Citation

Kempadoo K. Race Class 2007; 49(2): 79-85.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Institute of Race Relations, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/03063968070490020602

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Encouraged by the US, the Caribbean is being drawn into a global panic over human trafficking, leading to greater policing and surveillance of migrant women and the sex trade. Drawing on colonial precedents, the moral outrage about women trafficked into prostitution, embodied in legislation such as the US Trafficking Victims Protection Act, obscures the deeper causes of exploitation and oppression and leads to the demonisation of those in undocumented, hyper-exploited labour forces. Moreover, the false equation of trafficking with prostitution renders sexual labour as coerced labour and, as such, misrepresents sexual agency.

Language: en