The aim of this article is to offer a comprehensive analysis of the European Union’s neo-abolitionist approach to prostitution, drawing on the literature that addresses the global rise of neo-abolitionism and using key concepts developed by the gendered approaches to the European Union in order to adapt them to the particular context of the European Union. To do so, the article undertakes a critical frame analysis of the European Union’s violence against women policies, as it is in such policies that prostitution has been most thoroughly addressed, in combination with an analysis of the nature and evolution of the European Union’s gender equality policies more broadly. The article contends that the emergence of prostitution on the gender equality agenda of the European Union and the adoption of an explicit neo-abolitionist approach by the European Parliament can be explained by the coalescence, in the mid 1990s, of three key factors: Sweden’s accession to the European Union and the consequent positioning of Swedish femocrats, keen on exporting Sweden’s neo-abolitionist agenda to the European Union, in central positions of power within European Union institutions; the crystallisation of a robust neo-abolitionist velvet triangle through the creation of strong institutional links between the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Women’s Lobby, which remained unchallenged; and the gradual development of a hybrid model of gender equality in the European Union which resonates with neo-abolitionist ideals at the same time as neo-abolitionism itself was increasingly associated to gender equality as a fundamental European Union value.
This article explains the rise of neo-abolitionism in Europe with reference to the intersection that it enables between the gender and sexual politics of neoliberalism, vulnerability, and security. Analyzing the recent adoption of neo-abolitionist prostitution policies in the United Kingdom, Spain, France, and Ireland, it contends that neo-abolitionism offers a suitable response to the needs that globalized neoliberalism creates for European states, allowing them to extend their control, disguise their moral agenda, and reproduce their material and normative foundations, guaranteeing the reproduction of the population and accumulation of wealth while reasserting their sovereignty and political identity as progressive in gender and sexual terms.
Prostitution is a standard case of morality politics (MP), defined as a particular type of politics that engages issues closely related to religious and/or moral values, giving way to strong and uncompromising value conflicts in both societal and political spheres. This kind of issues have increasingly become a European policy matter due to their transnational nature and the tensions they create between different legal principles. Our hypothesis is that this leads to the emergence of a specific type of European morality politics (EMP) reflecting the particular constraints of the policymaking of the European Union (EU). The purpose of this article is to understand to which extent the rise of prostitution on the EU agenda alters usual patterns of MP to shape a distinctive type of EMP. Our findings suggest that prostitution characterizes EMP albeit with a significant difference, namely the challenge to regulatory inertia through the successful mobilisation of European values by some policy entrepreneurs to promote a neo-abolitionist approach.
A Licencia CC-NC-ND ResumenEste articulo parte de la securitización de la trata de mujeres con fines de explotación sexual en la Unión Europea para repensar la relación entre seguridad y ciudadanía. Los estudios críticos de seguridad han comenzado a abordar esta relación recientemente, centrándose en analizar los procesos de securitización de la ciudadanía, así como su uso en procesos de securitización, e identificando la constitución de la comunidad política como el ámbito más claro en el que ambas confluyen. La securitización de la trata, sin embargo, cuenta con tres especificidades que nos obligan a repensar el concepto de ciudadanía, así como su relación con la seguridad: el contexto transnacional en el que tiene lugar, la importancia del género y la sexualidad en los procesos de inclusión y exclusión a los que da lugar, y la existencia de una red transnacional de defensa de las personas trabajadoras del sexo que se sirve del concepto de ciudadanía para luchar contra dicha securitización. El artículo, por tanto, propone introducir tres innovaciones en el marco teórico empleado por los estudios críticos de seguridad para abordar la relación entre seguridad y ciudadanía, adecuándolo así al caso específico de la trata: primero, propone situar dicha relación en el contexto de globalización en el que actualmente opera; segundo, traer a colación los conceptos de ciudadanía sexual y de género, y en particular, el debate surgido en torno a su relación con las prácticas orientalistas e imperialistas de las democracias liberales occidentales; y tercero, recuperar la dimensión ambivalente de la ciudadanía para resaltar su potencial emancipatorio. PalaBRas claveEstudios críticos de seguridad; ciudadanía; trata de mujeres con fines de explotación sexual; derechos de las personas trabajadoras del sexo; Unión Europea. repensar la relación entre seguridad y ciudadanía: la regulación europea de la trata de mujeres con fines de explotación sexual como caso de estudio
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