Intuiting illegality in sex work

Abstract

In the sex work sector, the link between migration and crime is most pronounced in discourses around human traffi cking. Human traffi cking – that is, the recruitment or transportation of persons through deceptive or coercive means for the purposes of exploitation (UNODC 2004) – is still strongly associated with sex work, despite empirical evidence that traffi cking in the sex work sector is not as prevalent as suggested by media or anti-prostitution organizations (e.g. Agustin 2007; GAATW 2007; Jeffreys 2009; Mai 2009; 2012; Segrave, Milivojevic and Pickering 2009; Weitzer 2011). The strong public association between human traffi cking and sex work contributes to the aura of illegality that surrounds immigrant or migrant1 women in sex work. Immigrant or migrant sex workers (or those assumed to be) may often fi nd themselves relegated to one of two simplistic categories in anti-traffi cking discourses, representing either the passivity and weakness of racialized sex workers (as traffi cking victims) and/or the foreign threat of criminality (as ‘illegal’ migrants engaging in oft-criminalized work).