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Trafficking Policy, Meaning Making and State Violence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2014

Heather Berg
Heather Berg*
Affiliation:
Department of Feminist Studies, University of California Santa Barbara E-mail: heatherberg@umail.ucsb.edu
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Abstract

This article reviews critical literature on sex trafficking policy through a cultural studies lens. It argues that the conflation of ‘trafficking’ and prostitution that pervades anti-trafficking policy makes trafficking victims out of sex workers. On another register, anti-trafficking policy creates ‘victims’ through curtailments on mobility and work eligibility that make workers more dependent on third party managers and less able to secure assistance when these parties abuse the power that the state has effectively granted them. The article calls upon policy makers to undertake the policy making process with sex workers’ continued experiences of the state as a primary source of violence and exploitation in view.

Keywords

Sex worktraffickinglabour policystate violence
Type
Themed Section on The Cultural Study of Commercial Sex: Taking a Policy Perspective
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 145 - 155
Creative Commons
This is a work of the U.S. Government and is not subject to copyright protection in the United States.
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014

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