concern led to increased regulation and control over women’s time and occupations.

The fears that were constructed over domestic and factory workers as sex workers elicited strong responses from the abolitionist communities around the world. Answering intense concerns regarding the connection between working women, moral laxity, and vulnerabilities, the League’s Advisory Committee began meeting jointly with the International Labor Office

(ILO) in the 1920s. The ILO drew up a report on the “Protection of Young Women Workers” in the context of preventing prostitution, a report that the League published as a chapter in the prostitution prevention book series entitled “The Moral Protection of Young Women Workers.”

The ILO considered young working-class women to be at an “extreme risk” of prostitution and

“demoralization” via three avenues: work placement, workplace environment, and leisurely

953 League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, Report to the Council, December 10, 1932. C.849.M.393.1932.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 424. Furthermore, in the section on Palestine, under the subheading “Barter and Sale of Children,” the report speaks of abeed (pej. “slave”) servants’ permeability into the household structure. Conjuring up popular imagery of harems, the report remarks that “it seldoms [sic] happens that a female abdeh, after attaining the age of maturity, becomes one of the wives of the master of the house in which serves,” a rhetoric that was deployed in the Armenian Genocide as seen in Chapter Four (455). Thus, the permeability of domestic servitude into household structures became a reified concept. 954 League of Nations Advisory Commission for the Protection and Welfare of Children and Young People, Report on the Work of the Commission in 1936, May 5, 1936. C.204.M.127.1936.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 5.

317 activities.955 The ILO’s solutions centered on increasing state and institutional interventions in working-class women’s lives.

This publication (and those like it) reified fears that were constructed about domestic workers (and working-class women) operating as clandestine sex workers and about unscrupulous employers victimizing those working in their care. In turn, it served to affirm philanthropists’ need to rescue a certain segment of the population from vice and corruption. In

1936, the Chairman of the Vigilance Committee of the Federation of Women’s Clubs of Syria informed the British representative to the PMC that cultural practices of “binding out” young girls as servants exposes them to danger from matrons of licensed houses.956 The practice of sending daughters to work in domestic service arose as an issue in the CWL, as members brought up concerns that selling Alawite girls into households could lead to the youths’ corruption. In response, the YWCA, in conjunction with the CWL, held a “maids’ group” to

“raise their standard” through instruction in reading, writing, arithmetic, and morals.957

Therefore, there existed a dissonant impulse among some rescue organizations: they wanted to save sex workers by training them in respectable occupations, yet at the same time they feared that their moral laxity posed a serious threat to the households and other places of work such as factories.

Conclusion

As Joyce Outshoorn states in her historical account of political debates on sex work and trafficking, during the latter half of the nineteenth century a strong impulse emerged among

955 League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Prevention of Prostitution: A Study of Measures Adopted or Under Consideration Particularly with Regard to Minors (Geneva: Series of League of Nations Publications, 1943), 67–104. 956 League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission, Minutes of the Twenty-Ninth Session Held at Geneva from May 27 to June 12, 1936, June 12, 1936. C.259.M.153.1936.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: N. P. 957 A. Rayes, “The Different Groups Led by the YWCA at the Civic Welfare Center.” SLA CWLY 1939/1940. AA.4.3.5. AAUB. Beirut, Lebanon.

318 activists who identified their role as helping sex workers to quit their jobs and become

“saved.”958 As international social movements harnessed “individual liberties” as a way of advocating for the abolition of state regulation, they did so in a paternalistic framework. The declaration of the Federation for the Abolition of State Regulation of Vice, founded on

March 19, 1875, stated that the “official organization and legalisation of prostitution . . . [is] a great injustice to women, and a moral and legal wrong involving the subversion of individual liberty and of the principles of constitutional government.”959 Yet, as Philippa Levine points out in her work on colonial “age of consent” legislation, abolitionists did not concern themselves with the protection of those already working in the sex industry; instead, their focus remained on the prevention of young women from entering the profession.960 Those liberties for women already in the trade and their right to work were formulated within the framework of transforming a sex worker into a worker within the more honorable capitalist system. A cottage industry of training young girls, and boys to a lesser extent, “at risk” of going into prostitution or reinventing those who already lapsed became a prerogative of voluntary organizations on an international scale.961 Lebanon and Syria were no exception in this regard.

The League’s documents on the rehabilitation of prostitutes articulate opposing positions on how to handle “rehabilitated” prostitutes: either they could be reintegrated into the “normal working life of the community” or, as some religious communities also contended about women

958 Joyce Outshoorn, “The Political Debates on Prostitution and Trafficking of Women,” Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State, and Society 12, no. 1 (2005): 145. 959 Association for Moral and Social Hygiene, A Doomed Iniquity: An Authoritative Condemnation of State Regulation of Vice from France, Germany, and Belgium (London: Federation for the Abolition of the State Regulation of Vice, 1896), 2. 960 Philippa Levine, “Sovereignty and Sexuality: Transnational Perspectives on Colonial Age of Consent Legislation,” in Beyond Sovereignty: Britain, Empire and Transnationalism, c. 1880–1950, ed. Kevin Grant, Philippa Levine, and Frank Trentmann (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 25. 961 While boys did not register as a concern to those in the rescue industry with the same level of frequency as did girls, there were initiatives that specifically targeted boys. One of these is the “basket boy” project through the Beirut-based CWL.

319 who received their services, they “should never return to the life of the [respectable] world.”962

The Roman Catholic Church was a forerunner in the reformation process globally, and notable in this regard was the work of the Sœurs du Bon Pasteur de Beyrouth in Lebanon.963 In the 1929 report of the Association catholique internationale des œuvres de protection de la jeune fille to the League, the Sœurs du Bon Pasteur received accolades due to their efforts to repatriate sex workers. The collaboration between these two societies resulted in 310 foreign workers being repatriated globally, 16 of which were from Asia.964 The Association catholique encouraged other organizations to set up an affiliation with the Sœurs du Bon Pasteur due to their effective work. According to S. de Montenach, the General President of the Association catholique, Bon

Pasteur established the first refuge for “outcast women” in 1829 and, as of 1928, extended its work to 41 countries and sheltered 63,028 “women and girls of every race, colour and creed.”965

In fact, the work of Bon Pasteur in Beirut seems to have revived the work of the failed Bourj

Mission from 1933. In 1939, the Maronite (Christian) order purchased land north of Beirut in

Dekwaneh to build, under the auspices of l’Œuvre de rééducation des jeunes filles, a family house for their charitable work rehabilitating girls in moral danger.966 The mission of the

962 League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Enquiry into Measures of Rehabilitation of Prostitutes (Part III and IV): Methods of Rehabilitation of Adult Prostitutes, Conclusions and Recommendations, July 1, 1939, Geneva, Switzerland: 5. 963 Catholic organizations already established themselves as places for training precarious individuals to work in respectable industries. In Paul Huvelin’s 1919 economic survey of Syria, he notes the lack of technical industrial education under the Ottomans. According to him, the region was lacking in the infrastructure needed to sustain a thriving economy. Yet, the glimmer of hope was through the professional training provided in European orphanages operating in Palestine and Syria. He cites the example of the Catholic orphanages of Saint Charles and Saint Joseph, founded in Beirut by the Sisters of Charity. The orphanages produced “the best artisans of the region” but the other areas of Damascus, Homs, Hama, and Aleppo have so far been neglected in this regard.” Huvelin, “Que vaut la Syrie?” 30. 964 League of Nations Advisory Commission for the Protection and Welfare of Children and Young People, Traffic in Women and Children Committee, Minutes of the Ninth Session, July 20, 1930. C.246.M.121.1930.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 25. 965 Ibid., 90. 966 Sœurs du Bon Pasteur de Beyrouth, “Letter to the President, Monastère du Bon Pasteur, Cairo,” N. D. Carton 7, Dossier 4. Centre des Archives Nationales du Liban (CANL). Beirut, Lebanon.

320 organization, headed by Mme. Georges Bey Tabet, included helping poor girls, counseling them, and assisting them with finding respectable employment.967 It sought out delinquent Christian girls between the ages of 14 and 20 who were believed to be heading to prison based on the paths they were on at the time of intervention. After seven years of work, in 1946, the financial situation of the organization proved to be tenuous and, unable to secure additional funding for its work, it was looking at an uncertain future. There are no traces of the work that this organization performed after this period.968

Creating an economically productive role served as a double function for those in the rescue industry: after establishing the threat posed to working-class women entering the sex trade, interventions could be provided by giving vulnerable populations a respectable trade as a method of prevention. This chapter has examined how hegemonic constructions of the destitute sex worker played into the public fantasy of girls and women in need of protection and rescue.

Feminists such as Nur Hamada and Avril de Sainte-Croix underscored the financial precarity of women engaged in the sex trade, and their work toward the abolishment of the industry forged local, regional, and global connections. Yet such attention to the links of working-class women and sex work led to generalizations that all working-class women, particularly “factory girls” and domestic servants, possessed the potential to becoming “public women.” The class dimension is

967 “Liste des sociétés de bienfaisance de Beyrouth”, N. D. Carton 7, Dossier 4. CANL. Beirut, Lebanon. According to the document, “Georges Bey Tabet” served as president of the Central Council of the Maronite Societies from 1940 to 1943. The document lists another Maronite organization, the Société des secours secrets headed by “Mme Jean Bey Naccache,” in addition to another listed under “Bienfaisance Israelite” entitled Association pour le mariage de filles pauvres ou orphelines headed by “Selim Mohadad,” which facilitated marriages for poor girls. Protection de la jeune fille libanaise, which protected young Lebanese girls against seduction and promised “to come to their aid in necessary cases” was also listed as operating during this period. Other methods employed against the corruption of vice during this time included boycotts of bars, cafés, and other public venues as in the case of Club el-Arkham in Aleppo. The association deemed these venues to be the conduit of exporting “Occidental” values to Syria. Directeur Sûreté générale aux armées Beyrouth, “Information: sources sûreté Alep: clubs et associations,” June 10, 1942. 1SL/1/V/13. CADN. Nantes, France. 968 In 2015, I contacted the Sœurs du Bon Pasteur de Beyrouth, but they had no institutional knowledge of the project and stated that all their archives were destroyed in a fire during the civil war when they were forced to flee Beirut.

321 instructive, as organizations such as the YWCA deemed it necessary to educate working-class girls on morals, as if they did not already possess such knowledge. As the perceived growth of moral laxity became increasingly a concern among bourgeois women, leisure time became constructed as a problem to be remedied. As one demonstration of this effect, the preoccupation with leisure became acute enough that the CWL began a discussion group entitled “The Problem of Public Leisure Hours.” Likewise, the 1943 publication Prevention of Prostitution: A Study of

Measures Adopted or Under Consideration Particularly with Regard to Minors by the League’s

Advisory Committee on Social Questions devoted chapters to the “Protection of Isolated Girl

Workers during their Spare Time” and “Facilities for Recreation for Young Women Workers during their Holidays with Pay.” The conviction that there were direct ties between domestic service, leisure, and sex work appears repeatedly throughout League’s texts. In 1937, delegates focused on the need to occupy women’s leisure time, which was “especially important in the case of domestic workers, a high percentage of whom come from rural districts and have no social connections in the towns in which they work.”969 In sum, bourgeois ideas on working- class women decreed that domestic workers must be surveilled at all times.

Even seemingly “progressive” measures espoused by women’s organizations to advance women’s wages were complicated when it came to sex workers. League reports indicated that low wages precipitated the “downfall of women” and that “in spite of the raising of salaries, especially in the cities, many women grow weary of a continual uphill fight and are not equal to the very real heroism required to make the daily sacrifices imposed by an inadequate wage . . .

969 League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Report on the Work of the Committee in 1937 (First Session), May 15, 1937. C.235.M.169.1937.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 28.

322 and moral training must be given as a shield and buckler against temptation.”970 France’s report to the League in 1936 on its Mandates cited eleven cases of procurement in Beirut “all due to poverty” and relayed that there were similar offenses reported in Damascus and Aleppo.971

Therefore, moral education proved to be a necessity until higher wages could be achieved for working-class women.

Imbedded in the bourgeois preoccupation with reforming sex workers is an overlooked irony. Laura Maria Agustin adroitly frames the work of “helping” sex workers as “middle-class women’s occupations aimed at doing away with many working-class women’s means of support.”972 How this is illustrated in the Lebanese context is evident in several League reports.

