ABSTRACT
An area of growing concern both for public opinion and for policy-makers in the European Union, is that of the trafficking of women and children for sex work within Europe. In terms of European policy making, the issue of trafficking is closely linked to those of illegal migration and trans-national crime networks and so is seen as a threat to the security of the European populations which the EU wishes to protect. Thus, trafficking has increasingly been seen as a matter for increased police action and co-operation at the EU level. At the same time there is concern for the growing insecurities faced by many women who are trafficked into Europe to sell sex. However, there is an argument that whilst attempting to repress trafficking, policy-makers have not paid enough attention to the insecurities and vulnerabilities of the ‘victims’ of this practice, and have not addressed the real causes of the problem. Further, in concentrating solely on the victims of trafficking and on separating those trafficked to sell sex from other migrant women who sell sex ‘voluntarily’, it may be argued that a false distinction is established which rests on a rigid interpretation of the ‘market’ for prostitution, and ignores the very pressing reasons which weigh on migrant women in their decisions to enter prostitution or sex work. A fuller understanding of the global conditions surrounding women’s migration and labour force participation is necessary in order not to place the issue of trafficking in its full context. In trying to separate the ‘innocent victims’ of trafficking, from the increasingly ‘criminalized’ migrant prostitutes and sex workers, governments have merely increased many migrant women’s insecurity and vulnerability to exploitation and violence.
