Date of Graduation

5-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

International and Global Studies

Advisor/Mentor

Dr. Ruby Ray Daily

Committee Member

Dr. Spencer Allen

Second Committee Member

Dr. Kelly Anne Hammond

Third Committee Member

Dr. Jake Hertzog

Abstract

The intersection between domestic violence and formerly colonized countries has long drawn the attention of scholars and researchers. Many of the Pacific Islands are known for their low Human Development Index scores. Because of their treatment of women, they also often have very low Gender Development Index scores. The understanding that there will be no receipts after the exchange of a human being, usually a child, has encouraged British men to seek out sex work in Thailand. Arguably domestic violence and colonization fully overlap in the sexual objectification of ethnic groups in Oceania and the woman there who fall into exploitative sex work because of their past experiences. Violence towards men and people who do not identify within the gender binary is also relevant and pervasive. Due to global economic inequality and the ongoing ravages of imperialism, citizens of postcolonial countries are forced to accept a reality where they are considered “exotic” and “other” within their own spaces. Gentrification makes things even worse: Pasifika and Samoan people from Fiji are being pushed to move to Brisbane, Tonga, and New Zealand. Generations before them have all been displaced, and they are beginning to consider being displaced as their identity. Australia’s government has passed a 20 million dollar anti-trafficking bill because there is now an estimation that 1,000 women are involved in the sex industry in their country. Surprisingly, Thailand’s sex trafficking statistics are dropping; however, this is not because of active strides against the sex trade but because Thailand’s birth rate is matching the decrease. So, there is not many children available to interact with sex work. This is also because young girls from countries like Burma and Yunnan are being brought into Thailand. The purpose of this paper is to propose further research of postcolonial gender rhetoric and the ways in which the relationship between former colonizers such as the United Kingdom, France, and the United States and their former colonies has led to an ongoing fetishization of the native people on the continent of Oceania as well as higher rates of exploitative sex work, specifically sex tourism and trafficking.

And exotification is nothing new. Women and the queer community of Oceania have been objectified since the 19th century, as showcased through the use of illustrations and posters made by white, heterosexual males depicting islanders as sex symbols. There was and is an ongoing, conscience choice on the part of Britain, France, and other imperial powers to levy their sexual desires and wishes for a more sexually free society onto lands that they perceive as being primitive and more free. And internal hierarchies are only exacerbated. Fiji has reported that their tourism marketing teams choose to display the Indigenous people as “friendlier” than other groups residing within the nation. The vulnerable simply become more so. National airlines perpetuate and profit from these stereotypes through promotional material that hypersexualizes the women that live on that island.5 The idea that “Paradise Lost can be regained” is the reinterpretation of Pacific Islands through tourism, specifically sex tourism.

This speaks to the idea that the specification of an ethnic group can cause the fetishization of these same people. In the same way that many postcolonial countries have become tourist spots with little to no other industries to add to their national economy, these people of indigenous ethnic backgrounds in the Pacific Islands have few options. They look to sex work because it is a job that some foreigners are already asking them to participate in. Without real industry, it is not shocking that Fiji, an island in the Pacific, is considered to represent close to zero percent of the world’s economy.

A study of these ongoing crises thus needs to juggle the complex interplay of the formation of society in the Pacific Islands once certain colonists arrived and the societally accepted gender norms that were begotten soon afterwards. The realistic concerns surrounding gender inequality has only been encouraged to a disquieting amount by the interaction of outside former colonial countries. There must be a discussion on the social hierarchies and familial formations that predate the introduction of colonialism and the ones that were forced upon this area.

Many Oceanians find themselves within the world of sex work without a conscious decision being made. This could be through a trafficking system or the poverty of the area catching the individual in a trap where the only escape is prostitution. This is not the case for everyone, but it is a lot more present in groups that have already been marginalized in another aspect of their society. One man arrested in The Netherlands for a suspected attempt of human trafficking claimed that there is a clear distinction between the women who chose this work for monetary need and a completely separate category of women who feel as if they must to feel secure in their partner’s respect and admiration.

For a lengthy amount of time, the people of Oceania have experienced the use of domestic violence as a “tool” of control and power. In the span of one five-year period, there were over four-hundred-and-fifty cases of domestic violence inside their borders. There is evidence that strong, almost unbreakable gender norms within a country cause a development towards a lack of empathy towards a victim and silently encourages the continuation of intimate partner violence. These gender norms are often passed down from generation to generation. This could, generally, be through the acknowledgment of a community that a man does hit his wife and the allowance of the children from this marriage to see that this is deemed okay by the society and because their father is never told to stop. For some cultures, when arranged marriage is so prevalent, young men are told that they are allowed to physically assault their usually younger wives to satisfy their urges within the marriage. This allows the next generations to believe that women are a type of property owed to the man even when it is not explicitly stated aloud.

The act of physical abuse as a means of coercion has been used mostly in the harming of women on these islands, but it is certainly not limited to it. Queer people in this society face violent attacks against them which causes many of the non-heterosexual men to feel shamed about their lifestyles and if the heterosexual male is the one enacting the violence it will cause him to feel the most masculine, he has ever felt. This has led to the cultural acceptance of physical abuse towards anyone who is deemed lesser than the "regular” man leading to an idea of “diminutive femininity.”

The current societal structures in Samoa follow a combination of village and family hierarchies where women are, for the most part, left out of all decisions. There was an initiative to have women in Samoa report the personal aspects of their relationships with their partners. These women were instructed to tell their partners that they were heading to “play bingo” with friends. While this excuse was believed, the partners began to perceive these women as lazy and unproductive which led to more violence to be reported. This is an example of a policy review achieving what it proposed but adding a potential target to participants.

In consideration of forced social hierarchies on an island without previous defined gender differentiation, one must discuss Maui. Before Britain chose to become involved with Maui, women of both upper and lower economic classes were treated in much the same way as the men of the island. One European interacting with the people of Maui remarked that fish is the “food of women.” This introduced the idea that men and women should maintain a separate idea; therefore, they must have separate spheres in society and should be treated in different manners.

All of these present-day, internal gender inequalities are tied to both past and present exploitation by Western powers.

Keywords

pacific islands; gender studies; gender presentation; gender norms; colonialism; global north

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