Policing the Border Within: Sex Trafficking and the Regulation of Sex Work

Abstract

The rhetoric and the policy in relation to human trafficking has largely been located within the broader domain of counter-organised crime measures and the primary criminal justice focus has been directed at crimes that involve the breaching of borders and migration law. In practice this is increasingly realised through increased scrutiny of the sex industry and has involved attempts at recriminalising sex work by stealth. It has done so at the expense of more complex and inter-industry analysis of trafficking practices—not just sex trafficking (cf. Hathaway, 2008). Weber (2006) has posited that borders are mobile and increasingly personally mobile—that is, borders are being attached to individuals rather than to specific places or sites. Thus, the border that requires policing morphs into a person that requires policing. This chapter suggests that the focus on policing sex trafficking is primarily concerned with the breach of the border, and is increasingly policed within countries and on the bodies of women who legitimately work in the sex industry.

…the claims being made about the wide extent of sex trafficking cannot be substantiated….

(Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, 1 April 2003, Press Release)

The illegal international trade in people has been growing considerably in recent years. Australia will not tolerate this repugnant trade which deals with women and children in a sexually exploitative manner. Today we are announcing a comprehensive strategy to fight this insidious crime.

(Minister for Justice and Customs, 13 October 2003a)

…evidence in this field is scanty….

(Judy Maddigan, MP Chair of the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into Trafficking for Sex Work, June 2010)

This chapter was co-authored with Marie Segrave, Monash University.