In an example of international trafficking provided by the Greek government in 1928, an Italian man living in Athens served as a music hall manager in Beirut. Authorities accused him of traveling from Athens to Beirut with young foreign artists destined for sex work in Lebanon. The same report claims that a French woman from Smyrna took refuge in Beirut after being forbidden to procure sex workers for her three brothels in Athens. In Beirut, she opened new maisons de tolérance, and the Greek authorities found that she had returned to Athens in order to recruit girls for her Beirut establishments. In both cases, the Greek Ministry of the Interior forbade the sex workers from entering Greek territory again with no further information provided on how the women could otherwise support themselves.973 That did not appear as a concern to the French colonial authorities. Therefore, international bans on “trafficking” meant that women

970 League of Nations Advisory Commission for the Protection and Welfare of Children and Young People, Traffic in Women and Children Committee, Minutes of the Ninth Session, July 20, 1930. C.246.M.121.1930.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 95. 971 League of Nations Traffic in Women and Children Committee, Summary of Annual Reports for 1934–35, Prepared by the Secretariat, February 5, 1936. C.88.M.32.1936.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 8. 972 Laura Maria Agustin, Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets, and the Rescue Industry (London: Zed Books, 2007), 125. 973 League of Nations Traffic in Women and Children Committee, Summary of Annual Reports for 1928 Prepared by the Secretariat, January 5, 1930. IV.Social.1930.IV.1. Geneva, Switzerland: 16.

323 engaged in the occupation of sex work faced forced deportations and further precarity in the name of “protection.” The reach of Syrian sex workers extended across the Atlantic to the United

States, as the American government deported three Syrian women in 1930 as “prostitutes or aliens coming for . . . immoral purposes.”974 So, the regulations enacted in order to “protect” women from exploitation served to make their existence even more precarious. Nandita Sharma, arguing from a globalized context today, states that anti-trafficking rhetoric has employed perceptions of the “dangerous foreigner” and provided states the opportunity to enact policing measures to exclude those deemed undesirable to them. Therefore, those perceived as victims are simultaneously constructed as criminals and expelled in the name of global governance, creating what Sharma terms a “global apartheid.”975

To ask a question implicit in the title of this chapter, who exactly are these rescue organizations rescuing? Are the workers asking for such assistance? In the rare example provided of a case of “rescuing” in Syria, a social worker at the Bourj Mission in Beirut reported to the League the case of a victimized “Occidental” woman.976 Arriving in Aleppo by way of

Istanbul, this Greek “girl” (whose age was not provided) obtained a passport from French authorities in 1928 under the false premise of visiting family. The social worker maintained that a Greek woman trafficker obtained the visa on the girl’s behalf. Upon arrival in Aleppo, the said

“victim” went willingly to work in a brothel for two years. Yet, without the trafficker, the social worker alleged that this sex worker would never have come to the region. During this time, the girl became registered as an “artist” with the Greek consulate in Beirut by a man who also

974 League of Nations Traffic in Women and Children Committee, Summary of Annual Reports for 1930 Prepared by the Secretariat, February 12, 1932. C.164.M.77.1932.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 16. 975 Nandita Sharma, “Anti-Trafficking Rhetoric and the Making of the Global Apartheid,” NWSA Journal 17, no. 3 (2005): 89. The idea of constructing “innocent victims” and “guilty migrants” is further interrogated in Chapkis, “Trafficking, Migration and the Law,” 924–925. 976 League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, Report to the Council, December 10, 1932. C.849.M.393.1932.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 469.

324 registered two other Greek girls. In 1930, the French authorities ordered the girl to leave the country in two weeks. The social worker maintained that, in order to avoid deportation, she married a Syrian national and therefore could not be expelled, and she continued to practice sex work in the country.977 This narrative raises the question of where the victimhood lies. At no time did the social worker allege that the sex worker sought to leave her profession or that she was forced to work under duress. It could be argued that the worker, in fact, exercised agency by marrying a national to avoid deportation and thereby maintained her means of support.

According to this view, it is possible that she did not perceive herself as a victim. Furthermore, the report on this case failed to provide an explanation as to how the sex worker encountered the social worker, or whether the whole story was a case of hearsay. Regardless, if cases like these are how voluntary organizations sought to draw international attention to issues of trafficking, then they were relying, at best, on rather circumspect evidence. This story, rather importantly, highlights the underlying assumption in rescue work that all women who worked in the sex trade were only reluctantly doing so. Those who rebuffed the efforts of rescue organizations were often characterized as lost, recalcitrant, brainwashed, and otherwise incapable of making sound decisions.

977 Beirut Vigilance Committee, Report Presented to the Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women, February 1932. SLA CWLY 1936/1937. AA.4.3.5. AAUB. Beirut, Lebanon. The original text of this document came from a report provided by the Beirut Vigilance Committee. The League’s report omitted details from the text provided by the Committee, which casts further light on ambiguous trafficking that was committed. The text is littered with statements like “I heard,” “I was told,” and “I believe.” There is no conclusive evidence provided—only mere conjecture. As the social worker surmised after speaking to a police official, who shrugged in response to her statement that sex workers with a record cannot be registered, that “I took this to imply that in return for marrying the girl and getting her out of danger, the man was being supported by her earnings as a prostitute and was bribing the police to allow her to continue as a clandestine.” This accusation attempted to draw upon the prohibition of living off of a sex worker’s earnings. In December 1930, the League’s Legal Sub-Committee put forward the Preliminary Draft International Convention on the Punishment of Persons Who Live on the Immoral Earnings of Women, December 9. Geneva. League of Nations Archives (LNA) CTFE/CJ/1.

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Furthermore, the work of bourgeois feminists, who came to take on the mantle of moral saviors, often spoke about sex workers in ways that can be interpreted as condescension. For example, the employment of the term “girl” to any female working in the trade reflects the paternalism that pervaded rescue efforts in the Levant. In fact, the prescribed method for “deal with fallen women,” according to the League, was by employing the “motherly method.”978 This paternalism (or, in this case, maternalism) was further reflected in the reporting of the Vigilance

Record, the publication of record for the National Vigilance Association. The paper credited its

Secretary, Madame del Buono, for the improved “moral condition” of Port Said as the “true friend and protectress” of the many “Syrian girls” who passed through the port.979 According to recommendations from the 1932 League report, those working in the sex trade mimicked a parent–child relationship with their trafficker. According to this report, “Oriental traffickers have so complete control over their victims that the latter regard themselves sometimes . . . as guardians invested with parental authority over them.”980 Therefore, the fight against trafficking through the perspective of the “victim” involved changing one’s mentality, which was a time- consuming process. Instead, the League’s recommendation consisted of targeting the traffickers’ business organizations—that is, their licensed or recognized brothels—in order to achieve more

978 League of Nations Advisory Commission for the Protection and Welfare of Children and Young People, Traffic in Women and Children Committee, Minutes of the Ninth Session. July 20, 1930. C.246.M.121.1930.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 26. Specifically, a person named “Professor Conti” was speaking to the League’s Traffic in Women and Children Committee and commending the International Catholic Women’s Union for utilizing such a technique with sex workers. 979 Madame del Buono oversaw the National Vigilance Association’s operations in Port Said and inspected boats carrying refugees from Syria to Alexandria during World War I. National Vigilance Association, The Vigilance Record: Organ of the National Vigilance Association. (London: W. A. Coot, 1916). 980 League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, Report to the Council, December 10, 1932. C.849.M.393.1932.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 93.

326 immediate results. In sum, sex workers who did not readily leave their means of financial support were deemed recalcitrant, inflexible, and a waste of time.

Rescue organizations in the Levant became so effective in their approach that, according to

French colonial authorities, the proliferation of voluntary and religious organizations rendered government-run social services unnecessary. The reliance of the1932 League’s Travelling

Commission report on the Vigilance Committee of the Federation of Women’s Clubs in Syria, the Bourj Mission, and the YMCA in providing information on the extent of trafficking in

Lebanon and Syria indicates that, unlike the popular depiction relayed by Western feminists, the spirit of abolitionism gained momentum among local groups. As can be seen in this chapter, the rescue workers led the way in putting pressure on the French colonial authorities to change their policies by leveraging public opinion at the local, regional, and international levels, often through paternalistic language that portrayed them only as subjects in need of interventions and reform.981

981 The Vigilance Committee of the Federation of Women’s Clubs in Syria sent a letter the British representative to the League’s Traffic in Women and Children Committee on May 29, 1936, informing him that a petition signed by religious and philanthropic organizations, in addition to heads of colleges and universities, was asking for the abolition of sex work by French authorities. See League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission, Minutes of the Twenty-Ninth Session Held at Geneva from May 27 to June 12, 1936. C.259.M.153.1936.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. To paraphrase Diana Meyers, I am not trying to create a polarized picture characterizing sex workers as either “passive victims of coercion and exploitation who are in need of help” or “free agents.” Diana Tietjens Meyers, “Feminism and Sex Trafficking: Rethinking Some Aspects of Autonomy and Paternalism,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 17, no. 3 (2014): 433. Instead, this chapter complicates the simplistic theory of victimization by demonstrating how vested parties in the Levant constructed the discourse on sex work, entirely sidelining any formulation of autonomous agency acted upon by those working in the sex industry.

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Conclusion

Slipping Through the Fingers of Authority982

“[One of the] striking characteristic[s] of prostitution is its recalcitrance to control. Its long history is full of attempts to regulate it and to confine it to certain persons, times and places, but a large amount of prostitution has always slipped through the fingers of authority.” - League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Prevention of Prostitution: A Study of Measures Adopted or Under the Consideration Particularly with Regard to Minors983

With the onset of World War II, participation in the League’s work on social issues dwindled dramatically. In fact, the 1930s can be characterized as the pinnacle of domestic, regional, and international cooperation in combatting the “scourge” of regulated sex work in the Levant. As argued in Chapter Five, France’s agreeing to have Syria and Lebanon to adhere to the 1921

International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children in 1930 and the visit of League’s Travelling Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East to the region 1932 sparked a flurry of activity, drawing the world’s attention to the trafficking of women and children as a means of ending the colonial tolerance of sex work. This galvanization is best understood in light of the stated objectives advanced in the 1932 report produced by the Travelling Commission, the aim of which was to “establish the facts concerning international traffic in women and children in the East.” According to the report, “this would include, in addition to prostitutes, certain cases of taking women as entertainers and artistes to foreign countries for the purpose of exploiting them by prostitution.” And it went on to say that

“stress has been laid . . . on the necessity of confining the enquiry to the international aspect of

982 This is how the League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions characterized France’s and the League’s failure to regulate sex workers. League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Prevention of Prostitution: A Study of Measures Adopted or Under the Consideration Particularly with Regard to Minors. (Geneva: League of Nations, 1943), 8. 983 Ibid., 8.

328 the problem. However, the previous enquiry has already shown that, in studying international traffic, certain internal conditions could not be entirely left out of consideration.”984

While France took exception to the Travelling Commission’s intrusion into what it deemed to be a national concern, abolitionists harnessed the window of opportunity to highlight the “plight” of sex workers in the Levant.985 The French colonial government’s defensive posturing should be understood in the context of the League’s vocal and mounting opposition to the French system.986 One of the recommendations that came out of the 1932 Travelling

984 League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, Report to the Council. December 10, 1932. C.849.M.393.1932.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 14. 985 In outlining its methodology, “the Commission inspected brothel areas where such existed. In its study of rescue and prevention work in relation to the problem, the Commission visited a great number and variety of institutions, both official and unofficial. In addition, the commission and all places took the opportunity to study the existing activities and the fields of welfare work for women and children generally, education for girls and female employment.” League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, Report to the Council. December 10, 1932. C.849.M.393.1932.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 21. This provided opportunities for rescue organizations to showcase their work in addition to officially voice their opposition to regulated sex work. 986 The report credits missions and private organizations as being “responsible for the inspiration of efficient government measures introduced to combat prostitution and traffic. . . . There is hardly a country in the East today where associations of the women of the country do not play an important role in the fight against the evil of traffic, lending their moral support to those who are engaged in rescue and preventative work.” League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, Report to the Council. December 10, 1932. C.849.M.393.1932.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 97. As argued in this thesis, the French delegates to the League repeatedly objected to what they perceived as the “mission creep” of the Advisory Committee while simultaneously claiming that the regulation of prostitution was a municipal affair not governed by state law, that the effects of abolishing regulations needed to be studied, that policy would change with public opinion, and that safeguards must be put in place to ensure that clandestine prostitution and venereal disease do not flourish once regulationism ends. These proved to be straw man arguments that were deployed in order to prevent changes to colonial policy under international pressure exerted through the League. The French delegate Labrousse suggested that “the problem of prostitution . . . be examined as part of a general scientific study,” but yet he stated that it remained “a purely domestic matter to be governed by the national legislation of the individual state or by the regulations of their autonomous administrative authorities” and that it was “outside the competence of the Advisory Commission.” League of Nations Advisory Commission for the Protection and Welfare of Children and Young People, Traffic in Women and Children Committee, Minutes of the Sixth Session Held at Geneva from Monday, April 25 to Saturday, April 30, 1927. June 24, 1927. C.338.M.113.1927.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 134. Two years later, the French delegate stated that France was following public opinion with “an open mind;” yet, as in the Levant, “the system of regulation in France is simply a municipal police measure enforced by the mayors under various laws . . . to secure order, security and public health . . . the way to secure the triumph of abolitionist views is to work upon public opinion. The municipalities are bound to take public opinion into account in such a matter as this . . . it is important in such a very delicate question to act only with full knowledge of the circumstances and after taking every necessary precaution.” League of Nations Advisory Commission for the Protection and Welfare of Children and Young People, Traffic in Women and Children Committee, Minutes of the Eighth Session Held at Geneva from Friday, April 19 to Saturday, April 27, 1929. August 1, 1929. C.294.M.97.1929.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 136. Even with public awareness campaigns, the placement of sex work under the law in 1931, and the provision of scientific evidence contravening regulationism, the French colonial authorities in the Levant increased their regulationist efforts during World War II, as demonstrated in Chapter Three.

