ABSTRACT
This article, written by the Co-Executive Director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, analyzes the relationship of sex trafficking and prostitution. The author begins by examining prostitution as a system of gender-based domination and as a practice of violence against women that often encompasses specific forms of gender based violence, including child sexual abuse, rape, and domestic violence. She explores legal instruments that address and define trafficking, pointing out that distinctions between prostitution and trafficking in women are relatively recent and have been promoted by organizations and governments working to legitimize and/or legalize prostitution as work. She argues that prostitution and trafficking are fundamentally interrelated, to the extent that sex trafficking can accurately be viewed as “globalized prostitution” while generic prostitution often is a practice of “domestic trafficking.” The author concludes by calling for definitions, laws, and strategies that include and challenge all manifestations of local and global sex industries.
