Sex at the Border: Trafficking as a Migration Problem in Partioned Poland

This talk investigates the crossing of two waves of moral panic in early 20th-century Poland: the mass exodus of poor peasants in search of jobs and a better life in North and South America and the drama of young female migrants' "white slavery."  Drawing on materials in diplomatic and police archives, Stauter-Halsted presents a more nuanced history of what was deplored as human trafficking, noting the greater individual agency exercised by the women involved and the complex relationships developing between these women and their mostly Jewish migration facilitators.