PERILS OF MISMATCHING HUMANTRAFFICKING FOR SEXUALEXPLOITATION AND SEX WORK:IN THE SHADE OF DEFINITIONAL PERPLEXITIES OF THE TRAFFICKING PROTOCOL

This paper argues that the international legal definition of human traf-ficking provided by the 2000 UN Trafficking Protocol is inadequate to distinguish sex trafficking from the phenomenon of sex work. It thus explains why and how there is such definitional perplexities under international law pertaining to these two phenomena. Indeed, philosophically there are similarities that may result in a possible mismatch in certain scenarios, leading to misidentification of sex trafficking victims and sex workers. For instance, prejudices, myths, stereotypes and discrimination cause both sex workers and trafficked victims to face difficulties, when it comes to defining their legal status. As is discussed, although the Trafficking Protocol is a true breakthrough, components of its human trafficking definition -namely exploitation, deception and coercion- have a potential breadth that can leave room for different interpretations. This paper explains that it is not correct to interpret this intricacy of international legal regulation on the de-finition of human trafficking as suggesting that sex trafficking is sex work. In fact, there is no evidence to clearly imply that international law indeed uses the term sex trafficking interchangeably with sex work. Reasons for this, along with the perils of mismatching these two phenomena are explained.

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