Law Commons^™

Women’S Votes, Women’S Voices, And The Limits Of Criminal Justice Reform, 1911–1950, Carolyn B. Ramsey

Publications

Deriving its vigor from the work of grassroots organizations at the state and local levels, the League of Women Voters (LWV) sought, in the first half of the twentieth century, to provide newly enfranchised women with a political education to strengthen their voice in public affairs. Local branches like the San Francisco Center learned from experience—through practical involvement in a variety of social welfare and criminal justice initiatives. This Article, written for a symposium commemorating the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, assesses the role of LWV leaders in California and especially San Francisco in reforming three aspects of the criminal …

Deporting Undesirable Women, Pooja R. Dadhania

Faculty Scholarship

Immigration law has long labeled certain categories of immigrants "undesirable." One of the longest-standing of these categories is women who sell sex. Current immigration laws subject sellers of sex to an inconsistent array of harsh immigration penalties, including bars to entry to the United States as well as mandatory detention and removal. A historical review of prostitution-related immigration laws reveals troubling origins. Grounded in turn-of-the-twentieth-century morality, these laws singled out female sellers of sex as immoral and as threats to American marriages and families. Indeed, the first such law specifically targeted Asian women as threats to the moral fabric of …

A "Neo-Feminist" Assessment Of Rape And Domestic Violence Law Reform, Aya Gruber

Publications

No abstract provided.

Determinants Of Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking And The Urgent Need For A Global Cultural Shift, Karen M. Hoover

Senior Honors Theses

In the United States, an overtly selfish and sexual culture contributes to the spread of human trafficking, thereby requiring a complete culture shift in order to diminish this modern day slavery initiated by the aberrant culture. Sex trafficking of minors in the United States encompasses a variety of factors that facilitate the bondage and brutal enslavement of American children. These children are bought and sold hundreds of times, with no regard for their personal well-being. Major factors such as demand, vulnerability, and America’s induced culture of sex serve to increase the environment that trap children and youth in commercial sexual …

Sex Work By Law: Bedford's Impact On The Municipal Regulation Of Sex Work, Elaine Craig

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The recent Ontario trial decision in Bedford suggests three interrelated principles that municipal law makers should consider when formulating bylaws aimed at regulating sex work. These principles, if upheld on appeal, will inform the constitutionality of both current and prospective bylaws regulating sex work in Canadian cities.

In Bedford, Justice Himel concluded that the constitutionality of laws regulating the sex trade must be determined in a legal context which recognizes the violence faced by sex workers. She confirmed that laws that indirectly make sex work more dangerous and harmful must be consistent with those principles that our legal system, through …

Sex Work By Law: Bedford's Impact On The Municipal Regulation Of Sex Work, Elaine Craig

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The recent Ontario trial decision in Bedford suggests three interrelated principles that municipal law makers should consider when formulating bylaws aimed at regulating sex work. These principles, if upheld on appeal, will inform the constitutionality of both current and prospective bylaws regulating sex work in Canadian cities. In Bedford, Justice Himel concluded that the constitutionality of laws regulating the sex trade must be determined in a legal context which recognizes the violence faced by sex workers. She confirmed that laws that indirectly make sex work more dangerous and harmful must be consistent with those principles that our legal system, through …

Relocation Revisited: Sex Trafficking Of Native Women In The United States, Sarah Deer

Faculty Scholarship

The Trafficking Victim Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) signaled a comprehensive campaign by the United States (US) government to address the scourge of human trafficking in the US and abroad. The US rhetoric about sex trafficking suggests that the problem originates in foreign countries and/or is recent problem. Neither claim is correct. This article details the historical and legal context of sex trafficking from its origin among the colonial predecessors of the US and documents the commercial trafficking of Native women over several centuries. Native women have experienced generations of enslavement, exploitation, exportation, and relocation. Human trafficking is not just …

Rescuing Trafficking From Ideological Capture: Prostitution Reform And Anti-Trafficking Law And Policy, Janie Chuang

