Trafficking Policy
Research Project:
Examining the Effects of
U.S. Trafficking Laws and Policies

Labor Migration - Sex Work - Trafficking Laws and Policies - Forced Labor & Slavery

This site collects and presents research and commentary regarding the effects of United States Trafficking Laws and Policies in the US and internationally. The Trafficking Policy Research Project provides an outline of alternative analyses and strategies for the global problems of trafficking and forced labor, prioritizing welfare of sex workers in the context of migrant labor. Trafficking in the sex industry is examined within the range of abuses within the sex industries with goals of decriminalization and sex industry reform. Links are primarily from Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, Network of Sexwork Projects , the International Human Rights Law Group, and Human Rights Watch.

Recent Issues in Sex Worker Rights-Trafficking Laws and Policies

Taking the Pledge is a 13-minute film featuring sex workers from Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, Mali, Thailand and more! They describe the problems created by the 'anti-prostitution pledge' required to receive USAID and PEPFAR funds.
Produced by the Network of Sex Work Projects. http://www.nswp.org
In English, Khmer, Thai, French, Portuguese and Bengali, with English subtitles. Watch in full-screen mode to read the subtitles.


Definitions of Trafficking and Commentary

The definition of trafficking has been the center of the debates on strategies to combat forced labor, and for some, to combat the sex industries. For an extensive discussion of the implications of these definitions, read Contemporary Anti-Trafficking Legislation in the United States.

  • Trafficking: Defined in United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons...
  • Trafficking: Defined in United States Trafficking Victims Protection Act

    Analyses: Trafficking, Sex Worker Rights, Labor Migration

  • Strategies for Alliances
    "...to address the concerns of those who may be adversely affected by government measures to combat trafficking, in an effort to encourage the development of strategies supporting all women's rights."
  • Anti-Slavery International -Redefining Prostitution as Sex Work on the International Agenda: Jo Bindman (w/Jo Doezema)
  • Migration, Trafficking and Sex Work: Links and Papers from Laura Agustin
    Bilingual: Espanol - English


    Critiques of US (and Intl.) Trafficking Law, Policy and Practice
  • Implications of Anti-trafficking Policy and Practice
    This page links to a number of papers compiled through Soros' Sexual Health and Rights Project (Sharp)
  • Human Trafficking by David A. Feingold. Feingold, International Coordinator for HIV/AIDS and Trafficking Projects for Unesco, Bangkok and writer/director of movie 'Trading Women' with Anjelina Jolie dispels common myths about trafficking
  • News: The New Abolitionists: How did the anti-trafficking crusade evolve, and is it being overhyped? (Links between feminists and Christian Fundamentalists)
  • Trafficking in Politics Bush's strong rhetoric on sex slavery masks policy failures.
  • Only rights can stop wrongs: A critical assessment of anti-trafficking strategies
  • News: Debate Roars Over Anti-Trafficking Funds
    The U.S. government is striking out at the global sex slave trade with new vigor, focusing on prostitution as the cause for the practice. Some critics say, however, the new plan misses the point and actually is a disservice to women.
  • Mother Jones on Bush Administration's Anti-Trafficking Policies May 2005
  • The Call for a Gender-Sensitive Perspective in International Law
    This paper discusses the history of trafficking laws and the way the concept of agency for women is denied in this framework.
  • Mission Statement of Sex Worker Across Borders
    This document discusses the sex worker/migrant and blabor rights agenda in the context of anti-trafficking policies.
  • The Trafficking Debate: Collection of Papers on BAYSWAN
    These papers are an early compilation of sex worker rights responses to trafficking issues and discourse.


    Human Rights Watch
  • U.S. State Department Trafficking Report a "Mixed Bag" - July 2001
    Report "glosses over the problems of state complicity and corruption" and "concentrates too much on trafficking for "sexual exploitation," to the exclusion of trafficking into other forms of forced labor.
  • U.S. State Department Trafficking Report Undercut by Lack of Analysis - June 2003
    For the third consecutive year, the State Department report fails to give hard figures on the number of people being trafficked. The report "fails to weigh and condemn harmful immigration policies..." "lacks specificity... is often vague or cursory ...undue credit for minimal effort..ignores government practices, such as summary deportation and incarceration, that effectively punish trafficking victims.

