NGOs in Los Angeles, Shih provides an in-depth description and analysis of what she calls "vigi
lante rescue" efforts. While the assumptions of these anti-trafficking NGOs mirror those of feder
ally funded anti-trafficking sweeps and stings, these groups do not collaborate with federal or
local policing agents.
Shih finds distinct gendered and racialized patterns in the work of these organizations, with
many white college age men eager to "rescue" young women of Asian descent, with both orga
nizations deploying tactics of racial profiling to "identify those in need of rescue and those who
may be perpetrators of trafficking" (Shih 2016, this issue). Shih argues that these "vigilante res
cue" efforts represent a new form of neoliberal governance, bringing non-state actors in to
"enforce and extend state goals of surveillance and policing of immigrants and sex workers"
(Shih 2016, this issue).
This special cluster concludes with Crystal A. Jackson's article, "Framing Sex Worker Rights:
How U.S. Sex Worker Rights Activists Perceive and Respond to Mainstream Anti-Sex Trafficking
Advocacy." Jackson's ethnographic research with sex worker advocacy networks in the United
States documents how the anti-trafficking narrative has affected the sex worker rights movement.
Jackson describes both the importance and difficulty of articulating sex worker positive narra
tives in a contemporary moment of heightened surveillance and criminalization of everything
pertaining to commercial sex. While sex worker activists also wish to fight coercion and traffick
ing in the sex industry, when they do not acknowledge themselves as victims, anti-trafficking
activists and state actors label them criminals, and their work on behalf of actual victims is at best
marginalized, and at worst thwarted. Jackson's article adds to scholarly understandings of fram
ing battles within social movements, and illustrates how labor rights frames struggle as counter
stories in a neoliberal political climate.
Conclusion
The evidence in these three sociological studies run counter to dominant discourses abo
work and human trafficking. Because sociologists are often at the forefront of advocati
evidence-based policies, we hope that these essays will assist sociologists in their w
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Sociological Perspectives 59(1)
teachers, scholars, and public advocates. Finally, we urge policy makers and activists who are
concerned about individuals in the sex trade to heed these and other peer reviewed empirical
studies and push for evidence-based policies on sex work and human trafficking.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the editors of Sociological Perspectives, Robert O'Brien and James Elliot,
for their thoughtfulness, constructive support, and courage in hosting the first ever special cluster of articles
in Sociological Perspectives.
