Racialization within Antitrafficking Interventions Targeting Migrant Sex Workers: Findings from the SEXHUM Research Project in France

Calogero Giametta, Nicola Mai, Jennifer Musto, Calum Bennachie, Anne E Fehrenbacher, Heidi Hoefinger and Macioti Pg
Additional contact information
Calogero Giametta: Aix-Marseille University, France
Nicola Mai: University of Leicester, UK
Jennifer Musto: Wellesley College, USA
Calum Bennachie: Aotearoa New Zealand Sex Workers Collective, New Zealand
Anne E Fehrenbacher: University of California, USA
Heidi Hoefinger: Berkeley College, USA
Macioti Pg: La Trobe University, Australia

Sociological Research Online, 2023, vol. 28, issue 3, 793-811

Abstract: This article draws on the findings of the research project Sexual Humanitarianism: Migration, Sex Work, and Trafficking (SEXHUM), a study investigating migration, sex work, and human trafficking in Australia, France, New Zealand, and the US. In this article, we focus on how racialized categories are mobilized in antitrafficking practices in France. Since April 2016, the French government has enforced a prohibitionist and neo-abolitionist law criminalizing the demand for sexual services. This coincided with the targeting of Chinese and Nigerian cis-women and with the neglect of Latina trans women working in the sex industry according to racialized and sex-gendered understandings of victimhood. Whereas Chinese women tend to be presented by humanitarian rhetoric as silent victims of Chinese male-dominated mafias, Nigerian women have come to embody the ultimate figure of the victim of trafficking by an overpowering Black male criminality. Meanwhile, (sexual) humanitarian actors have neglected Latina trans women’s ongoing experiences of extreme violence and marginalization.

Keywords: antitrafficking; France; migrant sexwork; migration; racial stereotypes; sex workers; sexual humanitarianism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13607804221090354 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:socres:v:28:y:2023:i:3:p:793-811

DOI: 10.1177/13607804221090354

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Sociological Research Online
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().