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Commission of Enquiry was that “the most effective remedy against the evil [of international trafficking] . . . is in the commission’s opinion the abolition of licenses or recognized brothels in the countries concerned.”987 Specifically addressing French colonial policy in the Levant, the report concluded that “the existence of traffic into and out of these mandated territories is . . . closely linked with the legal system of organized prostitution in force there.”988 As demonstrated in the preceding chapters, despite claims and mounting “evidence” linking regulated sex work to trafficking, abolitionism did not become adopted as official policy during French colonial rule over Syrian and Lebanese territories despite France’s official declaration that “when public opinion in any city desires the abolition of licensed houses, they will be abolished, and other measures based on the principle of social justice for safeguarding public health and public order will be substituted.”989 All public propaganda campaigns, including those stemming from regional conferences like the General Conference of Muslim Women from the East and local rescue campaigns orchestrated by the Bourj Commission, while placing pressure on French policy, failed to provide sufficient traction for the eradication of regulated sex work. And campaigns of this magnitude did not endure past the 1930s. Perhaps this was due to a lack of change in the region’s adherence to the French system, historical factors like World War II, or a combination of factors.990

987 League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, Report to the Council. December 10, 1932. C.849.M.393.1932.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 96. 988 Ibid., 431. 989 Ibid., 426. In 1931, the French delegate to the League’s Traffic in Women and Children Committee, Eugène Regnault, stated that he “wished strongly to protest against any possible suggestion that he defended the system of licensed houses. On the contrary, he could prove that France was proceeding toward their gradual abolition, though many obstacles had still to be overcome.” French Delegate M. Regnault, League of Nations, Traffic in Women and Children Committee, Minutes of the Tenth Session, Held at Geneva from Tuesday, April 21, to Monday, April 27, 1931. May 29, 1931. C.401.M.163.1931.IV, Geneva, Switzerland: 23. 990 The Eastern Women’s Conference was revived in 1938 as mounting anticolonial interests took precedence, with particular focus on Palestine. According to Margot Badran, initially the congress was to be held in Syria but British authorities intervened. The congress, which was ultimately held in Cairo, was attended by 20 twenty women from Syria and three from Lebanon. Margot Badran, Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 228–229. In 1946, another Eastern Women’s Conference

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While the League’s Advisory Committee continued to condemn regulationism during the war, coordinated efforts on the regional and local level in the Levant dwindled.991 The Arab

Feminist Union held a conference in Cairo in 1944, attended by representatives from both

Lebanon and Syria, that echoed issues addressed in the Eastern Women’s Congresses a decade prior, including the immorality of prostitution. The Union formally called for prostitution to be outlawed and for the global community to find respectable occupations for young women.992

Participants in the conference made the connection between imperialism and prostitution, which was further brought to light during the war with the increasing presence of male troops in the

Middle East that created a sharp rise in the demand for prostitutes.993 Yet this Cairo conference proved to be an anomaly during this period.

was held in Stockholm, Sweden. Ruth Frances Woodsmall, Women and the New East (Washington, DC: Middle East Institute, 1960), 38. I could not find the details of the meeting. Aside from records in the Nantes Archives showing that French authorities were closely monitoring Lebanese and Syrian women’s attendance at these regional conferences, there is little information on how much coordination within the Mandate territories remained in the 1940s regarding abolitionism. This uncertainty is reiterated by Ellen Fleishmann, who states that World War II impeded the development of centralization and coordination among Arab women, with the exception of the 1944 Arab Feminist Union conference held in Cairo. According to Fleishmann, this 1944 event demonstrated the inception of divisions between Eastern and Western feminists over contradictory stances on imperialism. Ellen Fleishmann, The Nation and Its “New” Women: The Palestinian Women’s Movement, 1920–1948 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 185–187. The claim regarding a reduction in coordinated abolitionist efforts in the region should not be taken to mean that other areas did not see increasing coordination (nationalists, for example, became more coordinated). As Elizabeth Thompson remarks, independence in 1944 meant that the Levantine elite no longer solicited coordinating efforts with subaltern groups, but they could not outright ignore their influence either, including that of women’s labor, suffrage, and anticolonial activities. Elizabeth Thompson, Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege, and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 226–227, 238–243, 257–261. 991 The League’s Advisory Committee on Social Questions issued a report in 1943 still rebuking regulationist practices, even if much coordination ceased in the Levant during World War II: “Regulation has generally imposed some disadvantage or inconvenience on prostitutes, with the result that . . . they have done their best to avoid contact with the law. Severe measurements against clandestine prostitution have merely driven it further into concealment; in addition, the vested interests behind the prostitute and the difficulty the administrator encounters in giving an exact definition of prostitution have continually provided loopholes for escape.” League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Prevention of Prostitution: A Study of Measures Adopted or Under the Consideration Particularly with Regard to Minors (Geneva: League of Nations, 1943), 8. 992 Fleishmann, The Nation and Its “New” Women, 187; Badran, Feminists, Islam, and Nation, 243–244. 993 Badran argued that the Egyptian Society for the Protection of the Mother and Child made this link. Badran, Feminists, Islam, and Nation, 244. For the contradictions of British abolitionism and imperialism, see Antoinette Burton, Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial Culture, 1865–1915 (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1994).

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In contrast to the dwindling coordination between abolitionist groups, the archival records indicate that the military-endorsed medicalized “health” justification for regulated prostitution not only persisted but strengthened through the early 1940s. While French colonial authorities did not make public proclamations defending regulatory sex work as a matter of securing military control over the Levant, the outbreak of World War II brought the issue of prostitution into the foreground. As seen in Chapters Two and Three, military officials and colonial medical bureaucrats like Henri Escher saw controlling sex work as an imperative, as it was necessary to protect the health of the troops. Situated within “knowledge” generated in the

1800s by “experts” like Alexandre-Jean-Baptiste Parent-Duchâtelet and Benoît Boyer, the

French colonial medico-administrative-legal structures continued to govern the bodies of female sex workers and their control continued to be premised on the articulated threat posed by female bodies to public health throughout the Mandate period.

These policy responses to sex work constructed in the French Mandate Levant are still evident in contemporary discourses and interventions. While there is a broad range of policy responses to sex work in the current context, this conclusion does not address them in detail for reasons of scope. But it is, however, instructive to briefly situate the present-day discourses on sex work and trafficking in Syria and Lebanon in the context of the history of administration in the region that I address in this thesis. In short, while a detailed study of the current circumstances of sex workers in the Levant still needs to be done, I want to show that the discourses and interventions prevailing in the contemporary construction of sex work have a genealogy, underscoring the relevance of my historical inquiry. Much of the rhetoric employed today concerning prostitution is far from being natural or spontaneous; on the contrary, it is historically constructed, just as it was in 1920s and 1930s. Discourses are not linear, nor are they

332 static, but bear the influences of their earlier incarnations, which themselves were historically constructed. Just as the hegemonic discourses and policy responses in the French-mandated

Levant relied on constructions developed in the prior century, present-day debates inherited their vocabularies and institutions from their predecessors. This is evident in the popular discourses that shape sex work in the Levant today. On a larger, global scale, these discourses have to do with criminalization (abolitionism), decriminalization, and regulation (legalization).994 These varied positions on sex work derive their lineage from the social purity, abolitionist, and regulationist debates of the prior century.995 Significantly, the medico-scientific discourse lost its defining role in the debates after the dismantling of the vast European colonial empires and was supplanted by humanitarian (human rights) discourses on the fight against trafficking.996 As

France’s colonial empire shrank, along with the amount of soldiers required to defend it, so too

994 Criminalization can be divided into various approaches that seek state intervention to combat sex work, including prohibitionism, abolitionism, and neoabolitionism. Both prohibitionism and abolitionism hold sex work to be a negative activity, yet while prohibitionists tend to rely on religiously based moral condemnation, abolitionists tend to derive their stance from radical feminist perspectives that see prostitution as violence against women. Whereas prohibitionists seek to criminalize all activities related to sex work, abolitionists tend to focus on those who solicit services rather than the workers themselves (Jane Scoular characterizes this as neoabolitionism, as reflected in current Swedish legislation). Regulationism, otherwise referred to as “legalization,” functions much like it did under the French Mandate: it favors work permits, inspections, and other methods whereby the state can establish rule and procedures that govern who can work in the industry and under what conditions. Decriminalization is considered to be more of a middle ground between criminalization and regulation, and it is characterized by a noninterference stance that “circumvents both the harms of legal sanction and bureaucratic regulation.” Jane Scoular, The Subject of Prostitution: Sex Work, Law, and Social Theory (New York: Routledge, 2015), 9. Generally speaking, this approach seeks to remove criminal sanctions specifically targeting sex work and move it into being subject to the same labor laws as other occupations. 995 See Scoular, The Subject of Prostitution, Laura Agustin, Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry (London: Zed Books, 2010), and Jo Doezema, Sex Slaves and Discourse Masters: The Construction of Trafficking (London: Zed Books, 2013) on how current discourses are altered mimicries of nineteenth and early- twentieth-century constructions of sex work. 996 The French system was abolished in metropolitan France in 1946, but it persisted in some of its remaining colonies in North Africa and Indochina. The return to the regulationist system, such as in Denmark, Greece, and Austria, and the return to neoregulationism, such as in Germany and the Netherlands, are not motivated by the medico-scientific framework. Contemporary discourses on public health and sex work focus largely on violence, drug use, and sexually transmitted diseases like HIV/AIDS. See Teela Sanders, Maggie O’Neill, and Jane Pitcher, “Sex Workers and Sex Work,” in Prostitution: Sex Work, Policy and Politics (London: Sage, 2009), 43–48.

333 did the need to furnish sex workers for soldiers. This helped to mitigate the “public health” concern posed by sex work.997

Discourses established in the first anti-trafficking convention in 1904 had secured permanency in the prevailing articulations on prostitution after World War II, and this was in part due to the connections made by abolitionists between permissive domestic policies on sex work and the prevalence of trafficking.998 Therefore, it can be argued that the League, in conjunction with the work of predominant abolitionists like Ghénia Avril de Sainte-Croix and regional efforts of Arab feminists like Nur Hamada, helped fashion the contemporary hegemonic discourse that is presently shaping the current human rights debates prevalent in contemporary

Lebanon and Syria.999 This historically-constituted conflation poses all sex work, regardless of its practice by adults in consensual acts, with trafficking, which is a genuine violation of human rights. Therefore, such rhetoric simplifies a complex issue that removes notion of consent and voluntary participation and instills punitive measures that further marginalizes an already marginalized population by eliminating safe labor protections and sources of income.

