Paper Short Abstract:

Our paper focuses on the dependent relations between madams and the women they are trafficking in the prostitution industry in Northern Hungary. Our ethnographic observation about the institution of the madams’ brokerage in the sex commerce shed light on the meagre but important role of agency, even in circumstances of structural violence.

Paper Abstract:

Our paper focuses on the dependent relations between madams and the women they are trafficking in the prostitution industry in Northern Hungary. Madams are female entrepreneurs who play an important role in the larger fabric of the informal market of everyday selling sex within which marginalised women’s participation is embedded (Guha 2024). In semi-peripheral countries, deepening extreme poverty in poor regions forces households to develop alternative livelihood strategies (Sassen 2002: 504) therefore for many in the region, involvement in the prostitution industry – which involves the exploitation and often violence against women – is a practical necessity for survival (Katona 2019, Dés 2024). Our aim is to examine how these exploitative and violent relationships are morally understood by the local community and industry actors (Karandinos et al. 2014). Our ethnographic observation about the institution of the madams’ brokerage in the sex commerce shed light on the meagre but important role of agency, even in circumstances of structural violence. The relationship between madams and their ‘girls’ are couched in the language of kinship, friendship and sisterhood, depending on the age difference of the related parties. The socio-economically marginalized young women who sell sex, helps us comprehend why they perceive and valorise their madam’s practice as ‘care’ and a form of solidarity between women (Guha 2024 India’s red-light areas) and their understanding of how their relationship with the madams protects them from men and especially from male traffickers. While for the typically single madams, running women is also an economic survival strategy.