Rescuing Sex Work from Anti-Trafficking: Theorising Anti-Trafficking Politics from the Philippines.

Convener: Dr Jacob Ricks

Speaker: Dr Sharmila Parmanand (LSE)

Widely hailed as a global pioneer in anti-trafficking, the Philippines offers a revealing lens on the unintended consequences of “protective” governance. This talk unsettles anti-trafficking as a straightforward human rights victory, showing how carceral and donor-driven interventions have intensified the precarity of sex workers while undermining their agency. Through collaborative ethnography, it foregrounds vernacular forms of resistance by sex workers and raises difficult questions about feminist engagements with the state on questions of labour, gender, rights, and sexual violence.