Furthermore, it provides rescuing services as the means to avoid harsher punishments, whether or not those subjected to such measures desire to be “saved.” These measures can obscure coercive and exploitative labor conditions workers may face by only focusing on efforts to

997 After World War II, France still maintained regulationism in Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco. According to Stephanie Limoncelli, both Algeria and Morocco adhered to the United Nations’ 1950 Anti-trafficking Convention in 1963 and 1973, respectively. Stephanie Limoncelli, The Politics of Trafficking: The First International Movement to Combat the Sexual Exploitation of Women (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010), 130–131. 998 These finding are reiterated in contemporary reports such as Seo-Young Cho, Axel Dreher, and Eric Neumayer, “Does Legalized Prostitution Increase Human Trafficking?” World Development 41, no. 1 (2013): 67–82. 999 As early as 1902, Avril de Sainte-Croix argued that state-regulated prostitution encouraged the trafficking of women and children in the “white slave trade.” Karen Offen, “Intrepid Crusader: Ghénia Avril de Sainte-Croix Takes on the Prostitution Issue,” Proceedings of the Western Society for French History 33 (2005): 359–360. For the argument that legalized prostitution is rightfully positioned with trafficking, see Melissa Farley, “Theory Versus Reality: Commentary on Four Articles about Trafficking for Prostitution,” Women’s Studies International Forum 32, no. 4 (2009): 311–315.

334 reform women and not the conditions under which they operate. Efforts to “crack down” on exploitation can instigate law enforcement raids that place workers in carceral conditions and forced deportations. Like sex workers who were forced back to their countries of origin regardless of their consent under the League, such practices continue to take effect in the current context.

Travelling Discourses: Sex Work Construction under the Mandate in Postcolonial Contexts

Unlike the French Mandate in Lebanon and Syria which came to a close in 1946, regulation over sex work, which became official law in 1931 in the region under the colonial authorities, and which was outlined in Chapter Three, proved to be more resilient. In fact, the 1931 “Loi portant règlementation de la prostitution” enacted by the Lebanese government remains in effect to this very day, at least technically. Licensed maisons de tolérance (to use the term in the 1931 law) are the only locations where sex workers can legally ply their trade, though the last license to be issued was in 1975, which is when the Lebanese Civil War commenced.1000 Currently, while

1000 According to the UK-based Sexuality, Poverty and Law Program, Lebanon requires sex workers to register with the authorities, undergo medical examinations, be at least 21 years of age, and not be a virgin as outlined in Sections 526 and 527 of the Lebanese Penal Code (LPC) (available at http://spl.ids.ac.uk/sexworklaw). Specifically, “Article 523 of the Lebanese Penal Code stipulates that sex workers can only practice sex work inside licensed brothels and criminalizes ‘any person who practices secret prostitution or facilitates it.’ No licenses for sex workers or brothels have been granted since 1975. As a result, many illegal brothels operated until 1998 when a law forbidding businesses to have rooms available for commercial sex was passed. Sections 526 and 527 of the LPC make the coercion of sex workers and living on the earnings of a sex worker illegal.” http://spl.ids.ac.uk/sexwork- characteristics/3-laws-against-prostitution-and-brothel-keeping-are-complimented-regulations. Article 525 of the LPC states that “a person who . . . maintains another person against his/her will in a brothel, or coerces him/her into prostitution, shall be punished by imprisonment of anywhere from two months to two years and by a fine of 50,000 to 500,000 Lebanese pounds.” A report submitted to the United Nations Periodic Review on Lebanon in November 2015 mentioned that, due to the lack of new licenses issued for brothels, work has moved into homes and public locations, as well as to the phone and the internet—all of which are illegal—resulting in the punishment of infractions by a fine or imprisonment. The report claims that foreigners can exploit the loophole by using “artist” visas, though they can be subjected to deportation proceedings if found engaging in sexual commerce. The A Project, Center for Reproductive Rights, and Sexual Rights Initiative, “Submission to the United Nations Universal Periodic Review of Lebanon, 23rd Session of the UPR Working Group of the Human Rights Council,” November 2015. Geneva, Switzerland: 10–11. https://civilsociety- centre.org/sites/default/files/resources/upr_working_group.pdf. According to data tracked on Global AIDS Monitoring (http://www.aidsinfoonline.org/gam/libraries/aspx/home.aspx), 4,220 sex workers operated in Lebanon in 2016, whereas 25,000 operated in Syria. Sherifa Zuhur, writing in the Lebanese journal al-Raida, characterizes Lebanese government regulationism as follows: “In Lebanon, sex workers may be licensed so long as they are 21

335 prostitution is still officially “legal” due to the fact that the 1931 law was never repealed, the

Lebanese government has made it increasingly difficult to practice the trade in the open by not registering new maisons.1001 Instead, contemporary sex workers turn to so-called “super nightclubs,” private homes, and the street to operate. According to Lieutenant Colonel Elie Al

Asmar, who in 2012 oversaw the 25-man Lebanese Security Force unit that dealt with sex work, prostitution is not regulated and is illegal, so anyone engaging in the practice is considered by the state as being “clandestine.”1002 This situation is hardly surprising, since we have seen how the

French colonial authorities were constantly preoccupied with “artists” and “performers” and whether or not they were in fact sex workers. And this preoccupation was related to how the trafficking of women was conceived by the League and its member states.

Trafficking was first codified in Paris on May 18, 1904, under the International

Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, which has remained the predominant model when it comes to discussing prostitution in the Levant to this day.1003 The 1904

Agreement was the first to provide international coordination on the “procuring of women or girls for immoral purposes,” as articulated in Article 1, and specifically on the “women or girls

and not virgins. A woman may own a brothel if she is over 25 years old. Monthly medical examinations are conducted by the government, a policy dating back to the Mandate period intended to accommodate foreign soldiers and prevent the spread of venereal disease, and this also applied in Syria. However, Sections 526 and 527 of the Lebanese Penal Code prohibit pimping, coercion of sex work and living on the earnings of a sex worker.” Sherifa Zuhur, “Women’s Crimes and the Criminalization of Sex,” in al-Raida 23, no. 113 (2006): 35. However, this summary seems to show the discrepancy between the written law and its enforcement in practice. 1001 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), “Sex Work and Anti-Prostitution Laws,” in Lebanon: Gender Justice and the Law (New York: UNDP, 2018), 24. 1002 Zak Brophy, “Vice: Regulating Lebanon’s Darker Side,” in Executive Magazine, Beirut, August 3, 2012. https://www.executive-magazine.com/economics-policy/vice-regulating-lebanons-darker-side. 1003 In April 2014, Lebanese Law 293/2014 placed “relying on the prostitution of others” under domestic violence legislation in compliance with the country’s adherence to the 2000 UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, which required adherents to adopt “legislative and other measures” to establish criminal offenses of profiteering off of exploitation. Lily Abichahine, Supplement to “Mashrou3 Insan” Report: A Legal and Regulatory Framework Review (Beirut: AUB Policy Institute, 2018), 13. The French government had Lebanon and Syria adhere to the original 1904 Agreement when it decided to apply the articles of the 1921 International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children to France’s mandatory possessions on June 2, 1930. On June 20, 1949, Lebanon, as an independent state, deposited its instrument of accession to the 1904 Agreement with the United Nations.

336 of foreign nationality who are prostitutes,” as set forth in Article 3. Significantly, the same article only called for repatriating women or girls “who desire it, or who may be claimed by persons exercising authority over them,” which was eliminated in later conventions. While the concept of trafficking was constructed in the colonial Levant under these circumstances, in a sense it was the colonial authorities who assumed the role of the traffickers by “repatriating” women regardless of their consent, especially Syrian women who traveled to neighboring territories such as Iraq and Palestine as dancers or, more broadly, as “artists.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the rhetoric about sexual commerce that is employed in contemporary discourses is highly reminiscent of the rhetoric used in the 1930s. Currently, the

General Directorate of General Security in Lebanon oversees the regulation of “super nightclubs,” which are administered under different “classes.” According to these regulations issued by the Lebanese General Directorate, there are venues where “artist” visas are granted, which are renewable for up to six months “if medical exams are negative.” Elaborating on these requirements, the government states that foreign artists are required to submit to routine medical exams by “competent doctors” who “hold their records containing logs of each visit and exam results. The doctor has to inform the general security-artist division in the case of a sick leave.”

Included in the list of requirements artists must adhere to as part of their visa stipulations are wearing “appropriate outfits,” only leaving establishments between 1 and 8 pm after registering with the receptionist where they are staying and explicitly “respecting the social and cultural norms in effect (no drugs, nor prostitution).” 1004 A 2012 article written in the US-based Foreign

1004 Details of the regulations of nightclubs are found on the General Directorate of General Security website: http://www.general-security.gov.lb/en/posts/43. Similar regulations govern “barmaids,” except there is mention that they must be tested for AIDS and syphilis every time they “travel back and forth to Lebanon for work purposes, or after 6 months of her entry at the most.” Furthermore, barmaids are not permitted to marry a Lebanese citizen. http://www.general-security.gov.lb/en/posts/42. “Arab and foreign dancers,” as opposed to Lebanese workers, “must endure medical exams, and laboratory exams, when their stay exceeds one month.” http://www.general- security.gov.lb/en/posts/40.

337

Policy magazine entitled “Sex for Sale in Beirut: Lebanon’s ‘Super Nightclubs’ Straddle the

Line between Brothel and Strip Club” sounds strongly reminiscent of various League documents discussing the regulation of artists in music halls.1005 The 1932 Travelling Enquiry report, for example, made the following claim:

[T]wo categories of professional entertainers who often are in danger of becoming victims of traffickers [are] . . . artistes [sic] and professional dancing partners. Most of the European artistes [sic] in the Orient perform as stage dancers and between performances are open to accept invitations from customers at the cabaret or restaurant to keep them company and to dance with them. . . . Among the towns visited, the greatest number of artistes [sic] was found in Beirut. The occidental artistes [sic] in Beirut were of various European nationalities, mostly from Central and Eastern Europe and from France. The managers of the establishments at which the artistes [sic] work . . . apply to the police in Beirut for authority to bring them in. This authority is accorded only on the basis of definite contracts of employment. . . . The contract of the foreign artist is always for one month, renewable subject to good behaviour, though the period of residence may not exceed six months. No more than ten artistes [sic] are allowed to be employed at one time by one establishment.1006

1005 According to the US State Department, in April 2016 the Lebanese Internal Security Forces closed 13 unlicensed brothels and “a judge issued a permanent judicial order to close all ‘super nightclubs’—which operate as brothels—in Jounieh.” The report also states that “over the past five years, Lebanon has been a source and destination country for women and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking and a transit country for Eastern European women and children subjected to sex trafficking in other Middle Eastern countries. . . . Women from Eastern Europe and North Africa enter Lebanon to work in the adult entertainment industry through Lebanon’s artiste visa program, which sustains a significant commercial sex industry and enables sex trafficking; 11,284 women entered Lebanon under this program in 2016, more than double the number of women that entered under this program in 2015. The terms of the artiste visa prohibit foreign women working in adult nightclubs to leave the hotel where they reside, except to “perform,” and nightclub owners withhold the women’s passports and control their movement; these women also experience physical and sexual abuse, withheld wages, and domestic servitude.” United States Department of State (USDS, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, 2017 Trafficking in Persons Report – Lebanon (Washington, DC: DOS, 2017), 249. 1006 League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, Report to the Council. December 10, 1932. C.849.M.393.1932.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 28–29. The 1932 League Enquiry claimed that “in the Near East, more particularly in Syria, the occidental prostitutes are in the majority victims of traffic. As a condition of official permission for the entry of a foreign prostitute, the Syrian authorities require that the applicant should produce an assurance of admission to a licensed brothel in Syria. While this practice is obviously intended to restrict the entry of foreign women of this category, it is, on the other hand, an official sanction of acts of international traffic, fraught with danger of being misunderstood and interpreted as an encouragement by those who engage in this nefarious trade. The keeper of the house of will, in case of the intended engagement of a prostitute from abroad, probably resort to an intermediary in whom he has confidence. The assured market which the system of licensed brothels there provides and the absence of risk in a transaction which is legally recognized are in such cases undoubtedly strong incentives for the usual chain of middlemen, such as touts [sic], souteneurs and procurers, to promote business. In the Middle East . . . movements of occidental prostitutes to those places were brothels are allowed to exist necessarily also bear the stamp of traffic. It appears that all the places of the Middle East to which traffic is facilitated by the existence of brothels form a network within the bounds of which women are moved from one center of exploitation to another.” League of

338

The author of the 2012 Foreign Policy article, which situates contemporary discourses on sex work in Lebanon, Sulome Anderson, wrote: “Not quite strip clubs, not quite brothels, super nightclubs represent the seedy underside of Lebanon’s famous night life. Owners import women, usually from Eastern Europe or Morocco, to work in their clubs under an ‘artist’ visa. It’s understood, however, that ‘artist’ is really just a euphemism for ‘prostitute.’”1007 While contemporary performers are not legally permitted to participate in sexual commerce, as previously outlined in the current regulations, neoabolitionists accuse the Directorate of General

Security of “say[ing] prostitution is banned in this country” and then being “involved in regulating it. Everything goes through them. In practice it is kind of legalized without any legal text.”1008 That sounds familiar both in regard to the ambiguity of the role of “artists” in Levantine society and how it is regulated.

