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The Trafficking Paradox
Thusi, India
Thusi, India
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Abstract
There are unintended consequences of criminalizing sex work in the name of combating trafficking — a dynamic I call “the trafficking paradox.” Using ethnographic fieldwork and survey data from Sweden and New Zealand, this Article demonstrates how criminalization, even when partial, can create conditions that facilitate exploitation by isolating sex workers, stigmatizing them, and constraining safe client screening. In Sweden, sex workers reported being forced into isolation, unable to work collaboratively, share housing, or seek protection — all to avoid being criminalized or perceived as facilitating sex trafficking. By contrast, non-migrant sex workers in New Zealand—operating under fully decriminalized conditions—shared safety resources, screened clients effectively, and engaged public authorities when needed. These comparative insights challenge claims that criminalization protects sex workers and instead reveal how it can produce the very vulnerabilities associated with trafficking.
This Article directly compares the two dominant feminist regulatory frameworks—the Swedish Model and the New Zealand Model—and offers a regulatory vision rooted in the lived experiences of sex workers. As lawmakers in Germany, Ireland, New York, and elsewhere consider prostitution law reforms, these findings illustrate the dangers of even partial criminalization and offer broader lessons for the regulation of other criminalized vices. The trafficking paradox compels a rethinking of carceral feminist approaches to sex work and supports the development of harm-reduction frameworks that mitigate, rather than entrench, vulnerability.