::FRANÇAIS::

Victims of organized crime. Victims of male violence. Sex-slaves.

These are the terms commonly used to describe migrant women in the EUʼs sex industry. Trafficking, in contrast to ʻvoluntaryʼ migration such as smuggling, is defined as non-consensual form of migration geared towards exploitation of migrantsʼ labour whether in sex or some other kind of industry. This notion of trafficking resulted in NGOs and statesʼ intervention along two main lines: first, establishing of protective schemes for victims of trafficking and second, the tightening of borders and visa regimes to combat organised criminal networks.

Victim protection schemes are not to be discarded as they offer temporary residence permits to migrants. Yet, they are also not to be embraced so easily as they consign the complexity of womenʼs desires and projects to the category of the ʻvictimʼ, and consequently downplaying womenʼs resistance to structural inequalities and their struggle to transform their lives. Moreover, victim protection schemes lead to anti-prostitution laws as they subsume all migrant sex workers under the category of victims and worsen sex-workersʼ working conditions and rights. Border and visaʼs regimes relation to trafficking needs also to be reconsidered. When formal avenues of migration become inaccessible, migrant women turn to irregular channels. Stricter controls and more restrictive immigration regulations aimed at preventing trafficking do not protect women from abuse but, on the contrary, increase migrant womenʼs vulnerability to violence during their travel. In fact they increase the level of control third parties have over migrants, both during the journey and upon arrival at their destinations. Hence, current EU mechanisms of migration control help to produce ʻirregularʼ migration, channel women into trafficking and consequently into prostitution.

Shifting the terms of analysis of trafficking from violence and organised crime to migration and labour creates new political and interpretative possibilities. Analytically, it provides us with a framework to examine the impact of restrictive immigration and labour policies on migrant womenʼs lives and on sex-workersʼ lives. Politically, it avoids the danger of the collusion with statesʼ anti-immigration agenda which occurs when victimhood is the main frame of reference, and it proposes a political alliance based on freedom of movement and resistance against labour exploitation.