Between July 1, 1934 and June 30, 1935, the Levantine states took measures to prevent the trafficking of women, which included passport offices preventing the foreign travel of women and children without “a thorough inquiry into the reasons for the journey.”1009 In tandem

Nations Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, Report to the Council. December 10, 1932. C.849.M.393.1932.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 24–25. An example of evidence that nightlife recruiters serving as traffickers is provided in the 1932–33 French report on their mandated territories, when an Egyptian man “on the pretext of recruiting performers, was really trying to traffic in women.” He was deported from the Levant (it does not specify Syria or Lebanon) back to Egypt. League of Nations, Traffic in Women and Children Committee, Summary of Annual Reports for 1932–33, Prepared by the Secretariat. January 15, 1934. C.2.M.2.1934.IV. Geneva, Switzerland. 1007 Sulome Anderson, “Sex for Sale in Beirut: Lebanon’s ‘Super Nightclubs’ Straddle the Line between Brothel and Strip Club,” February 9, 2012, Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/02/09/sex-for-sale-in-beirut/. According to the article, foreign women are permitted to work in Lebanon under artist visas after signing an employment contract approved by the Directorate of General Security. In 1927, the League of Nations characterized analogous action as “procuring of women as entertainers and artistes, and exploiting them for purpose of prostitution in foreign countries under degrading and demoralising conditions.” League of Nations, Report of the Special Body of Experts on Traffic in Women and Children: Part One. February 17, 1927. C.52.M.52.1927.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 9. 1008 Ghada Jabbour from the Beirut-based organization Kafa as quoted by Zak Brophy, “Vice: Regulating Lebanon’s Darker Side,” in Executive Magazine, Beirut, August 3, 2012. https://www.executive-magazine.com/economics- policy/vice-regulating-lebanons-darker-side. 1009 League of Nations Traffic in Women and Children Committee, “Summary of Annual Reports for 1934–35, Prepared by the Secretariat.” February 5, 1936. C.88.M.32.1936.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 20. Thaddeus Gregory and Ana Paula de Silva’s work on anti-trafficking protocols’ impact on sex work in Brazil proves apt here; they said

339 with this measure, a new order updating regulations provided in the 1932 Travelling Enquiry report restricted the flow of foreign artists into the country: “The residence of such artists is made strictly conditional on the exercise of their profession, and may not in any case exceed six months.” The act restricted any music hall from hiring more than eight foreign artists at any given time, and the authorities took action to reduce the overall number of venues. That year, there were multiple cases of foreign women found to be practicing clandestine sex work who were subsequently “invited to leave the territory.” While most of them complied, seven did not and were forcibly deported along with three men profiteering off their earnings.1010

During the Mandate period, transmigration for the practice of sex work without the recognition of state authorities was an offense punishable by deportation, regardless of the sex worker’s consent, a subject that remains contentious in contemporary discourses.1011 Nandita

Sharma characterizes present-day anti-trafficking campaigners as being allied with the interests of nation-states, where the “[c]ondemning and criminalizing the illicit movements of peoples, it was thought, would ensure that the full weight of nation-states would be used against anyone who dares move without official permission.”1012 Such a position certainly holds true with regard

that “women will be subject to increased state surveillance for their own good” during their overseas travels and that “women will be understood as beyond the purview of the country’s . . . antitrafficking measures.” Thaddeus Gregory and Ana Paula da Silva, “Bad Girls and Vulnerable Women: An Anthropological Analysis of Narratives Regarding Prostitution and Human Trafficking in Brazil,” in Negotiating Sex Work: Unintended Consequences of Policy and Activism, ed. Carisa R. Showden and Samantha Majic (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014), 122. 1010 Three of the women were French, two Iraqi, and one each from Palestine, Italy, and Turkey. The men were from France, Greece, and Egypt. This report also claims 11 cases of procuring in Beirut due to poverty, with similar cases in Damascus and Aleppo. League of Nations Traffic in Women and Children Committee, “Summary of Annual Reports for 1934–35, Prepared by the Secretariat.” February 5, 1936. C.88.M.32.1936.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 8– 9. 1011 The United Nation’s Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children calls for “measures to prevent trafficking [in persons], to punish the traffickers and to protect the victims of such trafficking, including by protecting their internationally recognized human rights.” The notion of “consent” is defined in Article 3, rendering consent “irrelevant” if the following methods were employed: threats, coercion, deception, fraud, abduction, abuse of power, or “the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person.” Lebanon signed it in 2002 and ratified it in 2005 (Syria signed it in 2000 and ratified it in 2009). 1012 Nandita Sharma, “Anti-Trafficking Rhetoric and the Making of a Global Apartheid,” NWSA Journal 17, no. 3 (2005): 99.

340 to the Mandate period. Soon after the League’s 1932 Travelling Enquiry report was produced, any notion that sex workers should have control over their mobility was deemed irrelevant by the

League, as a part of the 1933 International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in

Women of Full Age made consent immaterial to an action being labeled as “trafficking.”1013

Again, referring back to the League’s 1932 Travelling Enquiry report, as it is the most comprehensive single volume on sex work and trafficking in the Near East during this period, the section on Iraq stated that “[t]he Syrians are said to come to Iraq, either as dancing-girls or prostitutes, because they hope to make more money there then they can in their own country. The foreign Asiatic dancers were almost all Syrians, and they were said to come on their own account because they believed there was more money to be made in Iraq and because it suited them to work in a country where the inhabitants were similar by race and language.”1014

More contemporary scholarship has emphasized the fact that many sex workers are willing migrate to seek better opportunities but are subjected to disciplinary regimes that reduce their circumstances to being “trafficked” and victimized. Such regimes, some scholars contend, disregard the workers’ articulations of their condition. Jo Doezema, for example, draws parallels between contemporary discourses on the trafficking of women and “white slavery” myths that emerged at the turn of the twentieth century. She argues that, then like now, these narratives rest on cultural myths that “combine efforts designed to protect ‘innocent’ women with those

1013 The 1921 Convention maintained separation between voluntary adult sex work and forced trafficking. The 1933 Convention did not have as many adherents as the 1921 version. France was concerned over the language in the 1933 Convention that made it incompatible with regulationism: the procuring of an adult woman with her consent was made an offense. 1014 League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, Report to the Council. December 10, 1932. C.849.M.393.1932.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 409. Another interesting point is that the Travelling Enquiry claims that Syrian sex workers would use veils to evade border agents (as Muslim women were not required to show their faces), use passports of others not suspected of prostitution, and enter other countries as dancers (ibid., 411–412).

341 designed to punish ‘bad’ women: i.e. prostitutes.”1015 Therefore, like those “Asiatic dancers” highlighted in the 1932 Travelling Enquiry report on trafficking in the Near East, the innocence of the “victim” must rest on her unwillingness to become a prostitute.

There are, in addition, other ways in which the activities of and the discourse surrounding the commercial sex trade in Syria and Lebanon between 1920 and 1946 resonate with the present day. Syria, the other territorial site I have focused on in this thesis, is currently experiencing a civil war. Some 1.3 million Syrian refugees were reported in Lebanon in 2018 fleeing the violence in their homeland; as a result of this displacement some women and girls entered the sex trade. News reports have recently stated that in 2015 Lebanese authorities uncovered “an extensive sex trafficking ring exploiting primarily Syrian women and girls in Beirut.”1016

Furthermore, in neighboring Turkey, Zeynep Kivilcim has contended that the legal system perpetuated violence against Syrian refugee women: “Due to the ambiguity of their legal status in Turkey as well as the absolute poverty in which they live, Syrian women and girls are forced

1015 Jo Doezema, “Loose Women or Lost Women? The Re-Emergence of the Myth of White Slavery in Contemporary Discourses of Trafficking in Women,” Gender Issues 18, no. 1 (2000): 24, 28. One of the rationales provided for regulating sex work during the Mandate period was “incitement to immorality would be practised freely in the streets and that honest women would be exposed to the attack.” Belgian Delegate M. Maus, League of Nations, Advisory Commission for the Protection and Welfare of Children and Young People, Traffic in Women and Children Committee, Minutes of the Ninth Session Held in Geneva from Wednesday, April 2, to Wednesday, April 9, 1930. July 20, 1930. C.246.M.121.1930.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 47. 1016 United States of America Department of State, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Trafficking in Persons Report – Lebanon (Washington, DC: DOS, 2018), 272. The same report states that “the Syrian refugee population is highly vulnerable to sex trafficking and forced labor in neighboring countries, particularly Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkey. In 2015, an international organization reported a high number of child marriages of Syrian girls among refugee populations. Syrian refugee women and girls are vulnerable to forced or “temporary marriages”—for the purpose of prostitution and other forms of exploitation— and sex trafficking in refugee camps” (406). The idea of the “marriage method” is also historically linked to trafficking, whereby “souteneurs find that the simplest method of obtaining an innocent or inexperienced victim is to marry her. Marriage, bogus or real, is often a useful cloak for a trafficker’s activities.” League of Nations, Report of the Special Body of Experts on Traffic in Women and Children: Part One. February 17, 1927. C.52.M.52.1927.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 34. Elsewhere, the report states that “the marriage method was also applied to minor girls by souteneurs, who thus obtained control over girls who would otherwise be protected by the emigration laws of the various countries bordering on the Mediterranean.” League of Nations, Report of the Special Body of Experts on Traffic in Women and Children: Part Two. November 27, 1927. C.52(2).M.52(1).1927.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 61.

342 to marry with Turkish nationals as a survival strategy.”1017 The plight of these refugees sounds strikingly similar to that of the women and girls fleeing the Armenian Genocide, who either fled or were forced to flee to Syria as refugees in 1915–1916 and who had to engage in “” to get by, an issue I addressed in Chapter Four.1018 While the circumstances underlying these two human rights catastrophes are markedly different, the discourses produced around the trafficking of vulnerable refugees are not. Christian missionary groups in the United States have formulated campaigns to protect Christian minorities in Syria against Muslim perpetrators of human rights violations, most notably the Islamic State.1019 In an article written by Virginia-based Advancing

Native Missions entitled “Making a Way in the Desert for Syrian Children,” the author speaks of the vulnerability of Christian children who have “a risky life. Human trafficking abounds.

Kidnappers sell boys as future hitmen, girls as slaves. . . . Exploitative employers offer girls higher wages, hoping they can then pressure them into sex.” It continues with a quote from

“Brother K,” a missionary who serves this group of Syrian refugees: “They have lost everything.

What do you expect from this generation? What do you expect from a girl who has been raped

1017 Zeynep Kivilcim, “Legal Violence against Syrian Female Refugees in Turkey,” Feminist Legal Studies 24, no. 2 (2016): 193–214, 201. She connects these marriages to sexual slavery, particularly among children. “The government’s inaction in terms of preventing and sanctioning the trading of Syrian children and women as ‘brides’ makes possible and amplifies the domestic violence inflicted on Syrian female refugees as forced sex and house workers” (203). 1018 The term “survival sex” is used in scholarly literature to describe those who engage in sexual commerce in order to pay for necessities. Often it is invoked to discuss street homelessness among youth and other vulnerable populations, but, as Lorraine Charles and Kate Denman demonstrate, Syrian refugees have used such strategies to ease the cost of living in Lebanon. Lorraine Charles and Kate Denman, “Syrian and Palestinian Syrian Refugees in Lebanon: The Plight of Women and Children,” Journal of International Women’s Studies 14, no. 5 (2013): 106. 1019 Prior to the Syrian civil war, the United States Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), which was passed under the Clinton administration, brought together Republicans, feminists, Democrats, and Christian evangelicals, which resulted in the United States Department of State’s annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report. Jackson and colleagues show that the US Freedom from Sexual Trafficking Act of 1999 reflected conservative Christian interests with its focus on trafficking and prostitution, defining voluntary prostitution as trafficking while ignoring other types of trafficking. Crystal A. Jackson, Jennifer J. Reed, and Barbara G. Brents, “Strange Confluences: Radical Feminism and Evangelical Christianity as Drivers of US Neo-Abolitionism,” in Feminism, Prostitution and the State: The Politics of Neo-Abolitionism, ed. Eilis Ward and Gillian Wylie (London: Routledge, 2017), 72–73.

