Wards of the State: regnant and prostitute women

Abstract

The paper demonstrates common mechanisms underlying state control of prostitute and pregnant women. On a global level, institutional regulation of pregnancy and prostitution has been incorporated into “population control” and “migration control” under the name of “family planning” and “anti trafficking”. Although those policies fit within a coherent system, reproductive and sexual issues are most often isolated, or framed as ideological and strategic opposites, also by feminist theorists and activists. This false dichotomy reinforces the division of women and colludes with social hypocrisy and injustice.