In 1910, the US Congress passed a law called the White-Slave Traffic Act, otherwise known as the Mann Act. It criminalized the passage of women across state lines for "immoral purposes." Enforcing it was one of the first assignments given to the FBI, which was founded in 1908. Prior to this, in 1904, the League of Nations had signed the International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic. Although these laws were ostensibly passed for the protection of women, the result was more women being put into prison. It became a tool to arrest women who had voluntarily entered into prostitution, and also the pimps (often their boyfriends) who protected them. In recent times, the word "trafficking" has been used to create public support for the War on Drugs, and it is now being used to create public support for the war against sex work. Mission creep in both wars lead to mass arrests of people on the fringes of society. Comparing sex work to slavery brought about a conflation of two very different agendas. In the late 1970s, feminists battling against rape culture joined forces with conservative Christians who were upset about pornography and sex work. Feminists such as Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon joined right-wing Attorney General Edwin Meese's crusade against pornography. Today, "slavery creep" is a real problem, as white anti-sex-work campaigners co-opt the word "slavery". Robyn Maynard, a Black feminist writer, observes: > (In) an era where police killings of Black men, women, and children are institutionalized and enshrined in law in the same way that slavery once was, the question must be asked: how legitimate can a "new" anti-slavery movement be when the legacy of the transatlantic slave-trade is a living, breathing horror for anyone living with Black skin in the Americas? And what does this say about the value placed on Black lives that fighting "slavery" is only popular when it is whitewashed of any Black-led struggles for justice? The term "sex trafficking" entered popular use around 1984. However, about 80 percent of labour trafficking is related to industries other than sex work, such as farm, restaurant or textile work. Much less attention is given to these more predominant forms of labour exploitation, perhaps because it indicts ourselves in the food we eat or the clothes we wear. In 1994, Bill Clinton signed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, the largest expansion of the prison industrial complex in US history. The $30 billion legislation provided funding for one hundred thousand new police officers and $9.7 billion for prisons. Joe Biden was a co-sponsor of the Bill. He said: > The liberal wing of the Democratic Party is now for 60 new death penalties . . . the liberal wing of the Democratic Party is for 100,000 cops. The liberal wing of the Democratic Party is for 125,000 new state prison cells. In 2015, Amnesty International was voting to support the decriminalizing of sex work. Hollywood celebrities signed a letter demanding that it withdraw the proposal. They included: Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet, Anne Hathaway, Angela Bassett, Kevin Kline, Emma Thompson, Emily Blunt, Eve Ensler, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Chris Cooper, Lisa Kudrow, Carey Mulligan, Anna Quindlen, Lena Dunham, Allison Williams, Kyra Sedgwick, Debra Winger, Marcia Gay Harden, and Jonathan Demme. One sex worker told the Daily Beast: > If Kate Winslet and Lena Dunham are trading sex in a criminalized environment, then they should speak out. [But] the role of an advocate and an ally is to step back and let these people speak. . . . The fact that celebrities who have no stake in this and will not be impacted by it are getting the largest voice is frustrating and, frankly, dehumanizing. --- **Related**: [[Carceral feminism]] [[Ending demand on prostitution is not the solution]] --- **Source**: Flaherty, Jordan. No More Heroes. Chico, CA: AK Press, 2016.