Now You See Her, Now You Don’t: Sex Workers at the UN Trafficking Protocol Negotiation
| Published date | 01 March 2005 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663905049526 |
| Author | Jo Doezema |
| Date | 01 March 2005 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
NOW YOU SEE HER, NOW
YOU DON’T: SEX WORKERS AT
THE UN TRAFFICKING
PROTOCOL NEGOTIATIONS
JODOEZEMA
Sussex University, UK
ABSTRACT
In December 2000, over 80 countries signed the ‘Protocol to Suppress, Prevent and
Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children’ (The Trafficking
Protocol) in Palermo, Italy. The UN Trafficking Protocol was the target of heavy
feminist lobbying during the two years in which the negotiations took place. The
lobby efforts were split into two ‘camps’, deeply divided in their attitudes towards
prostitution. One lobby group framed prostitution as legitimate labour. The other
considered all prostitution to be a violation of women’s human rights. Not only
feminist NGO networks were deeply divided over the issue of prostitution. Many
state delegations used the negotiations as an opportunity to denounce the evils of
prostitution, while others (fewer in number) argued that focusing on prostitution
detracted from the efforts to come to an agreement on trafficking. These differences
were most ferociously fought out during debates on the proposed definition of
trafficking, with the pivotal term ‘consent’. This article is an examination of the role
played by sex workers in these debates, and of ‘sex work’ in competing definitions
of trafficking in women.
KEY WORDS
myth; sex work; trafficking in women; transnational feminism; UN Trafficking
Protocol
SOCIAL &LEGAL STUDIES Copyright © 2005 SAGE Publications
London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi, www.sagepublications.com
0964 6639, Vol. 14(1), 61–89
DOI: 10.1177/0964663905049526
INTRODUCTION
INDECEMBER, 2000, over 80 countries signed the ‘Protocol to Suppress,
Prevent and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and
Children’ (the UN Trafficking Protocol) in Palermo, Italy. This event was
the culmination of over two years of negotiations – from January 1999 to
October 2000 – at the UN Centre for International Crime Prevention in
Vienna (the International Crimes Commission). The Trafficking Protocol
was the target of heavy feminist lobbying during the two years in which the
negotiations took place. International networks of feminist NGOs battled
both each other and state delegations in their attempts to influence the
Protocol. The lobby efforts were split into two ‘camps’, deeply divided in
their attitudes towards prostitution. One lobby group, the Human Rights
Caucus, saw prostitution as legitimate labour.1The other, led by the Coali-
tion Against Trafficking in Women (CATW), saw all prostitution as a
violation of women’s human rights.2It was not only feminist NGO networks
that were deeply divided over the issue of prostitution. Many state delega-
tions used the negotiations as an opportunity to denounce the evils of prosti-
tution while others (fewer in number) argued that focusing on prostitution
detracted from the efforts to come to an agreement on trafficking. These
differences were most ferociously fought out during debates on the proposed
definition of trafficking, with the pivotal term that of ‘consent’.
I and other sex worker rights activists were concerned about the impact of
a new international trafficking instrument on the lives of sex workers.
Historically, anti-trafficking measures have been used against sex workers
themselves, rather than against ‘traffickers’. Along with several other activists
from the Network of Sex Work Projects, I joined the Human Rights Caucus
in their lobby efforts, in the hope of ensuring a result that would not damage
sex workers’ human rights. This article is an examination of the role played
by sex workers in the debates, and by the place of ‘sex work’ in competing
definitions of trafficking in women.
SEX SLAVES AND DISCOURSE MASTERS
This article is taken from my PhD research, which examines global discourses
around trafficking in women (Doezema, 2004). In approaching ‘trafficking
in women’ as a discourse, I am concerned with how certain definitions of the
problem become dominant, whose knowledge is accepted and whose is side-
lined, and the social practices involved in constructing and legitimating
knowledge: in short, in the relationship between power and knowledge. My
research uses the concepts of myth and ideology to interrogate the knowl-
edge (truth claims) – both empirical and theoretical – about ‘trafficking in
women’ through a genealogical examination of the historical circumstances
of their production. I am concerned with, in Hajer’s (1995) words, ‘the ways
in which certain problems are represented, differences are played out, and
62 SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES 14(1)
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