Trafficking in persons, particularly the trafficking of women into sexual servitude (sex trafficking) has generated much attention over the past decade. This book provides a critical examination of the international and national frameworks developed to respond to this issue - focused both on the design of policy responses and theirimplementation. Uniquely it brings together, and brings to life, the voices of policy makers, non-government agencies and trafficked women. The analysis is grounded in rich empirical work and research in Europe, Asia, Australia and North America.This book examines how sex trafficking has been mobilized within anti-trafficking policies across the globe and offers a close examination of the dominant international framework, drawing upon a rich and diverse set of case studies: Australia, Serbia and Thailand. This analysis draws upon over 100 interviews with trafficking 'experts' across the three nations-including policymakers, police, immigration authorities, social workers, lawyers, UN agencies, local and international NGOs, activists. Critically, it also draws upon the voices of women who have been trafficked.Three key concerns lie at the heart of this volume:The gendered and racialised assumptions that are implicit within the policy response and contribute to 'maintaining' the logic of law and order.

While trafficked women feature in the dominant representations and discourse around trafficking, they are invariably absent in the efforts to address trafficking. Women, as victims, are silenced and stripped of their agency - those who resist the expectations of what trafficked women 'look' like, or how they 'act', or what they 'need', are denied victim status.Law and order priorities are pursued above and beyond the needs of victims.Overall, this volume shifts the terrain for the analysis of responses to trafficking in persons, offering a unique and important critique of the dominant framework.