‘White Slaves’ in a Colonial Nation: the Dutch Campaign Against the Traffic in Women in the Early Twentieth Century

Abstract

Between 1900 and World War I an international political campaign was conducted against ‘white slave traffic’. This campaign ultimately resulted in two international agreements to combat the procuring of women for ‘immoral purposes’ across borders. This article analyzes the politics of the Dutch campaign and argues that it gave rise to a powerful image of the white slave as a meaningful political concept. Although forced prostitution is identified as one of the realities of female migration, the ‘white slave’ is a historical construction. The first part of the article distinguishes the social meaning of the ‘white slave’ from older notions about prostitution as slavery. Using the lenses of race, gender and colonialism, the question is what the ‘whiteness’ of the white slave signified about women, sexual danger and the social order. The second part discusses the political and legal aspects of the Dutch campaign, for example, the rise of a gendered movement, the fight against the brothel and the nature of certain legal changes.