343 by men? When she is older she will become a prostitute.” 1020 The neo-orientalist discourses of vulnerability and sexual exploitation garnering public awareness appears reminiscent of social purity campaigns of the prior century based on religious preoccupations.1021 While, just as expressed in Chapter Four, it is important to recognize that exploitation exists and not minimize its impacts, what is at issue here is how these vulnerabilities become leveraged by vested parties.

As Jo Doezema makes clear, the construction of the “damaged ‘other’ [by an organization] as the main justification for its own interventionist impulses” should be called into question.1022

Moreover, Jackson and colleagues argue that Christian evangelical involvement in modern-day anti-trafficking campaigns derives its lineage from the anti-abolitionist Christian moralists from the 1800s, who were part of the social purity movement.1023 In their words, the US evangelicals joined the “fight against trafficking by focusing on rescue, in which they positioned powerless third world women as needing protection from ‘bad men.’”1024 This neoabolitionist approach, which views trafficking as “modern-day slavery” and “commercial sex exploitation” is,

1020 Felisa Needham, “Making a Way in the Desert for Syrian Children,” Advancing Native Missions. N.P., March 13, 2017. https://advancingnativemissions.com/making-a-way-in-the-desert-for-syrian-children/. 1021 Ronald Weitzer, among others, notes that the moral imperative of Christian intervention in prostitution is the perception that “prostitution symbolizes sexual liberalism, moral decay, and family breakdown.” Ronald Weitzer, “Moral Crusade against Prostitution,” Society 43, no. 3 (2006): 33. I am not trying to examine the efficacy of the claims made by religious organizations, as trafficking and exploitation do exist. My point here is to focus on the discourses employed by missionary groups in the region. Yvonne Zimmerman argues that contemporary Christian discourses used the same motifs that “served as the discursive foundations of the 19th century social purity campaigns, the discursive foundations of ‘white slavery’ [which] remain remarkably intact in present-day depictions of human trafficking.” Yvonne C. Zimmerman, “Christianity and Human Trafficking,” Religion Compass 5, no. 10 (2001): 569. For neo-orientalist discourses in anti-trafficking campaigns of the passive “Eastern” female subject in need of rescue by the “civilized West,” see Elizabeth Bernstein, “Carceral Politics as Gender Justice? The ‘Traffic in Women’ and Neoliberal Circuits of Crime, Sex, and Rights,” Theory and Society 21, no. 3 (2012): 243–245, Ratna Kapur, “‘Faith’ and the ‘Good’ Liberal: The Construction of Female Sexual Subjectivity in Anti-trafficking Legal Discourse,” in Sexuality and the Law: Feminist Engagements, ed. Vanessa Munro and Carl Stychin (New York: Routledge-Cavendish, 2007), 223–258, and Barbara Sullivan, “Trafficking in Women,” International Feminist Journal of Politics 5, no. 1 (2003): 67–91. See also Allen D. Hertzke, Freeing God’s Children: The Unlikely Alliance for Global Human Rights for Christian evangelical and human trafficking discourses. 1022 Jo Doezema, “Ouch! Western Feminists’ ‘Wounded Attachment’ to the ‘Third World Prostitute,’” Feminist Review 67 (2001): 17. 1023 Jackson et al., “Strange Confluences,” 70. 1024 Ibid., 67.

344 according to Jane Scoular, “used in official discourse to justify increasingly punitive approaches against clients and the promotion of exiting and the ‘rehabilitation’ of sex workers.”1025

Furthermore, these anti-trafficking discourses premised on neoabolitionists’ understanding of the

“problem” suggest that the “solution” to the issue is to curtail the migration of vulnerable populations.1026 Jyoti Sanghera draws attention to this solution, whether intentional or not, of trying “to dissuade women and girls from moving in order to protect them from harm,” which reinforces “the gender bias that women and girls need constant male or state protection and therefore must not be allowed to exercise their right of movement.”1027 This paternalism has been reflected historically under the League.

Policies in the Levant during 1934-35 provides an example of similarly constructed paternalism, as women and girls were subjected to stricter traveling restrictions out of concern for their “safety” and their vulnerability to sexual exploitation. The League was in effect employing what Maria Hwang has termed “gendered border regimes.”1028 Furthermore, the 1933

International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women of Full Age, which France declined to sign on behalf of Syria and Lebanon, explicitly precluded the recognition of the notion of “consent”—even for adult women; this was made quite clear immediately in Article

1025 Scoular, The Subject of Prostitution, 8. 1026 Annie Hill astutely recognizes the personalizing nature of rehabilitation strategies employed in policies that turn the “victim” into a criminal if they refuse to reform themselves according to middle-class bourgeois notions of respectable living (or, in their words, “desirable citizen-subjects”). Such policies “locate the problem of prostitution within the prostitutes themselves, and their strategy employs rehabilitative interventions that require the sex workers to change their conduct [and modify their behavior]. Under the prostitution-as-victim paradigm, the penalties for prostitution extend beyond traditional sanctions to a whole range of medicobehaviorist exercises that turn the problem of prostitution into a personal one.” Annie Hill, “Demanding Victims: The Sympathetic Shift in British Prostitution Policy,” in Negotiating Sex Work: Unintended Consequences of Policy and Activism, ed. Carisa R. Showden and Samantha Majic (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014), 78–79. 1027 Jyoti Sanghera, “Unpacking the Trafficking Discourse,” in Trafficking and Prostitution Reconsidered: New Perspectives on Migration, Sex Work, and Human Rights, ed. Kamala Kempadoo (New York: Routledge, 2017), 11. 1028 Maria Cecilia Hwang, “Gendered Border Regimes and Displacements: The Case of Filipina Sex Workers in Asia,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 43, no. 3 (2018): 516.

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1.1029 All forms of migration “in order to gratify the passions of another person” would be, according to Article 2, “punished according to their gravity.”1030 The reasons for France’s reluctance to sign the 1933 Convention was, once again, founded on fears of the League’s encroachment on their national sovereignty.1031 This was only reinforced by the 1937 Draft

Convention for the Suppression of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, which removed the international element in the official definition of “trafficking”: it made it a criminal offense to traffic men and women within national borders.1032

Continuity and Change

To reiterate my point—and it is one well worth repeating—the two dominant constructions of sex work are not static but clearly show traces of their colonial roots. While I have been careful not to make false equivalencies and to be mindful of the particularities of historical moments, I believe that part of the relevancy of this thesis is to show how modern-day sex work discourses are historically situated and possess genealogies that construct how sex work is problematized and how “solutions” are generated. And as important as my emphasis on continuity has been, there has been a significant change in the discourses surrounding prostitution. And it is to this change that I now turn.

1029 Lebanon and Syria became parties to the updated protocol and definitive signatories on November 12, 1947, in Lake Success, New York, after gaining independence from France. 1030 The intent of this Convention, as an update to the 1921 version, was to broaden the defining scope of trafficking. 1031 In particular, the French delegate was concerned with the use of penalties against procurers and souteneurs (loosely translated as “pimps,” or those who live off the earnings of a prostitute) in the draft language, as France actively procured workers to employ in their military maisons and BMCs, as I made evident in Chapter 3. Regarding national protections, the 2000 United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, which Lebanon signed in 2001 and ratified in 2005 (Syria signed it in 2000 and ratified it 2009) makes a carveout for protecting state sovereignty (Article 4). 1032 Barbara Metzger, “Towards an International Human Rights Regime during the Inter-War Years: The League of Nations’ Combat of Traffic in Women and Children,” in Beyond Sovereignty: Britain, Empire and Internationalism, c. 1880–1950, ed. Kevin Grant, Philippa Levine, and Frank Trentmann (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 74. On June 12, 1959, Syria acceded to the updated March 21, 1950, version of this convention, Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others.

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There is an increasing recognition of sex work as a legitimate form of work amongst those working globally in the industry and advocates largely emanating from North America and

Europe. They contend that sex workers ought to be entitled to the same protections as other workers in other fields. As a result, an effort to decriminalize sexual commerce has taken hold.1033 It is premised on the notion of “consent” that factors into contemporary debates, which is, however, something that was present in anti-trafficking conventions prior to the League’s elimination of it in 1933, as mentioned above (although many countries did not actually adhere to that Convention).1034 One important moment in this modern debate surrounding consensuality transpired in Beirut in 2016: the New-York-City-based Human Rights Watch issued a report in which it rebuked the Lebanese government’s feeble response to sex trafficking.1035 The report pointed to the vulnerabilities of Syrian women being forced to work in prostitution. It based this claim on dozens of Syria women being found in such conditions when authorities conducted

1033 The “problem” of trafficking being conflated with voluntary sex work means that policy solutions will be targeted in response to a flawed framework. The point is not to refute that trafficking exists and that it is problematic. It is the conflation of trafficking with all forms of prostitution that obscures any distinction between sexual exploitation and voluntary engagement that requires further interrogation. There is an increasing amount of scholarship on trafficking and sex work that argues that workers themselves do not see themselves as victims but, instead, as “working women” who consciously entered the trade and reject notions of exploitation and oppression that are applied to them. Weitzer, “Moral Crusade,” 35. Other examples include Laura Agustin, “At Home in the Street: Questioning the Desire to Help and Save,” in Regulating Sex: The Politics of Intimacy and Identity, ed. Elizabeth Bernstein and Laurie Schaffner (New York: Routledge, 2005), 68–69 and Kimberly Kay Hoang, Dealing in Desire: Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline, and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015), 104–125. For an excellent discussion on the contradictions within the postcolonial context of sex work, see Kamala Kempadoo, Sexing the Caribbean: Gender, Race, and Sexual Labor (New York: Routledge, 2004), 191–205. Two edited volumes that explore these issues are Kamala Kempadoo and Jo Doezema, eds., Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition and Kamala Kempadoo, Jyoti Sanghera, and Bandana Pattanaik, eds., Trafficking and Prostitution Reconsidered: New Perspectives on Migration, Sex Work, and Human Rights. 1034 As Scoular states, radical feminist stances that are reflected in anti-trafficking campaigns reflect the idea that patriarchy is so pervasive (and invasive) that it “renders agency irrelevant.” She argues that the movement beyond free/forced is necessary so that one takes into account “the importance of context and power relations in the construction of consensual capacity.” Scoular, The Subject of Prostitution, 124–126. 1035 Human Rights Watch, “Lebanon: Syrian Women at Risk of Sex Trafficking: Improve Enforcement; Provide Support for Victims.” July 28, 2016. In their report, they detailed some of the history behind “Chez Maurice,” stating that the owner, Maurice Geagea, had been arrested and released three times for forced prostitution, and that Chez Maurice was found to be exploiting a 17-year-old Syrian girl in 2011. Human Rights Watch, “Lebanon: Syrian Women at Risk of Sex Trafficking: Improve Enforcement; Provide Support for Victims.” July 28, 2016. https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/07/28/lebanon-syrian-women-risk-sex-trafficking.

