Antiprostitution agendas and the creation of U.S. antitrafficking policy

In recent decades, human trafficking discourse has become the locus for debates about prostitution. Just as traditional prostitution debates have been characterised by a deep divide between abolitionist advocates and those who support a sex work perspective, these competing viewpoints also dominate trafficking discourse. In particular, assumptions about the moral harms associated with sex work have pervaded policy making processes, embedding moral judgements within legislation, and condemning not just forced prostitution, but all prostitution. This paper challenges some of the moral assumptions made in the problematization of prostitution through an examination of the influence of anti-prostitution stakeholders in the creation of anti-trafficking policy in the United States of America. The rejection of a distinction between forced and voluntary prostitution, and the positioning of women in sex work as compulsorily harmed, rely on moral judgements about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ sex, femininity, and consent that underpin anti-prostitution perspectives and contribute to anti-trafficking approaches. We seek to challenge these judgements, arguing that trafficking policy-making has been used as a tool to further an anti-prostitution agenda, fuelled by moral assumptions about the harms of prostitution, and perpetuated through abolitionist tactics to silence dissent.