GENDER AND POLITICS SERIES EDITORS: JOHANNA KANTOLA · SARAH CHILDS Security Meets Gender Equality in the EU The Politics of Trafficking in Women for Sexual Exploitation Lucrecia Rubio Grundell Gender and Politics Series Editors Johanna Kantola, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland Sarah Childs, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK The Gender and Politics series celebrates its 12th anniversary at the 6th European Conference on Politics and Gender (ECPG) in July 2022 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, having published more than 50 volumes to date. The original idea for the book series was envisioned by the series editors Johanna Kantola and Judith Squires at the first ECPG in Belfast in 2009, and the series was officially launched at the Conference in Budapest in 2011. In 2014, Sarah Childs became the co-editor of the series, together with Johanna Kantola. Gender and Politics showcases the very best international writing. It publishes world class monographs and edited collections from scholars — junior and well established - working in politics, international relations and public policy, with specific reference to questions of gender. The titles that have come out over the past years make key contributions to debates on intersectionality and diversity, gender equality, social movements, Europeanization and institutionalism, governance and norms, policies, and political institutions. Set in Euro- pean, US and Latin American contexts, these books provide rich new empirical findings and push forward boundaries of feminist and politics conceptual and theoretical research. 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Lucrecia Rubio Grundell Security Meets Gender Equality in the EU The Politics of Trafficking in Women for Sexual Exploitation Lucrecia Rubio Grundell Department of Political Science and Administration, Faculty of Political Science and Sociology Universidad Complutense de Madrid Madrid, Spain ISSN 2662-5814 ISSN 2662-5822 (electronic) Gender and Politics ISBN 978-3-031-12208-8 ISBN 978-3-031-12209-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12209-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. 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Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover credit: dancingfishes iStockphoto This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland To Florence, the woman and the city. Acknowledgements Being born out of the Ph.D. research that I developed at the European University Institute in Florence between 2013 and 2018, this book would not exist without the help, solidarity inspiration, friendship and love of those who accompanied me then, and those that do now. I want to thank the Swedish Research Council for providing me with the financial stability to conduct a Ph.D. in the best of circumstances, as well as my supervisor, Rainer Bauböck, for pushing me to defend my ideas in front of uncon- vinced audiences, often playing such role himself. My colleagues from the 2013 cohort at the European University Institute, in particular Rainer Bauböck’s other supervisees, were an invaluable source of constructive criticism. In addition, my doctoral research benefited greatly from the inestimable help of Claudia Aradau during my research visit to King’s College London. This book would not exist without her work, nor the lucidity and kindness with which she helped me find what I wanted to say. I am foremost indebted as well to all the interviewees that participated in my doctoral research, generously granting me their time and knowledge. I sincerely hope that the effort I have put into this book rewards you, even in the most minimal way. Numerous other colleagues and friends supported me during my time in Florence, enriching not just my dissertation but the part of my life that remained, and have continued to do so since. I am most grateful to Neil Howards, for demonstrating that there is a better way of doing academia, based on solidarity rather than competition; to Ruth Rubio vii viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Marín, for her support during the trying times and her sorority during the good ones, and to Itziar Ruiz-Giménez, for the critical vocation that she not only predicates, but practices. To the Salviati group, Pablo, Bruno, Gael and Vero, for your encouragement and support in the final phases of my doctoral research, and to Itzea, for confirming since the start that love, life, laughter, anger, academia and political activism go together. Something I have also learnt from my fellow sex work researchers, Joana Hofstetter and Giulia Garofalo, thank you for the solidarity. My life and work in Florence would have not been the same without the inter-species pack I lived with and that sustained me. Riccardo, Stella and Hellas, your love, care, generosity, patience and forgiveness transformed me. I will never forget it. I am also thankful for the support and funding provided by the following persons and institutions during my postdoctoral experience, without which I would have certainly left academia: Ruth Rubio Marín and the Jean Monnet Action Grants; François Foret and the Université Libre de Bruxelles; Itziar Ruiz-Giménez and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and Emanuela Lombardo and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. I am especially indebted to the latter two, for their unwavering commitment in supporting my academic career and for allowing me to return home to develop it. To my life-long friends Charlotte, Paula, Mar and Eva and their beautiful families. Thanks for making Spain my home despite the decade I spent away. To Javi, Irene, Gonzalo and Jacobo, for living with me the worst and best parts of the journey. To my family, for showing me that difference unites as much as resemblance. To my mother, Patricia, for sometimes not understanding me but always trying. To my brother and sister (in-law), Zach and Emma, and my niece and nephew, Amaia and Hector, for filling my life with love and joy in ways that I could have never imagined. Finally, to my partner, Florence, for giving meaning to everything. About This Book This book explores the triangular dynamics of securitisation and desecu- ritisation that underpin the EU’s approach to trafficking in women for sexual exploitation. Namely, the progressive securitisation of trafficking in women for sexual exploitation within the EU’s anti-trafficking poli- cies, and the existence of two distinct and competing approaches that coexist among feminist struggles against such trend and that largely follow the two opposing views that structure feminist debates on prostitution: a neo-abolitionist approach, on the one hand, that is increasingly defended from within EU institutions and has thus become increasingly entangled with, rather than confronting, the securitisation of trafficking in women for sexual exploitation; and a sex work approach that has been largely relegated to the domains of academia and civil society. As such, this book analyses the intersection of security concerns and neo-abolitionist ideals within the EU’s anti-trafficking policies, and the desecuritising poten- tial of the anti-trafficking advocacy of transnational feminist civil society organisations on both sides of the neo-abolitionism versus sex work debate. This book is unique in that it unprecedentedly brings together three bodies of literature that rarely interact: Critical Security Studies, EU Gender Studies and the feminist literature on prostitution and trafficking in women, demonstrating their fruitful interaction in a comprehensive empirical analysis of the EU’s internal security, violence against women and anti-trafficking policies. ix Praise for Security Meets Gender Equality in the EU “In this enthralling book, Lucrecia Rubio Grundell provides a much- needed, comprehensive analysis of how trafficking in women for sexual exploitation has come to be securitized by the European Union. Grounded in expert discourse analysis of myriad EU documents and interviews with key actors, she carefully and convincingly traces the evolu- tion and intersection of EU security policy, gender equality policy and approaches to trafficking for sexual exploitation. As such the book fills a noticeable gap in understanding the politics of neo-abolitionism and securitization at European level. Importantly this book ends with a turn to the possibilities of desecuritising the issue, finding inspiration in the transgressive and joyful actions sex workers undertake at a distance from the state.” —Gillian Wylie, Assistant Professor in International Peace Studies at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland “This compelling book addresses the politics of security and trafficking in women in the EU through a critical, well-documented, and comprehen- sive analysis that skilfully questions the EU’s security and gender equality policies. By unravelling complex dynamics of securitization and feminist politics, the book convincingly argues that trafficking in women for sexual exploitation is securitized at EU level by presenting organised crime, irregular immigration and sex work as threats to the internal security of the EU, and that this securitization has significant consequences for xi