6 - Reputation and Repatriation

Summary

This chapter considers the repatriation of French women and girls in the midst of the moral panic of trafficking. Advocates for repatriation justified this protocol with reference to regulatory aims: protecting the vulnerable from exploitation, guarding borders against undesirables, and managing the sexual order of nations. International conventions and French national law designated the consulate as the body responsible for returning trafficking victims to France; by authorizing or denying repatriation, the consul functioned as a powerful agent of migration control. Consuls focused their efforts on trafficking victims while placing consenting prostitutes in a category apart, although in practice, this line was not so easy to draw. Vulnerability did not always track neatly with youthfulness, passivity, or moral purity. In addition, vulnerability occurred in a wide range of exploitative labor arrangements, including but not limited to prostitution.