The EU has expanded its policy remit into all kinds of areas, and has made a clear commitment to gender equality. However, issues such as prostitution, abortion and same-sex families, which many would argue are closely linked to gender equality, have remained absent from the EU policy agenda. This article takes the case of prostitution, and asks how we explain the EU's policy silence on this issue, despite its clear action on the closely related issue of trafficking in human beings (the 2011 Anti-Trafficking Directive (European Parliament & The Council, 2011); the appointment of an Anti-Trafficking Coordinator; and the Strategy towards the Eradication of Trafficking in Human Beings (2012–2016) (European Commission, 2012)). Using a combination of process tracing and document analysis, it examines how prostitution has been kept off the policy agenda; how it has been framed as a policy issue; which actors have been able to define the issue, and which have been excluded. The article contributes to a broader understanding of why some issues become defined as problems requiring public policy responses and others do not; how they appear on, or are excluded from, the policy agenda at the member state and EU level; and how issues, frames and proposals are ignored or actively silenced within policymaking structures and processes. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd

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European Union prostitution gender disparity social policy Europe policy making trafficking