Dressing Down Migrant Sex Work: the Global Anti-Trafficking Regime, Legal Employment Rights, and Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program

This paper analyzes the contemporary global anti-trafficking regime and discusses the destructive influence this regime has had on the lives of migrant sex workers. Through the use of public documents and academic literature, I deconstruct the global anti-trafficking discourses and argue in favour of more viable rights-based solutions (e.g., labour rights, immigration rights, and sexual rights) for combating human trafficking. Within this analysis, I explore the Canadian government’s gradual commitment to combat human trafficking through the gradual discontinuation of the exotic dancer visa, and eventual implementation of the migrant sex worker ban. In formalizing its commitment to combating trafficking, the Canadian government has implemented restrictive policy measures terminating migrant women’s ability to legally access the Canadian sex industry. While this type of employment was problematic in many ways, the Canadian government should have addressed these issues through rights-based policy initiatives instead of prohibiting access as part of its anti-trafficking campaign