Article written by Laura Lammasniemi white slavery’ to trafficking
In England, the campaigns against white slavery culminated in a rally in Hyde Park, London, in August 1885, when tens of thousands of people demanded that white slavery be outlawed and the age of consent for girls be raised. The measure that was adopted first was the Criminal Law Amendment Act (CLAA) 1885.
The CLAA 1885 was significant for creating a definition of a trafficked girl – the involuntary prostitute. It made it an offence to procure “any girl or woman under twenty-one years of age, not being a common prostitute, or of known immoral character, to have unlawful carnal connexion”. By including the words “not being a common prostitute, or of known immoral character”, the section excluded from the scope of the law not only those working in prostitution but also any women considered promiscuous or not respectable.
The CLAA also outlawed domestic and international trafficking by making it an offence to procure a woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution abroad or within the UK. However, if a woman was already living in a brothel, she could not be procured or trafficked, reinforcing the division between ‘prostitutes’ and victims. In a number of ways, then, the act created a distinction between virtuous virgins who embodied social purity, and the Other – the “common and immoral prostitute”. The lives of all women who would today be described as migrants and sex workers came under deeper control with every new legal intervention. The legislation did not, and could not, provide protection against the exploitation of women within prostitution and otherwise, as it focused on procurement and immigration rather than continuing acts of exploitation. It framed white slavery as a matter of criminal or immigration law, but did not acknowledge the wider structural factors behind female poverty and inequality – much like present-day anti-trafficking initiatives. <!-- Global site tag (gtag.js) - Google Analytics -->
No comments:
Post a Comment