Shifting the debate on the traffic of women

In this text I present central perspectives and approaches in the international debate about the trafficking of persons, and highlight some of the main points of critique about the contemporary hegemonic framework that are articulated through action-research projects and grassroots anti-trafficking interventions. I argue that despite substantial shifts in global understandings about trafficking, which are heavily influenced by two distinctly different feminist discourses (radical feminism and transnational feminism), today much of what is pursued in the name of a war on trafficking has troubling consequences for poor communities around the world, and has gendered and racialized implications. US anti-trafficking policies are drawn upon here to illustrate some of these tendencies.

Trafficking of Persons; Feminist Discourses; Migration