Introduction; 1. 'My God! If only I could get out of here': roots of contemporary movements to fight the US youth sex trade; 2. 'Teeny hookers' and the 'chicken hawk trade': organizing against juvenile prostitution in the 1970s; 3. Survivor activism and global connections: the US campaign against commercial sexual exploitation of children in the 1990s; 4. 'Our daughters' in danger: leveraging the anti-trafficking framework in the early 2000s; 5. To rescue or empower: building a collaborative adversarial movement; 6. 'Locked in like a dog in a kennel': challenging the criminal justice and child welfare systems; 7. 'Quick fixes and good versus evil responses': criticisms of the movement; Conclusion: ending the US youth sex trade?
A history of activism against the commercial sexual exploitation of American youth from the 1970s to 2015.
Carrie N. Baker, J.D., Ph.D., is a Professor and Director of the Program for the Study of Women and Gender Baker at Smith College, Massachusetts. Baker's primary areas of research are women's legal history, gender and public policy, and women's social movements. Her first book The Women's Movement Against Sexual Harassment (Cambridge, 2008) won the National Women's Studies Association 2008 Sara A. Whaley book prize. Baker has published in many leading journals, including Violence Against Women, Women in Politics, and The Journal of Women's History. Baker also writes for Ms. magazine and is co-chair of the Ms. Committee of Scholars.
'Baker weaves a complicated tale in this extraordinary
comprehensive and insightful account of the evolution of society's
responses to the discovery of the sexual exploitation of young
people. By detailing the ways an obsession with the allegedly toxic
combination of sex and youth overshadowed more systemic responses
and facilitated a resort to the criminal justice system, the author
highlights politicians' tendency to overlook societal contexts and
conditions and focus on individual behavior. Recommended for
everyone interested in law, policy, and politics.' Martha Albertson
Fineman, Robert W. Woodruff Professor, Director of the Feminism and
Legal Theory Project and the Vulnerability and the Human Condition
Initiative, Emory University, Georgia
'Fighting the US Youth Sex Trade unravels a remarkably complex set
of issues to reveal unexpected motivations, alliances, and outcomes
of a movement that involves far more than sex for sale. Carrie N.
Baker brilliantly demonstrates how anxieties about immigration,
urbanization, and changing gender roles fuel narratives of
victimization that perform the ideological work necessary for
gender and racial formation. They culminate in laws that heighten
policing of women's sexuality, strengthen a criminal justice system
that disproportionately incarcerates poor people of color, and
legitimizes repressive state practices of immigration control.'
Mary Hawkesworth, Distinguished Professor of Political Science and
Women's and Gender Studies, Rutgers University, New Jersey
'In this important and illuminating study, Baker not only documents
the rise of the movement that transformed the meaning and legal
standing of child prostitution, she provides brilliant insight into
the ideological diversity and complex inner workings of race,
gender and sexuality that drive it.' Paula J. Giddings, E. A.
Woodson Professor, Emerita, Smith College, Massachusetts
'Carrie N. Baker's painstaking and insightful analysis is a
must-read for scholars and practitioners concerned with the
politics and processes of the sex trafficking of children in
America. This is a huge, yet shamefully understudied,
underreported, and unfathomable practice. Baker's work brings the
scope of the problem to the fore through the lens of social
movement theory. Her work provides us with a timely and brilliant,
yet disturbing, description of child sex trafficking while
suggesting useful strategies to begin to attack this insidious
problem too long left unacknowledged by lawmakers.' Karen O'Connor,
Jonathan N. Helfat Distinguished Professor of Political Science,
Founder, Women and Politics Institute, American University,
Washington, DC
'Through detailed analyses of court cases and development of both
responding agencies and government policies, Baker examines the
prevalence of common youth sex trade narratives (which primarily
focus on white, middle class women) versus the lived realities of
youth involved in the US sex trade (varying across race, social
class, gender, and sexual identity) … This book could be used in
the disciplines of history, sociology, political science,
education, and media studies. It could be paired with one or more
of the documentaries described in the book to help students better
understand first-hand experiences of affected youth and the agendas
of the developers of each documentary. … Summing Up: Recommended.
Advanced undergraduates and above.' C. L. Lalonde, Choice
'Fighting the US Youth Sex Trade's strength lies in its rich
historical trace of the social movements regarding the child sex
trade. The text accomplishes its goal of understanding the various
social movements, the activists involved, and how policy was
created as a result of activism.' Summer Shuford, Journal of Youth
and Adolescence
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