Sex Workers’ Rights and Combating Trafficking as Irreconcilable Goals? Conflict and Collaboration Among Anti-trafficking Actors and Sex workers’ Rights Groups in the San Francisco Bay Area

Anti-trafficking policy in the U.S. puts a strong focus on sex trafficking. This focus is visible in anti-trafficking legislation; funding policies; and in government, NGO, and law enforcement discourses on trafficking in persons. Hence, the way prostitution is regulated (criminalized) and talked about plays into the way trafficking in persons is addressed. A number of researchers and activists have criticized that this often results/is the result of excluding sex workers from the conversation. My paper focuses on anti-trafficking coalitions and sex workers’ rights organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area—that is, the local level—and the way they speak about the complex of trafficking/sex work/prostitution. Working with a frame analysis approach, I examine how state and non-state actors construct the problem of trafficking in speaking about prostitution/sex work. Based on this analysis, I explore the question of whether anti-trafficking work in the Bay Area necessarily means excluding sex workers’ rights organizations from the debate. At the same time, I am looking for potential opportunities of dialogue between actors who seem to pursue different goals.