Revisiting notions of sex trafficking and victims. This article examines the migratory processes and work experiences of Brazilian female sex workers active in Spain. It is based on ethnographic research conducted over eleven months, at different moments between November and January , in Barcelona, Madrid, Bilbao and Granada.
The principal argument is that the notions of prostitution and international human trafficking held by Brazilian sex workers clash with those found in the current public debate of these issues. Brazilian migrant sex workers' acts and beliefs defy political and cultural protocols on the national and international level, and fly in the face of the 'destiny' that Brazilian society laid out for these individuals.
Keywords: sex trafficking, migration, sex work, victims. Recent critical literature on trafficking in persons draws attention to the fact that the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime UNODC portrayed Brazil in as one of the three countries that export the largest number of slaves to Europe, and highlights the inconsistencies of the data on which this assessment is based Blanchette and da Silva, In the Trafficking in Persons Report, the United Nations reiterated the idea that Brazil was a significant source country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking abroad, often in European countries Departament of State, These perceptions about trafficking involving Brazilian citizens were produced during the first decade of the 21 st century.
During those years, European destination countries, particularly Spain 1 , became a matter of serious concern to the Brazilian government and to NGOs. This concern was fed by the publications of multilateral supranational agencies, international police actions and anti-trafficking media campaigns undertaken by the Brazilian government, and NGOs Grupo Davida ; Blanchette, ; Blanchette and Da Silva, ; Piscitelli Taking this public anxiety as my point of departure, I examine in this paper the migratory processes and work experiences of Brazilian female sex workers active in Spain, a nation that attracted significant numbers of Brazilian immigrant women 2.
My principal argument is that the notions of prostitution and international human trafficking held by Brazilian sex workers clash with those found in the current public debate of these issues. Simply put, Brazilian migrant sex workers' acts and beliefs defy political and cultural protocols on the national and international level, and fly in the face of the 'destiny' that Brazilian society lays out for these individuals. Ethnography, the central methodology I used in my study, has been a powerful tool for unpacking a series of propagated suppositions regarding the migration of sex workers.
