Current Anti-Trafficking Measures: A Convenient Excuse for Oppression
When it comes to sex trafficking, everyone loves a villain. The shady trafficker lurks in the shadows, snatching innocent victims and forcing them into a life of misery. The heroic governments and organizations swooping in to save the day. But here’s the plot twist: the so-called “rescue” operations and anti-trafficking measures are often doing more harm than good. And the biggest casualties? The very people they claim to protect: are migrants, sex workers, and those on society’s margins.
The anti-trafficking game: a flawed system
The global playbook for fighting human trafficking revolves around four major principles: prevention, protection, prosecution, and partnerships. This grand strategy, endorsed by the United Nations (UN), European Union (EU), and various governments, forms the backbone of most anti-trafficking policies worldwide. On the surface, it sounds like a comprehensive approach. But in practice, it often fails to address the deeper socio-economic forces at play.
Sex trafficking is not happening in a vacuum. It’s tangled up with other systemic issues, namely strict migration laws, exploitative economies, corporate interests, and deeply ingrained societal fears about sex work. Instead of addressing these root issues, current anti-trafficking policies go after easy targets: sex workers, undocumented migrants, and marginalized communities leading to devastating consequences such as mass detentions, forced “rehabilitation,” police raids, legal crackdowns on sex work and criminalization of those who need protection the most.
Trafficking myths: what we get wrong
The obstacle to fighting trafficking isn’t just bad policies: it’s bad assumptions. We love a clear-cut villain, a dramatic rescue, a story that fits neatly into a Hollywood script. Think about it. If I mention “human trafficking”, what is the first scene that appears in your mind? Probably innocent girls lured by a trafficker, drugged, kidnapped, and sold into sex slavery. And while cases like that exist, the reality is far messier.
First, there’s no comprehensive understanding of what trafficking actually is. Most laws mention coercion, deception, or abuse of vulnerability, but in practice, definitions are blurred and shaped more by moral panic than facts. They look for the easiest and most obvious definitions to spot. What does this mean? Well, in practice, a situation where physical violence and force are much more obvious elements to recognise the case as a case of trafficking. This means that many people ignore the negotiated cases, where people willingly turn into traffickers, maybe to escape from the situation they’re living in their home country and see no way out. It’s a hard reality, we know, but it’s time to face it and broaden our horizons beyond our noses and easier answers.
Let’s put this into perspective to make you understand the logic behind this. For years, people thought of rape as a violent act by a stranger in a dark alley. But we now recognize that rape can happen in marriages, relationships, or workplaces, where coercion isn’t about physical force but fear, pressure, or manipulation. The same applies to trafficking: just because someone isn’t physically restrained doesn’t mean they’re making a truly free choice. Elsewhere, we could also explore the complexities of consent in the human mind to recognize which situations are consensual and which are not, to also not use my last assumption against sex workers. While it’s true that not all consensual acts are free from violence, not all sex work is trafficking, just like not all sex is rape. In this article, we’ll not explore this topic, yet it is important to be clear about it.
Now that we’ve had a brief reflection on the nature of trafficking and understood that not everything is as it seems, let's venture into the principles of anti-traffic measures.
Prevention: playing the blame game
Governments and NGOs invest heavily in public awareness campaigns designed to “prevent” trafficking, however, one of the go-to strategies for prevention is shifting responsibility onto individuals to tackle sexual trafficking. You’ve probably seen the catchy slogans, “Don’t Buy Sex” or “Report Suspicious Activity”, that target individuals’ focus on public involvement in identifying and reporting trafficking. They firstly discourage individuals from purchasing sex and secondly invite the community to recognize signs of abuse or potential victims of trafficking and report them to the relevant authorities. Sounds noble, right? Except, these campaigns fail to recognize that sex work and trafficking are not the same thing, as they rely on simplistic narratives that blur the lines between them. As a result, they further stigmatize sex workers by treating them as victims, leading to increased police harassment, deportations, and dangerous working conditions.
A prime example of the application of this misguided prevention is the Nordic Model (also called the “End Demand” approach), which criminalizes buyers of sexual services rather than sex workers themselves. While framed as a progressive policy to reduce trafficking, studies show it actually increases harm by pushing sex work underground, making it more dangerous. When sex workers are forced to operate in secrecy, they lose access to screening mechanisms, safe workspaces, and legal protections, which puts them in more danger. These unregulated and criminalized situations intensify their risk of exploitation, and it’s precisely there that trafficking can thrive.
Meanwhile, the rise of anti-trafficking technology laws has also had unintended and harmful consequences. Laws like SESTA-FOSTA, meant to prevent trafficking online, have actually made sex work more dangerous by shutting down platforms where workers could screen clients, share safety tips and access community support. With these platforms gone, many have been forced onto the streets, where they are far more vulnerable to violence, police brutality, and exploitation.
Migration policies: the real trap
Here’s an inconvenient truth: restrictive migration policies create the perfect conditions for trafficking. When governments make it difficult for people to migrate legally, they don’t stop migration from happening, as people desperate for work are forced to take irregular routes, making them easy prey for exploiters. In fact, migrants often end up in debt bondage, where recruiters or smugglers charge exorbitant fees that migrants must work off, sometimes under abusive conditions. Anti-trafficking laws ignore these economic realities and instead criminalize migrants, making it harder for them to seek legal protection or report abuse.
For migrant sex workers, the situation is even worse. Instead of being recognized as workers with rights, they are often categorized as trafficking victims against their will. Police raids on brothels or massage parlors frequently lead to mass detentions of sex workers, especially migrant women of color, who are then either deported or placed in forced rehabilitation programs.
The irony? Many of these women are not trafficked at all, they migrated willingly to escape poverty or discrimination, but because of racial profiling and anti-sex work policies, they are treated as criminals rather than workers in need of labor protections, precisely in the countries where sex work is unregulated or criminalized.
So, let’s be real, if anti-trafficking strategies make it more dangerous for victims to seek help, is it really working?
Protection: who gets to be a victim?
Governments claim to protect trafficking survivors, but who qualifies as a “real victim” is often arbitrary. The dominant image of a trafficking survivor, a young, helpless woman forced into prostitution against her will, leaves many real victims ignored or excluded from support programs.
In many countries, legal protection, residency permits and financial assistance are conditional in cooperation with law enforcement, so survivors are forced into legal proceedings against their will. If a survivor doesn’t want to testify in court (often due to trauma, fear of retaliation, or mistrust of authorities), they can be denied residency permits (resulting in deportation to the same conditions that put them at risk in the first place), shelter, social benefits or work permits (pushing them into further economic instability) or financial aid. This turns protection into coercion, forcing survivors to relive their trauma for the benefit of the state rather than their own healing.
Even when survivors do get assistance, the conditions are often inhumane. Many are placed in highly restrictive shelters, where they face curfews, surveillance, and lack of autonomy, conditions that resemble detention more than support. Worse, in countries where sex work is criminalized, survivors rarely receive compensation for lost wages or damages. Instead, law enforcement profits from their suffering, seizing money from brothels and workers in the name of “justice”. This coercive approach treats survivors not as people in need of support but as tools in the legal system’s war on trafficking. It prioritizes prosecution over actual protection, leaving survivors with little choice but to comply or be punished.
Prosecution: targeting the wrong people
In theory, prosecuting traffickers should be the heart of any anti-trafficking effort. After all, dismantling networks that coerce and exploit people is essential. But here’s the kicker: in practice, prosecution efforts miss the mark, as many of the people labelled as traffickers are actually former trafficking victims, sex workers helping each other survive and those in precarious situations. Migrant sex workers, in particular, are caught in a double bind, criminalized for their work and then punished again. The laws against trafficking and “pimping” are written in an overly broad way, criminalizing not just exploitative third parties but also sex workers who help each other in the industry. To clarify this, let’s see some practical examples. A sex worker who acts as a translator, driver, or security for others may be prosecuted as a “trafficker”, despite their role being one of mutual aid rather than exploitation. Even family members can be criminalized. Cases exist where a mother helping her daughter with rent was charged with living off the proceeds of prostitution.
To make matters worse, some countries tie victims’ residency permits to their willingness to testify in court. No testimony, no protection. Again, just as for the protection measures to identify the victims, this approach does nothing to support survivors and instead forces them to relive their trauma for the state’s benefit. This is important to reiterate.
