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A Tale of Two Servitudes: Defining and Implementing a Domestic Response to Trafficking of Women for Prostitution in the UK and Australia

King’s College London, UK

Having attracted intense academic interest, the trafficking of women for the purposes of prostitution constitutes a contemporary battle-ground for competing agendas on issues as diverse as globalization, migration, labour relations and the regulation of sexuality. This article deconstructs the policy discussions that have determined the parameters of this engagement. In particular, it examines competing perspectives on the appropriate remit of the offence and the significance of consent within it. In a context in which the UN Optional Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish the Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children retains a marked element of ambiguity in these regards, this article goes on to examine two examples of the way in which such questions have been resolved at the domestic level. Drawing upon field-work interviews conducted with officials and interest groups in the UK and Australia, this article highlights the extent to which each country has developed a markedly different anti-trafficking response. It is submitted that the roots of this divergence lie in their respective regulatory and ideological approaches to the sex industry. Regardless of such definitional diversity, however, it is submitted that both jurisdictions share substantial common ground in their experiences of implementing these different regimes. On the basis of this finding, this article challenges the way in which polarized campaign groups have dominated anti-trafficking analysis. Thus, the central claim of this article is not that such policy-level engagements are unimportant (clearly they are) but that their seeming intractability should not distract us from what might be done at a concrete level to bring about a more effective anti-trafficking response.

Key Words: Australia • prostitution • regulation • trafficking in women • UK

Social & Legal Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1, 91-114 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0964663905049527


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