Anti-trafficking has always been an ‘inside job’. This is true in at least two ways. First, we have an alliance between anti-trafficking organisations and state officials, who have worked together to embed the anti-trafficking framework into both international agreements and national and local laws. This alliance has actively dismissed the concerns of feminists, including sex workers, who have spoken up about the harms that tend to occur whenever anybody gets it in their head to ‘save women and children’. It has also sidelined evidence that anti-trafficking measures tend to intensify the harms already being done by immigration and anti-sex work policies.
Secondly, we have organisations who have used anti-trafficking and the access and influence it enables to advance other aspects of their agenda. Groups seeking to abolish sex work are the prime culprits here. Abolitionist campaigners have successfully harnessed sympathy for trafficking victims to further criminalise sex work, harass sex workers and their clients, and deny safe and law-bound routes of intra- and international migration for sex workers. Under the guise of anti-trafficking, in many jurisdictions previous victories gained by sex workers have been rolled back and sex workers have become more exposed to the punitive power of the state.
Follow the anti-trafficking money
Anti-trafficking crusaders have furthermore enriched themselves by being on the inside. They have financially benefitted from the funds civil society organisations and government agencies give out to ‘combat trafficking’, and acquired social capital by establishing lifelong connections and networks with the powerful and wealthy. As Cynthia Enloe has demonstrated, protecting women and children has long been a powerful tool for soliciting sympathy, money, and weapons. And anti-trafficking is indeed a well-oiled machine: the Trump administration alone has authorised approximately $430 million to “fight sex and labor trafficking” since 2016.