So, if the real perpetrators are not even identified, who goes to jail to face prosecution? While some traffickers are arrested and convicted, the biggest beneficiaries of exploitation (corporations, corrupt officials, and wealthy business owners) often escape scrutiny. Even if this article mainly focuses on sexual trafficking, please do not forget that it’s labor trafficking cases that make up the majority of human trafficking worldwide. And these receive far less legal attention. While the sex-related cases may seem more appealing for the public scene, many governments don’t want to hold major corporations in the agriculture, construction and domestic work industries accountable for trafficking. It would be a blow to the economy. What can you do, the vile money...always above the rights of those who are exploited and abused every day. And what can be the solution? What better response than to harp on sex work to give the impression that the government is interested in intervening? This is the point. High-profile "rescue" operations tend to focus on sex work because they make for dramatic headlines and political points without caring to distinguish between trafficking victims and consensual workers.
Partnerships: who’s left out?
The final pillar of anti-trafficking policies is partnership, the idea that governments, NGOs, law enforcement, and civil society must work together to combat trafficking. It sounds good in theory. But guess who’s usually excluded? Sex worker-led organizations.
Many of the most influential anti-trafficking organizations are rooted in abolitionist ideology, that is the belief that all sex work is inherently exploitative and should be eradicated. These groups receive large amounts of funding from governments and international agencies, despite: promoting policies that harm sex workers (such as the Nordic Model or full criminalization), supporting police raids that lead to mass arrests, deportations, and forced rehabilitation, and pushing anti-trafficking laws that make it harder for sex workers to organize for safety.
Instead of listening to those who actually understand the realities of the industry, authorities prefer to work with groups that care nothing about the will and autonomy of people. This ideological bias ensures that policies remain ineffective and harmful, reinforcing the dangerous conflation of consensual sex work with trafficking, as it keeps on ignoring the real roots of trafficking while blaming the sex industry.
A smarter approach: listening to those who know best
The most effective allies in the fight against trafficking? Sex workers themselves. Sex worker-led groups have proven strategies for reducing trafficking and exploitation, such as providing direct services, creating safety networks and advocating for labor rights. But before and foremost, many have survived trafficking and understand better than anyone how to spot exploitative conditions. They know which workplaces are safe and which aren’t and how to help those in danger. But as long as anti-trafficking efforts continue to demonize sex work, these valuable insights will be ignored, with sex-worker-led associations being excluded from policy discussions, funding opportunities and partnerships. Worse, they are seen as the criminals here, facing harassment, arrest and censorship for advocating for harm reduction.
What’s needed to understand is that trafficking doesn’t happen in isolation. It’s a product of economic inequality, restrictive migration policies, and stigma. Not of the sex industry. Want to fight trafficking? Then stop criminalizing sex work, create safer migration pathways, and actually listen to those who are most affected and who are the only ones who can provide us with the instruments to keep them safe. Until then, the war on trafficking is just another excuse to control, detain, and exploit the vulnerable under the guise of protection.
References:
Eswa (2024, 18 October). EU Anti-Trafficking Day: Learns How Sex Workers Help Combat Trafficking. Eswa alliance. Consulted on February 3rd, 2025, from https://www.eswalliance.org/anti_trafficking_day_2024
International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe (2019). A brief guide on collateral damages of anti-trafficking laws and measures on sex workers. Consulted on January 23rd, 2025, from https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/eswa/pages/147/attachments/original/1631373323/Collateral_Damage_-_INTERACTIVE.pdf?1631373323
Kenway E. (2021). Briefing: Tackling Trafficking under a Decriminalisation Model. European Sex Workers Rights Alliance. Consulted on January 25th, 2025, from https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/eswa/pages/110/attachments/original/1629299176/Briefing_Tackling_Trafficking_under_a_Decriminalisation_Model.pdf?1629299176
About the author:
Benedetta De Rosa is an international researcher and project assistant dedicated to gender justice, women’s sexual rights, and the fight against sexual exploitation, working at the intersection of advocacy, digital communication and project management for international and local Italian organizations.
Her commitment to sex work and bodily autonomy stems from an early passion for nude art, which over time has evolved into an intellectual commitment to research, write, and speak on the relationships between sexuality, gender and power.
Unashamed and unafraid to challenge taboos, Benedetta is committed to creating space for judgment-free conversations on female sexuality, ensuring that respect, understanding, and empowerment remain at the heart of these discussions. Through her work, she transforms complex issues into accessible insights that spark dialogue and drive systemic change.