347 raids in 2015–2016. In March of 2016, approximately 75 Syrian women were “freed” by

Lebanese security officers from two brothels, “Chez Maurice” and “Silver-B” (the French name of the former is noteworthy). This report drew the ire of Kafa, a Beirut-based women’s rights organization.1036 The facts of the matter were not at issue. What concerned Kafa was Human

Rights Watch’s contention that sex work could be voluntary. This debate about whether sex work can be consensual is reminiscent of prior abolitionist debates. Contemporary organizations like Kafa articulate that regulating sex work encourages the exploitation of women, creating harm and increasing human trafficking while benefitting men, perpetuating sexual double standards.1037 By removing notions of voluntary consent in such arrangements, neoabolitionists

1036 Another development in the discourse is the critique of using gender-neutral language that, according to Kafa, erases the gendered hierarchies imbedded in sex work (workers primarily being women and “buyers” primarily being men) and whether “consent” can be given in patriarchal systems. Kafa has also criticized another international organization, Amnesty International (AI), for their stance on the decriminalization of sex work. Kafa, “Amnesty International: Do Not Offer Impunity to Pimps and Sex Buyers,” Beirut, August 11, 2015. https://www.kafa.org.lb/en/node/81. In their condemnation, the organizations located itself in the international milieu of anti-trafficking groups condemning AI including the Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution (CAP International), Demand Abolition (USA), Abolition 2012 (60 NGOs in France), Apne Aap (India), Prostitution Research & Education (USA), Embrace Dignity (South Africa), Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition (USA), Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation (USA), Eaves (UK), Women’s Support Project (UK), Mouvement du Nid (France), Amicale du Nid (France), Solwodi (Germany), Fondation Scelles (France), and Sexual Violence Centre Cork (Ireland). Much of the debates now center on “harm reduction,” which does not seek to obscure the gendered, patriarchal structures governing dominant forms of sex work, but seeks to create environments that do not harm the workers themselves while acknowledging that other genders participate in the industry. Kafa voiced criticism of Human Rights Watch for using “neutral” language, which they contend, in fact, is not neutral, as it does harm by erasing the gendered dynamic imbedded in sex work. But this broader language was first adopted by the League itself in the 1937 Draft Convention for the Suppression of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, which addressed both men and women, as it was originally referred to as the “exploitation of prostitution of other persons,” while previous language used the expression “women and children.” The underlying focus of the draft protocol remained women and children, but the Traffic in Women and Children Committee decided to broaden the provisions as existing ones pertained to only some aspects of trafficking. League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Report on the Work of the Committee in 1937 (First Session), May 15, 1937. C.235.M.169.1937.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 29. 1037 Kafa, “To Human Rights Watch,” Beirut, August 4, 2016. https://www.kafa.org.lb/en/node/8. Kafa engaged in a public campaign that it called “al-Hawa Ma-Byinshara” [“Sex Cannot Be Bought”] against sex work, holding a 2014 public forum in Beirut that had representatives from the Lebanese Security Forces, Directorate of General Security, in addition to representatives from Sweden and Norway. Another noteworthy shift in the contemporary context is the increase in sex work advocacy groups providing unmediated voices of workers and demanding for others to cease problematizing their occupation.

348 posit that the only time a sex worker can offer consent is when they “choose” to be rehabilitated by their rescuers.1038

Whether one is speaking of the knowledge production of French colonial authorities; abolitionists such as Nur Hamada; the briefly established “Beyhum Committee”; international bodies like United Nations or its League of Nations predecessor; or neoabolitionist organizations such as Kafa, the resultant power relations frame sex work as an object of punishment or reform.

All of these rest on the surveillance, control, and monitoring of sex work. Returning to the argument put forth in the Introduction and advanced at several points in this thesis, is that discourses construct and shape knowledge and that entities that wield such discourses exert power and thereby assert dominance over other entities. As in the past, so it is in the present: there are entities that use “expert knowledge” to continue to frame the debate about sex work.

Pathologizing and paternalism are intertwined, as new methods of “diagnosis and treatment” of sex work are being reconstructed in the hegemonic discourses that mirror their predecessors.

While regulationism in defense of venereal disease may no longer hold the same traction as it once did, the controls exacted over sex workers still have material effects, as in the case of

“artists” in Lebanon mentioned above. Neoabolitionists are in contention with the state for failing to eradicate the “vice” of prostitution and still believe that “rescuing the victims” of prostitution is paramount. The construction of discourses—both in the early twentieth century and today—on “humanitarianism” and “human rights” standardize notions of “trafficking” and thereby flatten the complexity of work and exploitation. This has generated paternalistic

1038 Aside from the paternalism that this selective notion of “consent” provides, it also obscures the potential power relations between authorities placed in charge of doing the rescuing and the individual being “rescued.” Neoabolitionists, perhaps seeing themselves as benevolent actors trying to “help” those in “need,” therefore selectively employ notions of free will. As Weitzer states, “the only time women make their own choice is when they decide to leave prostitution.” Weitzer, “Moral Crusade,” 34.

349 approaches to the issue of prostitution that (neo)abolitionists argue should be enforced by the state in what Elizabeth Bernstein calls “carceral feminism.”1039

Returning again to the Introduction to this thesis, I would like to bring up one final time

Carol Bacchi’s question first raised therein: “What is the problem represented to be?” Based on the topics considered in this thesis, once can certainly come up with several answers. For neoregulationists, the “problem” of sex work was represented to be that of contagion.

Specifically, they believed that a lack of control over sex work would lead to a public health crisis: the uncontrollable spread of venereal disease. Academics, doctors, military commanders, and government bureaucrats asserted their authority by employing scientific “knowledge” to drive colonial policy. However, given that there was mounting evidence from this period that regulationism did not curtail the spread of venereal disease one has to wonder whether medical expertise was a tool of colonial policy, or whether medical expertise helped formulate colonial policy. The two were inextricably linked so it is difficult to uncouple them. It seems clear that both medicine and policy worked hand in hand to support French control in the Levant. In the wake of the failure of the French system to control the spread of venereal disease, the “experts” simply reiterated their claim that “clandestine” sex work was the main reason why the solution had not been effective. Therefore, controlling sex workers remained, in the minds of those like

Henri Escher, the most effective policy when it came to controlling contagion, especially among the troops. The authorities just had to work harder to make sure they did not anyone slip through their fingers, as it were. Those who defied policies enforced by municipal and military authorities became the source of the failure to reduce the number of venereal disease cases and

1039 Bernstein, “Carceral Politics,” 235–236. Alice Miller frames the tension as the “focus on protection or push for freedom.” Alice Miller, “Sexuality, Violence against Women, and Human Rights: Women Make Demands and Ladies Get Protection,” Health and Human Rights 7, no. 2 (2004): 18.

350 therefore deserved to be treated more severely.1040 This stance flew in the face of the League’s

1934 survey of seven areas under the British Colonial Empire, which reported that “tolerated houses” were closed and that more “clandestine” prostitutes sought treatment once it became voluntary. It also reported that the “abandonment of the licensed-house system” did not “lead to adverse effects, either on public health or public order.”1041 The survey results underscored

Bacchi’s argument that policies tell us about how governing takes place, the implications of said governance for those who are governed, and whose needs are being addressed through proposed

“solutions” to policy problems. It is clear that France’s resistance to repealing regulationism had less to do with the efficacy of its “health policy” than with its desire to maintain unfettered colonial and military authority over the Levant.1042

1040 As colonial authorities required doctors to trace the source of contagion, sometimes maisons de tolérance were closed when found to be infecting military members with venereal disease. This transpired in Rayak, when a noncommissioned officer contracted venereal disease from “Amoura à Mallaka” and was subsequently not permitted to serve in the military. In response to this closure, the proprietor of the maison, Wadiha Mansour Halibi, stated that restricting her to only civilians has threatened the livelihood of her family, including her six children. Wadiha M. Halabi à son excellence, Monsieur le haut-commissaire de la République française en Syrie et au Liban. Beirut, January 3, 1940. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. The authorities refused her request to serve the military and instructed her to post “Interdit aux militaires de tous grades et à la troupe” in a visible place inside her establishment. Lieutenant-colonel Gautier, commandant d’armes de la Place de Rayak à Monsieur le conseiller administratif de la Bekka. Zahlé, February 15, 1940. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. 1041 This included Madras, Hong-Kong, Malay States, Singapore, and Cyprus (while closed in Palestine, Burma, and Bengal; these were not included in the report). League of Nations Committee on Traffic in Women and Children, “Abolition of Licensed Houses,” June 15, 1934. C.221.M.88.1934.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 60–62, 90. Furthermore, evidence was provided to the League from Germany, England, and the Netherlands that “free and secret treatment” for the entire population “was much more efficient than the old one which only treated a limited number of [registered] prostitutes,” leaving clandestine workers avoiding treatment out of fear of being reported to the authorities. Belgian Delegate M. Maus, League of Nations Advisory Commission for the Protection and Welfare of Children and Young People, Traffic in Women and Children Committee, Minutes of the Ninth Session Held in Geneva from Wednesday, April 2, to Wednesday April 9, 1930. July 20, 1930. C.246.M.121.1930.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 47. 1042 “Benevolent paternalism” rhetoric is something France deployed when describing its relationship with its colonial holdings. The High Commissioner published a book, Syria and Lebanon in 1922, which was mentioned in the section concerning sanitary initiatives the French report to the PMC. The report cites the book as stating that “France, as Mandatory, after having succoured [sic] at the cost of considerable sacrifices, has taken up her duties as educator; and by her advice, her example and her financial aid she has led the way in the task in which the governments of the country under Mandate have deliberately taken up.” The High Commissioner, as the spokesperson for France in the Levant, portrayed the sacrifices as a lifting up of the country, setting the framework for the indigenous governments to pursue. What he failed to mention is how France billed the indigenous governments for the “services” of regulating sex work under the auspices of public health. Annex 9 CPM 66, “Public Health in Mandated Territories,” Memorandum by Count de Ballobar, 300.

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For the abolitionists, the “problem” was represented to be the state’s control and, in their observances, endorsement of the trafficking of women. They believed that the French colonial government’s policy encouraged the trafficking of innocent victims, as mentioned above. The appropriate response to counter France’s extension of regulatory sex work into Syria and

Lebanon was a humanitarian one: “precarious” victims of trafficking, whether they were survivors of the Armenian Genocide or other tragedies, needed to be rescued. Their rehabilitation efforts, strongly endorsed by the League, left unquestioned whether workers themselves wanted to be “saved.” It placed the onus on the “victim” to be willing to be rescued and, if not, risk being labeled as “lost” and consequently subject to punitive measures. Hence, those who defied interventions, whether those interventions originated from the governmental authorities or rescue industry reformers, were likewise labeled as “recalcitrant women.”1043

In the words of the League’s Advisory Committee on Social Questions, given the

“tenacity with which [sex work] persists in civilised communities” and given “its recalcitrance to control,” were either policy approaches, regulationism or abolitionism, successful

‘solutions?’”1044 Considering the durability of the humanitarian discourses that had originated in the 1860s, that had thereafter emanated throughout the Levant during the French Mandate period, and that had then come to be found in our present context a century later, one might

1043 It is important to understand that, while the differences remained stark among neoregulationists and abolitionists (again, I want to underscore that these are not monolithic categories but that I am focusing on the hegemonic arguments), they converged in their approaches to pathologizing sex work. The League of Nations’ study on the prevention of prostitution, published in 1943, just three years prior to the League’s dissolution, stated that “prostitution can only be prevented by removing its causes, and these lie as much in heredity, environment and education as in the circumstances of adult life. Secondly, many girls become prostitutes before they are of full age.” League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Prevention of Prostitution: A Study of Measures Adopted or Under the Consideration Particularly with Regard to Minors (Geneva: League of Nations, 1943), 4. Such constructions prevailed with the dissolution of the League and the simultaneous development of the United Nations. The United Nations took over where the League left off and, in November 1947, amended the original 1921 International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children. Both newly developed governments, that of Syria and that of Lebanon, provided their definitive signatures to the protocol at that time. 1044 League of Nations Advisory Committee on Social Questions, Prevention of Prostitution: A Study of Measures Adopted or Under the Consideration Particularly with Regard to Minors (Geneva: League of Nations, 1943), 8.

352 presume that the way in which sex work has historically been constructed as a problem may be the problem, as it were. The reduction of a dynamic situation to parochial constructions of sex work as a public heath/medical or trafficking/humanitarian issue resulted in incomplete depictions of the material realities on the ground.1045 Such universalizing constructions failed to acknowledge the diverse forms of sex work and, instead, lodged them into permutations based on discourses developed in the 1800s and clarified under French colonial policy and the League. In a sense, one could argue that between the medical and humanitarian discourses that emerged in the Levant during the French Mandate period, it was the humanitarian discourse that prevailed.

Yet, despite the decline of the and the ascendancy of anti-trafficking efforts in the mid-1900s, the discourses produced during that time were vested in the paternalistic claims and pathologizing constructs that endured from the prior century and remain in effect today.

I would like to end this thesis with the story of Rosete Haddad, as I cannot think of a better way to conclude than with the story of a clandestine sex worker operating in Lebanon during the French Mandate, the story of a real person. Although we do not possess her full story, we can see in it evidence of collusion between those in positions of power, the intervention of the military into “municipal” affairs, the forced submission of women to medical exams, the

(mis)labeling of women, punitive measures taken by the authorities, new border regimes under colonialism, and resistance on the part of prostitutes and local indigenous authorities to adhering to colonial policy. Her narrative exemplifies key elements argued in this thesis.

