This article examines the new United Nations 'Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children', which opened for signature in December 2000. This article presents a feminist analysis of the Trafficking Protocol and of the feminist discourse involved in its development. I begin with an examination of the re-emergence in the 1980s and 1990s of significant feminist concerns about trafficking and prostitution. The two main theoretical positions advanced at this time are explored - radical feminism and sex work feminism. I argue that radical feminist approaches to prostitution and trafficking are fundamentally flawed and that a sex work feminist approach has significant discursive and practical usefulness in advancing the position of both sex workers and victims of trafficking. From this perspective, I then present a feminist critique of the United Nations Trafficking Protocol and conclude that it has some strengths but also some major weaknesses. © 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd.

United Nations International law feminism Prostitution Trafficking

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