University of Leicester
Browse

Anti-Trafficking in the Time of FOSTA/SESTA: Networked Moral Gentrification and Sexual Humanitarian Creep

Download (230.86 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2025-06-30, 11:39 authored by Jennifer Musto, Anne E Fehrenbacher, Heidi Hoefinger, Nicola MaiNicola Mai, PG Macioti, Calum Bennachie, Calogero GiamettaCalogero Giametta, Kate D’Adamo
Globally, sex workers have highlighted the harms that accompany anti-prostitution efforts advanced via anti-trafficking policy, and there is a growing body of social science research that has emerged documenting how anti-trafficking efforts contribute to carceral and sexual humanitarian interventions. Yet mounting evidence on the harms of anti-trafficking policies has done little to quell the passage of more laws, including policies aimed at stopping sexual exploitation facilitated by technology. The 2018 passage of the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the corresponding Senate bill, the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA), is a case study in how efforts to curb sexual exploitation online actually heighten vulnerabilities for the people they purport to protect. Drawing on 34 months of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with sex workers and trafficked persons (n = 58) and key informants (n = 20) in New York and Los Angeles, we analyze FOSTA/SESTA and its harmful effects as a launchpad to more broadly explore how technology, criminalization, shifting governance arrangements, and conservative moralities cohere to exacerbate sex workers’ vulnerability.

History

Author affiliation

College of Social Sci Arts and Humanities Criminology, Sociology & Social Policy

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Published in

Social Sciences

Volume

10

Issue

2

Pagination

58 - 58

Publisher

MDPI AG

eissn

2076-0760

Copyright date

2021

Available date

2025-06-30

Language

en

Deposited by

Dr Calogero Giametta

Deposit date

2025-06-04

Data Access Statement

Due to confidentiality protections for study participants required by the Institutional Review Boards that approved this study, the data cannot be made publicly available.

Usage metrics

    University of Leicester Publications

    Licence

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC