Laura María Agustín

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Laura María Agustín is a sociologist who studies migrant sex workers. In her writings, she is critical of the conflation of the terms "human trafficking" with "prostitution" and "migration", arguing that the "rescue industry" often ascribes victim status to (and thereby objectifies) women who have made conscious and rational decisions to migrate. She advocates for a more nuanced study of migrant sex workers without pre-conceived notions.[1][2]

Agustín worked with sex workers in NGOs and social projects on the Mexico/US Border, the Caribbean, and in South America.[2] She then received a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies and Sociology from the Open University in 2004; her advisor was Tony Bennett.[3] As of 2008 she was listed as Senior Research Officer at London Metropolitan University and had a position as visiting scholar at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

In 2006 she published her first book, Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry (Zed Books, 2007), arguing that the current anti-trafficking 'crusades' have the effect of restricting international freedom of movement, and comparing today's anti-trafficking feminists with the "bourgeois women" of the 19th century who felt the need to save poor prostitutes, seeing women as weak, easily victimized and in need of guidance. Agustín does not deny human trafficking or forced prostitution takes place, but rather that the ‘rescue industry’ overestimates figures.[4]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Laura María Agustín and Jo Weldon, The Sex Sector: A victory for diversity Global Reproductive Rights Newsletter 66/67, no. 2/3
  2. ^ a b Kerry Howley, The Myth of the Migrant, Reason Magazine, 26 December 2007
  3. ^ Laura María Agustín (2005), The Cultural Study of Commercial Sex, Sexualities, Vol 8(5): 681–694
  4. ^ Brendan O'Neill, The myth of trafficking, New Statesman, 27 March 2008

[edit] External links

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