Human Trafficking Intervention Courts as an Ambivalent Model: Victims or Sex Workers?

• In Event: Preventing and Responding to Sex Trafficking

Abstract

This paper aims to interrogate the policy ambivalence created by two sets of existing laws, Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) and the prostitution laws. It explores the ambivalence from whether the frontline victim service workers at the Human Trafficking Intervention Courts view their defendants/clients as victims or sex workers. By focusing on two groups of workers, i.e., public defenders and social workers, who have served Chinese immigrant women arrested for prostitution at massage parlors in New York City. Based on in-depth interviews and court observations, the study found that the victim service workers' perspectives display a wide spectrum of "victims"; their views on the issue of decriminalization of sex work are also different from each other. In general, the public defenders tend to be more homogeneous and liberal, whereas disparate attitudes are found among the social workers. Analyses on why the discussions on decriminalization of sex work are mostly absent among victim service providers as well as the workers are also included. This paper concludes that these workers’ perspectives matter, and the policy ambivalence is structured into their everyday work.

Author

• Yen-Chiao Liao, Siena College