Rosete Haddad, a banished sex worker in Baalbek, first appears in the French diplomatic archives in a letter dated August 22, 1930, which was written by the head of a garrison infirmary

1045 Carol Lee Bacchi, Analysing Policy: What’s the Problem Represented To Be? (Frenchs Forest: Pearson Australia, 2009), xxi.

353 serving the local detachment of the troupes du Levant.1046 In this letter, the garrison doctor wrote to the capitaine commandant d’armes, one Mr. Latour, in Baalbek concerning a former worker at the local BMC, “dites [sic] Rosette,” whom he accused of working clandestinely in service to the local military. He asked for the captain to force her to undergo regular medical inspections. 1047

Ultimately, the authorities took notice of her because of the efforts of Mr. Bechir, who was manager of a maison de tolérance militaire in Baalbek, where Rosete was formerly employed.

He claimed that “Rosa Hadad,” who worked in another maison in Rayak, “had fled without a prior medical examination and without complying with the Rayak Gendarmerie Station.” Bechir, upon being alerted to her return to Baalbek, immediately contacted the police, who then detained her. She was released from police custody to Sergeant Mohamed Saleh, who “declared that he want[ed] to take her as a companion” and who “committed to pay both her housing and maintenance costs.” Bechir asked for the officer of the Service des renseignements to make sure that Rosete “gets in good standing” with the owner of the maison de tolérance militaire of

Rayak, the chief medical officer of Rayak, and the local police. 1048 While it is unknown what he meant by “good standing” or whether she ever got into good standing, Rosete did submit to being examined by the military medical doctor in Baalbek prior to her departure from working in the local maison in order to take up private residence in the city.1049

1046 Without irony (yet is not uncommon with transliterated names), Rosete Haddad was represented in correspondence by various incorrect permutations of her name, including Rose, Rosa, Rosette, or Rossette. Likewise, her last name was spelled Haddad, Hadad, Haidad, or Dhaddad. For the purpose of this thesis, I refer to her as “Rosete”, as that is how she spelled her own name in the only document I found in her original writing. As this thesis is, in part, about representation, this narrative is also instructive prima facie because no one representing her in correspondence seemed to agree on basic pieces of information about her—like her given name. 1047 Le Medecin-chef de l’infirmerie de garnison à Monsieur le captaine. Baalbek, August 22, 1930. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. 1048 Bechir, Gérant de la maison de tolérance militaire, Baalbeck, à Monsieur l’officier des Renseignements de la Bekka, Baalbeck. Baalbek, N.D. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. 1049 N.A., “Police Baalbeck.” Baalbek, August 26, 1930. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France.

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The colonial authorities asked for the local police to “exercise close supervision over

[Rosete], and in the event of her being openly or clandestinely engaged in prostitution, to register her (“la mettre à la carte”)” according to the regulations in force. Furthermore, the French authorities offered the following advice: “I remind you on this occasion that you do not have to accept the payment guarantee of a French soldier,” presumably referring to the aforementioned

Mohamed Saleh’s claim that he would pay for all expenses related to Rosete. 1050 In a seemingly unrelated matter, the chief medical officer of the Baalbek garrison infirmary wrote to the capitaine commandant d’armes Latour again, this time on August 26, 1930, claiming that he was informed by a doctor assigned to the Baalbek district that “out of the many women currently employed as dancers and singers in the cafés of the city, and who are engaged in prostitution, only one was present at the [required] medical visit.” The chief medical officer continued:

“Since, from a military point of view, it is important to safeguard the health of our soldiers, I have the honor of asking you the following: (1) that a list be drawn up by the police commissioner of all these women in question; and (2) that the [medical visits] be conducted regularly, every Thursday, at 15h, [with] the district physician, [a] visit which I will attend from now on, in accordance with the orders of the Minister of Hygiene and Public Assistance of

Lebanon, orders that have been ratified by the Directorate of the Army Health Service.” 1051

Latour acknowledged receipt of the request from the chief medical officer and forwarded it onto Lieutenant Burtin, an officer of the Service des renseignements who was instructed to

“invite” the police commissioner of Baalbek to take the prescribed measures.1052 This is when

1050 Ibid. 1051 Le Médecin [illegible], médecin-chef de l’infirmerie de garnison à Monsieur le capitaine Latour. Baalbek, August 26, 1930. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. 1052 Latour, commandant d’armes, “Vu et transmis à M. l’officier chef du SR de la Bekaa.” Baalbek, August 26, 1930. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France.

355

Rosete was implicated in this process, again. The police commissioner accepted the

“attestations” made by two noncommissioned officers of the garrison, one being Mohamed

Saleh, that two women (an unnamed dancer and Rosete) were permitted to live at their residence.

Latour condemned the police commissioner for accepting such testimony and “warned the noncommissioned officers” that he did not accept this arrangement, that it was contrary to the dignity of their military profession, and that he would take action against the men. Latour asked

Burtin to “invite” the police commissioner to send the two alleged “attestations” regarding the dancers’ living arrangements to him. 1053 The police verified that Mohamed Saleh provided the guarantees for Rosete, yet the police were still “invited” to have the two women placed on the prostitution registry and submit to medical visits.1054 Rosete apparently complied with the medical visit, along with four dancers (noteworthy are the occupations listed for the four as

“danseuse” while “Rosa Haddad” was simply listed as “chez le maréchal de logis”).1055 It is unclear at this point whether she was being required to submit to medical exams because she was suspected of operating clandestinely as a prostitute or whether it was because, by regulation, former workers must submit to medical exams during a grace period after resigning from the profession. The question was answered in a letter dated September 9, 1930, from the chief medical officer, who informs Burtin that, despite the orders given to the Baalbek police, none of the femmes publiques submitted themselves for routine medical exams as required. The letter continued: “The two women whom you have mentioned as being mistresses of noncommissioned officers of the garrison, and who at the same time engaged in clandestine prostitution, did not come to visit, either.” He referenced one of them as being Rosete and the

1053 Le Commandant d’armes à l’officier chef du SR Bekka. Baalbek, N.D. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. 1054 N.A. “Le Commandant d’armes de la place de Baalbek.” N.P., N.D. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. 1055 N.A. “Liste nominative des femmes soumises à la visite médicale à Baalbeck.” N.P., N.D. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France.

356 other as being the previously unnamed dancer “Marie Georges Hana,” who was earlier expelled from the Baalbek garrison by the military in December 1929.1056

Latour became increasingly agitated over the lack of cooperation from the alleged prostitutes as well as from the police force responsible for enforcing measures designed to control them. He stated that the women must undergo medical inspections in the presence of the chief military medical officer. He asked for the matter to be referred to the “higher authorities,” since the local authorities “who had been warned many times, have done nothing to implement these measures.”1057 The following day, a letter was sent to the police commissioner of Baalbek, presumably from Burtin, attesting that the femmes publiques listed by the authorities, including

Rosete, have not been inspected by the doctor in Baalbek every Thursday at 3:00 pm. The letter concluded with the proclamation: “Given the bad will of these women and the nonchalance of some of your agents, I see myself obligated to report the case to the competent higher authorities.”1058

After her flight from the military-mandated medical examination, Rosete attempted twice to return to Baalbek, only to be forcibly turned away by the police operating as vehicles of the military authorities. Lieutenant Burtin, the officer of the Service des renseignements, took great interest in her case, writing letters to ensure the local authority’s compliance with her expulsion.

Rosete sent a handwritten note to her “sister” Victoria (another worker in the maison de tolérance where she was formerly employed).1059 “I am waiting for you always, you are going to leave the maison and come stay with me,” she wrote. “It has been a long time since I wanted to

1056 Le Médecin aux [illegible], Médecin-Chef de l’Infirmerie de Garnison à Monsieur le Lieutenant Burtin, Chef du SR de la Bekka à Baalbeck. Baalbek, September 9, 1930. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. 1057 Le Commandant d’Armes Latour, “Transmis pour [illegible] à donner à l’Officier Chef du Service SR de la Bekka.” Baalbek, September 10, 1930. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. 1058 N.A. Letter to “Monsieur le commissaire de la police de Baalbeck.” Baalbek, September 11, 1930. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. 1059 Letter from Rosette to ma sœur Victoria. Baalbek, September 29, 1930. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France.

357 leave Baalbek.” She no longer wanted to be under the scrutiny of her former employer at the maison de tolérance militaire Baalbek, “Mr. Bechir.” She told her former colleague to be careful around Mr. Bechir and to ensure that he does not know about the letters.1060

In response to these letters (that for an unknown reason fell into the hands of the manager of the military maison in Baalbek), Mr. Bechir wrote to Captain Latour in Baalbek, accusing

Rosete of deserting her “domicile” and disrupting the work at the maison by inciting other prostitutes to lodge complaints with the Major (presumably of the military) because they wanted to leave the maison and live in the city. Bechir asked for the military authorities to have the police commissioner of Baalbek intervene to ensure that Rosete would be expelled from the area.1061 The authorities promptly complied with the request. On the same day the letter was received by the Captain Latour, the former ordered Lieutenant Burtin to expel Rosete immediately. The police commissioner ordered Rosete to leave Baalbek by the end of the day.1062 On October 3, 1930, Burtin wrote a letter to the police commissioner of Baalbek, stating that it was brought to his attention the Rosete was still hiding in the city. He asked for the police to assure him that she was expelled, accusing the police of incompetence (or even subversion).

Burtin threatened the police commissioner, stating that “if in the future I notice such negligence

1060 Rosete, “Ma Soeure [sic] Victoria.” Baalbek, September 22, 1930; Rossette, “Ma sœur Victoria.” Baalbek, September 29, 1930. The two letters bearing her signature, with her name spelled differently, are markedly different in their penmanship and proper spelling. It seems to suggest that perhaps Rosete wrote the first letter herself, while the second letter was either written on her behalf or a forgery. 1061 Monsieur Bechir gérant de la maison de tolérance à Baalbeck à Monsieur le capitane commandant d’armes de la place de Baalbeck. Baalbek, September 30, 1930. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. The letter from “Mr. Bechir” on September 30, 1930, claimed that Mohamed Saleh was holding her against her will. This claim that clandestine workers marry nationals in order to stay in the country is echoed in League reports as well, such as the League’s Enquiry in 1932 that stated Syrians would marry Iraqis when found to be operating clandestinely in Iraq and faced with expulsion. League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, Report to the Council. December 10, 1932. C.849.M.393.1932.IV. Geneva, Switzerland: 86, 412. 1062 Le Lieutenant Burtin officier du SR de la Bekka à Monsieur le commandant d’armes de la place de Baalbeck. Baalbek, September 30, 1930. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. In this letter, Burtin addresses another prostitute, Marie, who was living with a noncommissioned officer of the Baalbek garrison. The noncommissioned officer declared to the police that he would continue to keep Marie at his house, despite the police orders that would have her expelled from Baalbek.

358 on the part of your police in the carrying out of the service, I shall see myself obliged to refer it to the Police Directorate in Beirut.” 1063 Several days later, Lieutenant Burtin wrote another letter to Latour confirming Rosete’s expulsion from the city on October 2, 1930. Yet he wanted to alert

Latour to the information that the owner of the house where she had lived in Baalbek reported to police that she left for Damascus to obtain an “identity card” and was planning to return to

Baalbek by marrying a resident of the city. Burtin asked for police to surveil her local residence and “not tolerate the return of this woman judged undesirable.” 1064 On October 11, Rosete returned to Baalbek with the intention of marrying Sergeant Mohamed Saleh. “Despite her claims, she was again expelled from Baalbek via police agents bound for Damascus.”1065 Rosete disappears from the historical record after her second banishment to Damascus. Yet hers are the only words that remain of the “recalcitrant women” of the French colonial Levant.

1063 Le Lieutenant Burtin, officier du SR de la Bekka à Monsieur le commissaire de la police Baalbeck. Baalbek, October 3, 1930. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. 1064 Le Lieutenant Burtin officier du SR de la Bekka transmis en communication à Monsieur le capitaine commandant d’armes de la place de Baalbeck. Baalbek, October 6, 1930. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France. 1065 Le Lieutenant Burtin officier du SR de la Bekka fait retour à Monsieur le capitaine commandant d’armes de la place de Baalbek. Baalbek, October 13, 1930. 1SL/1/V/2112. CADN. Nantes, France.

359

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