Deconstructing the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender victim of sex trafficking: Harm, exceptionality and religion–sexuality tensions
| Author | Avi Boukli,Flora Renz |
| Published date | 01 January 2019 |
| Date | 01 January 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0269758018772670 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Deconstructing the lesbian,
gay, bisexual, transgender
victim of sex trafficking:
Harm, exceptionality and
religion–sexuality tensions
Avi Boukli
The Open University, UK
Flora Renz
University of Kent, UK
Abstract
Contrary to widespread belief, sex trafficking also targets lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender
(LGBT) communities. Contemporary social and political constructions of victimhood lie at the
heart of regulatory policies on sex trafficking. Led by the US Department of State, knowledge
about LGBT victims of trafficking constitutes the newest frontier in the expansion of crim-
inalization measures. These measures represent a crucial shift. From a burgeoning range of pre-
emptive measures enacted to protect an amorphous class of ‘all potential victims’, now policies are
heavily premised on the risk posed by traffickers to ‘victims of special interest’. These constructed
identities, however, are at odds with established structures. Drawing on a range of literatures, the
core task of this article is to confront some of the complexities and tensions surrounding con-
structions of LGBT trafficking victims. Specifically, the article argues that discourses of ‘exceptional
vulnerability’ and the polarized notions of ‘innocence’ and ‘guilt’ inform hierarchies of victimhood.
Based on these insights, the article argues for the need to move beyond monolithic understandings
of victims, by reframing the politics of harm accordingly.
Keywords
Victims, victimology, sex trafficking, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender rights, sexuality, harm
Corresponding author:
Avi Boukli, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, The Open University, 118 Gardiner Building 2, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA, UK.
Email: avi.boukli@open.ac.uk
International Review of Victimology
2019, Vol. 25(1) 71–90
ªThe Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0269758018772670
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Introduction
Since the 1970s, victims of crime have moved from total invisibility within criminal justice policy
(Mawby and Walklate, 1994; Rock, 2002; Zedner, 2002) to being the core of political discourses
on ‘law and order’ (Dubber, 2002; Elias, 1986, 1993; Reiner, 2007). Victim-centric discourses
have underpinned contemporary ‘punitive obsessions’ (Garland, 2001; Reiner, 2007), while
offender-focused security supports the alleged inevitability of continuing crimes and serves as
an incentive for further state ‘investments’ in pre-emptive actions (Zedner, 2006: 269). Scholars
have also expressed concerns about the ‘carceral turn’ (D e Lissovoy, 2013: 740), a tendency
toward authoritarianism and punishment. Within this, the expansion of punishment has been
supported by the growth of the prison industrial complex (Sudbury, 2004), the targeting of the
poor and people of color by prison and criminal justice systems, and by attacks on immigrants and
the demonization of specific communities (Giroux, 2009). Other scholars have explored what has
been termed the ‘politics of victimhood’ (Bouris, 2007: 10) and within the context of sex traffick-
ing ‘the politics of trafficking’ (Aradau, 2008; Limoncelli, 2010). This article extends this discus-
sion by examining the construction of victimhood and harm, within the context of exceptionality
discourses and religion–sexuality tensions concerning lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT)
victims of trafficking.
Legislative and policy campaigns to enact more punitive measures against sex traffickers have
taken global dimensions in recent years. Across different jurisdictions human trafficking legisla-
tion has been influenced by the introduction of the US Trafficking Victims Protection Act 2000,
the United Nations (UN) Anti-Trafficking Protocol (Lee, 2011; Segrave et al., 2009; UN General
Assembly, 2000), and the global diplomatic pressure exercised by the US Trafficking in Persons
Reports (TIPs) (see e.g. Department of State, 2006; Gallagher, 2015).
1
Specifically in the past
decade, mounting media and political attention toward the so-called ‘epidemic’ of traffick ing
(Hoyle et al., 2011: 313–314) has contributed to the ‘emotionalization’ of discourses on crime
and justice (De Haan and Loader, 2002), through creating connections between anti-trafficking and
the anti-slave trade (Hoyle et al., 2011), and through ‘memorializations’ of some victims but the
invisibility of others (Pearce, 2014).
This process of (inter)national lawmaking results in what Hoyle et al. (2011: 314) have referred
to as a ‘rhetorical punch’. Modern slavery is then a recalibrated version of ‘chapters of shame’ or
‘past sins’, whereby states advocate for a new ‘war’ on slavery (Bosworth and Guild, 2008; Green
and Grewcock, 2002). The politics of both blame and ‘pity’ emerge (Aradau, 2004; Walklate,
2011), which legitimize the suffering of certain types of victims through mandated policy inter-
vention (Christie, 1986; McAlinden, 2014). This is then juxtaposed with a ‘global gender politics’
according to which trafficking constitutes a dangerous manifestation of global gender inequalities
(Ertu
¨rk, 2005; Tavakoli, 2009), in which a burgeoning range of retributive measures are debated
that seek to fix blame on and punish sex traffickers. For instance, in England and Wales the
Modern Slavery Act 2015 consolidates offences relating to both trafficking and slavery, aligning
with the international UN Guiding Principles Reporting Framework (United Nations, 2017), and
reinstates a ‘precautionary logic’ (see Loader and Walker, 2007; Modern Slavery Bill 2014–15:
ss.14–15).
Simultaneously, a diverse group of social activists, policy-makers and celebrities have joined
forces to enhance criminalization measures against trafficking, in what has been described as one
of the most significant transnational ‘social movements of our times’ (Hertzke, 2004: 6). This
movement involves a wide political spectrum, from diverse feminist groups to well-established
72 International Review of Victimology 25(1)
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