Transnational Media Wars over Sex Trafficking
Transnational Media Wars over Sex Trafficking
Abolishing the “New Slave Trade” or the New Nativism?
This chapter discusses global media outreach against sex trafficking, specifically analyzing anti-trafficking media campaigns that have appeared in a variety of media formats—film documentaries, art exhibits, and campaigns by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)—funded by the United Nations and launched in the United States, Britain, and Brazil. The spectacle of enslaved bodies repeated in media accounts more broadly creates national panic over the movement of people across borders. This anxiety generates collective support for an increase in state power and in the state's budget (in militarizing the border, building more prison detention centers, and deporting more immigrants) in order to apprehend and return subjects at the border. By raising fears over women's mobility through images of sexualized violence, the media works in tandem with heightened border surveillance to slow down or halt migration rather than opening up safe avenues for women to find employment.
Keywords: global media outreach, sex trafficking, anti-trafficking media campaigns, enslaved bodies, women's mobility, sexualized violence, migration
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