The Wrong Way to Equality: Privileging Consent in the Trafficking of Women for Sexual Exploitation

The author analyzes the focus of international attention to the issue of consent related to sex trafficking. She begins with an examination of the treatment given by international documents to trafficking of women for prostitution. She then discusses the demand side of sex trafficking and ends with an analysis of the consequences of treating consent as determinative of whether sex trafficking is a human rights violation. She argues that "this focus on consent obscures the larger issue of gender inequality that underlies and fuels the sex trafficking and prostitution industries. In order to address the inequality inherent in trafficking for sexual exploitation, the international human rights community should return to its stance in early documents that do not allow consent as a defense to trafficking but instead focus on the harm done". [Descriptors: Migration - Trafficking, International]