An excellent article by Kathy Miriam from The Journal of Social Philosophy

In the 1980s, U.S. feminism fractured along political fault-lines defined by
conflicting views of prostitution and pornography and related conceptions of
power, agency, and sexuality.1 The “sex wars”—as they were unfortunately, popularly
labeled—were apparently settled by the end of the decade, with “pro-sex”
advocates declared the winners. The radical feminist anti-pornography and antiprostitution
position has been effectively marginalized—at least within the
academy. Interestingly, the same cannot be said for debates around similar issues
in a new transnational arena of feminist politics. Since the 1990s, numerous feminist
nongovernmental agencies and grass-root groups across the hemispheres
have been organizing to stop global trafficking in women and children.2 In this
context, old feminist debates about prostitution have reconfigured themselves
along familiar theoretical lines. The contours of the debate are largely defined by,
on one side, activists who align themselves with a radical feminist and abolitionist
approach that defines prostitution as an institution of male domination. On the
other side, activists who are “pro-sex-work” aim to distinguish prostitution as voluntary
“work” from “forced prostitution,” and to distinguish voluntary migration
from (sex) trafficking.3 The radical feminist camp has largely prevailed in terms
of how international protocol is currently formulated. The “UN Optional Protocol
of Trafficking in Human Beings,” known widely as the “Palermo Protocol”
was signed by 105 countries in 2002 and specifically does not construct a separate
category for “forced” prostitution but rather, classifies prostitution (unmodified)
as a major component of trafficking.4 Pro-sex-work advocates, however,
continue to press for the distinction between “free” and “forced” prostitution. The
feminist debate over trafficking offers a timely opportunity for feminists to revisit
central philosophical questions concerning agency and power. Given the magnitude
of the problem, namely, the vast numbers of women and children whose
lives have been devastated by sex-trafficking under globalization, such questions
reemerge with a new political urgency.

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