ABSTRACT
In the 1980s, U.S. feminism fractured along political fault-lines defined by conflicting views of prostitution and pornography and related conceptions of power, agency, and sexuality.1 The “sex wars”—as they were unfortunately, popularly labeled-were apparently settled by the end of the decade, with “pro-sex” advocates declared the winners. The radical feminist anti-pornography and anti-prostitution position has been effectively marginalized-at least within the academy. Interestingly, the same cannot be said for debates around similar issues in a new transnational arena of feminist politics. Since the 1990s, numerous feminist nongovernmental agencies and grass-root groups across the hemispheres have been organizing to stop global trafficking in women and children.2 In this context, old feminist debates about prostitution have reconfigured themselves along familiar theoretical lines. The contours of the debate are largely defined by, on one side, activists who align themselves with a radical feminist and abolitionist approach that defines prostitution as an institution of male domination. On the other side, activists who are “pro-sex-work” aim to distinguish prostitution as voluntary “work” from “forced prostitution,” and to distinguish voluntary migration from (sex) trafficking.3 The radical feminist camp has largely prevailed in terms of how international protocol is currently formulated. The “UN Optional Protocol of Trafficking in Human Beings,” known widely as the “Palermo Protocol” was signed by 105 countries in 2002 and specifically does not construct a separate category for “forced” prostitution but rather, classifies prostitution (unmodified) as a major component of trafficking.4 Pro-sex-work advocates, however, continue to press for the distinction between “free” and “forced” prostitution. The feminist debate over trafficking offers a timely opportunity for feminists to revisit central philosophical questions concerning agency and power. Given the magnitude of the problem, namely, the vast numbers of women and children whose lives have been devastated by sex-trafficking under globalization, such questions reemerge with a new political urgency.
