Trafficking on Trial

The Judge, the Pimp and the Victim

Bibliographic Data

ID12967685
AuthorsMathilde Darley (0000-0003-4261-7183, Sorbonne Université, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume18
Issue2
Pages225-242
Publication date2024-04-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueStudies in Social Justice (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1911-4788 • E-ISSN: 1911-4788
PublisherBrock University Library (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.26522/ssj.v18i2.4244
OpenAlexW4393987814
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited30

Based on an ethnography of French trials for trafficking in human beings and aggravated procuring, this article seeks to contribute to the analysis of the reframing, in penal terms, of the struggles engaged in the name of social justice and women’s rights, of which anti-trafficking policies are particularly emblematic. Studying the judging practices and logics at stake during trials reveals how fantasized representations of the pimp and the victim take on substance. In particular, I argue that judges invoke a set of gendered, sexualized and racialized extra-legal norms, which, along with their legal foundations, constitute their knowledge base and impose a moral and penal hierarchy among litigants. Therefore, not only does this analysis contribute to defining the contours of the elusive figures of the pimp and the victim in the penal arena, it also exposes how maintaining public order is based on the perpetuation of a gendered and sexual national order in the name of gender justice

Cognitive reframing · Criminal justice · Criminal trial · Criminology · Economic Justice · Ethnography · Hierarchy · Order (exchange · Political science · Sociology · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · HIV, Drug Use, Sexual Risk · Law · Psychology · Sex work and related issues · Social Psychology

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