Excluded but Fighting: Where Are the Voices of Sex Workers and Their Allies in EU Anti-Trafficking Policymaking?

The ‘end demand’ approach to prostitution has been popping up in Europe through the anti-trafficking debate and receives increasing attention on the international agenda. It is well recognized that improving workers’ rights, increasing unionization and collective bargaining coverage are effective strategies for tackling trafficking. However, with regard to sexual exploitation, focus is not on these strategies but instead on the abolition of the entire sex industry with the help of criminal justice systems. In first decade after the Palermo Protocol (2000), international organizations (IGOs) promoted a human rights-based approach to tackling trafficking, aiming to balance the criminal justice focus of the protocol. This work guided states on how to maintain and protect human rights while combating human trafficking. However, the explosive issue of sex work/prostitution was minimized, with IGOs avoiding the topic due to the fragile consensus about the definition of human trafficking and state obligations. Meanwhile, sex workers’ collectives and unions globally and throughout Europe developed their own strategies on how to address widespread criminalization, discrimination, violence and exploitation, with no or very limited funding and resources—and without recognition of their work, experience and expertise. This article presents how the European Sex Workers’ Rights Alliance (ESWA) and other sex workers’ rights civil society organizations have sought to challenge the harmful impacts of the ‘end demand’ discourse and the criminalization of sex work in the name of anti-trafficking in Europe.