    Additional Analysis and Reports

  • Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women North American Report 2004
    This report contradicts US estimatesof number of trafficked persons and presents a more balanced account of US efforts.
  • Analysis of the TVPA: Contemporary Anti-Trafficking Legislation in the United States.
  • Was story about sexual trafficking exaggerated?
  • Harvard Journal: Re/productions: Issue #2, Dedicated to the Discourses on Trafficking, Sex-work & Prostitution

    Evolving U.S. Sex Trade Polcies: Feminists and Fundamentalists

  • Anti-Trafficking Rhetoric and the Making of a Global Apartheid This essay critically examines the historical and contemporary discursive practices of anti-trafficking campaigns. Such campaigns within the global North, often led by feminists, constitute the moral reform arm of contemporary anti-immigrant politics that targets negatively racialized migrants. As in the past, current campaigns collude with a state-backed international security agenda aimed at criminalizing self-determined migrations of people who have ever-less access to legal channels of migration. (Nandita Sharma)
  • Unholy Alliance On January 15, 2003, field missions around the world for the United States' international aid agency (USAID) quietly received notice that, henceforth, no more funding for projects against trafficking in people would go to "organizations advocating prostitution as an employment choice or which advocate or support the legalization of prostitution." (Anna Louise Crago)
  • Feminists organize against commercial sex In a plea to bill sponsor, the late Senator Paul Wellstone, mainstream US feminists, request that the Anti-trafficking legislation "ensure that all women and girls who are trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation can benefit from its provisions." Their solution is to characterize ALL SEX WORK AS FORCED and to combat the sex industry in general.
  • Hillary Clinton Supports Sex Trafficking says right wing fundamentalist magazine (siding with Gloria Steinem, et al)
  • The Pimping of Hillary Clinton by Patrick Califia
  • The Negotiations on the UN Protocol on Trafficking in Persons Dr. Ditmore documents the history of construction on the UN Trafficking Protocol as it applies to sex workers through a fascinating account of negotiations between GAATW and CATW.
  • Professor Weitzer: Growing Moral Panic Over Prostitution and Sex Trafficking

    Links to Trafficking Protocols and Policy: United Nations and United States
  • United States-Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000
  • United Nations-Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime.
  • Palermo Protocol- Sept 2003 Amendments to UN Protocol
  • US Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Report, 2005
  • CIA Report on Trafficking- November 1999
     International Trafficking in Women to the United States: A Contemporary Manifestation of Slavery and Organized Crime by Amy O'Neill Richard
  • US AID Strategy Prohibits Funds to Groups Supporting Sex Worker Rights
    Page 7- "Organizations advocating prostitution as an employment choice or which advocate or support the legalization of prostitution are not appropriate partners for USAID anti-trafficking grants or contracts. Missions will avoid contracting or assistance agreements with such organizations as primary or sub-grantees or contractors."
  • International Trafficking and Human Rights Protocols: US and UN compiled by Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women
  • Network of Sex Work Projects Compiled Legislation-International
  • California Anti-Trafficking Legislation

     Commentary on Trafficking Protocols
  • Sexual Exploitation: Definition from Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women
  • Annotated Guide to The Complete UN Trafficking Protocol
  • Commercial Sex Information Services : Commentary On The Draft Protocol To Combat International Trafficking
  • Network of Sex Work Projects Commentaries
  • Analysis of Application of United States Trafficking Victims Protection Act by Carol Leigh
  • International Human Rights Law Group on Trafficking
  • Human Rights Standards for the Treatment of Trafficked Persons
  • Anti-Slavery International
     "...despite police and government claims that they do focus their attention on traffickers, in practice we receive consistent information from many countries that victims of trafficking and women involved in prostitution are victims of double jeopardy when they fall into the hands of the police - and are in turn punished as illegal migrants or illegal practitioners of prostitution when in fact they are victims of a serious human right violations. "


    Effects of U.S. (and Intl. )Trafficking Policies

  • Sex slaves or harassed sex-trade workers? Being 'rescued' by police means imprisonment
  • Of Human Bondage A coalition against human trafficking