Article The Myth of ‘Choice’ in Global South Sex Trafficking Discourse
Article The Myth of ‘Choice’ in Global South Sex Trafficking Discourse
For most women and girls, especially from the Global South (and poor, racialized and displaced women everywhere), the notion that prostitution is freely chosen collapses under scrutiny. More often than not, entering the sex trade is not a choice, but an act of survival under patriarchal and capitalist constraints. So, who is sex work legalization really for?
Legalization is often framed as pragmatic, humane, even feminist—but too often it amounts to legal accommodation to systems that already fail women. Legalizing sex work as a solution to women’s economic conditions and sexual exploitation is akin to telling formerly enslaved people that sharecropping is their best option: a temporary fix that reinforces the injustice it claims to address. It doesn’t empower women, it commodifies them.
For women in the Global South, in particular, the line between “voluntary” and “forced” sex work is not just blurry, it is irrelevant. That binary is a Western invention, a privilege for those whose other options aren’t starvation, migration or abuse…”
Read more: https://msmagazine.com/2025/07/08/sex-work-prostitution-trafficking-africa-asia-latin-america-europe-women-child-abuse-rape/
nordicmodelnow
Jul 16 2025, 2:19 AM #1“’Sex work is work,’ is a mantra increasingly echoed in policy circles, academic spaces and activist slogans. But who is behind the megaphone? And who is paying the price?
For most women and girls, especially from the Global South (and poor, racialized and displaced women everywhere), the notion that prostitution is freely chosen collapses under scrutiny. More often than not, entering the sex trade is not a choice, but an act of survival under patriarchal and capitalist constraints. So, who is sex work legalization really for?
Legalization is often framed as pragmatic, humane, even feminist—but too often it amounts to legal accommodation to systems that already fail women. Legalizing sex work as a solution to women’s economic conditions and sexual exploitation is akin to telling formerly enslaved people that sharecropping is their best option: a temporary fix that reinforces the injustice it claims to address. It doesn’t empower women, it commodifies them.
For women in the Global South, in particular, the line between “voluntary” and “forced” sex work is not just blurry, it is irrelevant. That binary is a Western invention, a privilege for those whose other options aren’t starvation, migration or abuse…”
Read more: https://msmagazine.com/2025/07/08/sex-work-prostitution-trafficking-africa-asia-latin-america-europe-women-child-abuse-rape/