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

In the decade since it became a priority on the United States' national agenda, the issue of human trafficking has spawned enduring controversy. New legal definitions of “trafficking” were codified in international and U.S. law in 2000, but what conduct qualifies as “trafficking” remains hotly contested. Despite shared moral outrage over the plight of trafficked persons, debates over whether trafficking encompasses voluntary prostitution continue to rend the anti-trafficking advocacy community - and are as intractable as debates over abortion and other similarly contentious social issues. Attempts to equate trafficking with slavery invite both disdain and favor: they are often rejected …

Re-Interpreting The Criminal Regulation Of Sex Work In Light Of R C Labaye, Elaine Craig

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada revised the meaning of indecency under the Criminal Code. This was achieved by removing from its definition any reliance on the community standard of tolerance test. In R. c. Labaye the Court reinforced the notion that the focus of laws regulating sexuality should not be based on sexual morality and moral harm to society but rather on political morality and actual harm to individuals. The reasoning in R. c. Labaye should change the way that courts understand the prostitution-related provisions in the Criminal Code. In particular, a proper application of its reasoning suggests …

Sexual Labor And Human Rights, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol, Jane E. Larson

UF Law Faculty Publications

In this Article, we engage the current human rights debate that dichotomizes prostitution either as a modern form of slavery or as the exercise of the right to work. This framework effectively sets up a coercion/consent polarity. These poles raise fundamental human rights issues; both the prohibition against slavery and the right to work are matters addressed by and central to the international human rights paradigm. Yet we argue in this Article that the human rights issues raised by prostitution cannot properly be studied nor moved towards meaningful resolution in the context of the prevailing polarity. Prostitution in its current …

Legalization Of Prostitution In Thailand: A Challenge To Feminism And Societal Conscience, Virada Somswasdi

Cornell Law School Berger International Speaker Papers

Thai society and the feminist movement have been bombarded with the (ir)rationality of economic greed, social ignorance and a patriarchal frame of thinking on the legalization of prostitution. Feminist ideology and societal conscience are hence being tested all over again. The issue of prostitution has been reduced to an issue of taxation for state income generation. Basically, the issue of legalizing prostitution is twofold, i.e., the decriminalization of prostituted women and the legalization of prostitution or decriminalization of the sex industry. The first of these points perceives that the prostituted women are victimized, exploited and violated, and thus should not …

Prostitution, Hustling, And Sex Work Law And Policy, Polly Thistlethwaite

Publications and Research

Prostitution, hustling, and sex work are forms of labor, not erotic preferences or identities as are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender, but sex workers and queers alike are stigmatized and criminalized for consensual sexual activity. The state – federal, state, and local law enforcement – routinely interferes with certain types of sexual activity. Enforcement of laws regulating sex behavior often varies given the discretion of local police. In her 1989 essay “Thinking Sex,” Gayle Rubin positions sex-for-money, prostitution, with pornography, promiscuous sex, pornography, and homosexual sex in the low status “outer limits” of the contemporary American sex hierarchy; while heterosexual, …

Decriminalizing Prostitution: Liberation Or Dehumanization?, Carlin Meyer

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Illegal Traffic In Women: A Civil Rico Proposal, Lan Cao

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Scope Of The Mann Act, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

As was to be expected in view of the well-settled doctrine of the Supreme Court that the constitutional grant of power to regulate interstate commerce includes power of control over transportation of persons as well as property, it was held in Hoke v. United States, 227 U. S. 308, 57 L. Ed. 523, 33 Sup. Ct. 281, that the WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC ACT of 1910 (36 Stat. 825), usually referred to as the MANN ACT, was constitutional. State legislation covering the same ground, it has been held, has been displaced. State v. Harper, 48 Mont. 456, 138 Pac. 495.

The Scope Of The Mann Act, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

As was to be expected in view of the well-settled doctrine of the Supreme Court that the constitutional grant of power to regulate interstate commerce includes power of control over transportation of persons as well as property, it was held in Hoke v. United States, 227 U. S. 308, 57 L. Ed. 523, 33 Sup. Ct. 281, that the WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC ACT of 1910 (36 Stat. 825), usually referred to as the MANN ACT, was constitutional. State legislation covering the same ground, it has been held, has been displaced. State v. Harper, 48 Mont. 456, 138 Pac. 495.