Anti-Sex Trafficking Policy Report by the League of Nations, 1927, Addressing International Sex Trafficking, Regulated Sex Work, and Preventative Education

League of Nations Grace Abbott

First Edition

League of Nations policy report from 1927, collecting data on the organization's efforts to regulate prostitution, control cross border trafficking, and coordinate government response to sex work. Produced by the Special Body of Experts on Traffic in Women and Children and distributed to League member governments, the report emerged from a decade of international agreements that sought to move the suppression of prostitution related trafficking beyond the limits of national legislation. The inquiry examined immigration controls, licensed brothel systems, deportation policies, police surveillance, labor recruitment, and international treaty obligations across Europe, the Mediterranean, the Near East, and the Americas, reflecting the League's broader attempt during the interwar period to establish mechanisms for international social governance alongside its better known diplomatic and political functions.

League of Nations. Report of the Special Body of Experts on Traffic in Women and Children. Part One. Geneva: League of Nations, 1927. 13 x 8 inches. 50 pages. Original printed wrappers. Front wrapper bearing the original World Peace Foundation label identifying the Boston organization as "Sole American Agent" for League publications in the United States. Issued as publication "IV. SOCIAL. 1927. IV. 2" and dated February 17th, 1927. The report contains chapters addressing "The Character of the Traffic," "The Extent of the Traffic," "The Demand for Foreign Women," "Sources of Supply," "Traffickers and Their Associates," "Routes and Methods of Conducting Traffic," and governmental measures adopted to suppress trafficking. The text compares systems of licensed prostitution, immigration restrictions, deportation policies, and police administration in numerous countries. The report states that investigators examined conditions in 112 cities and districts and interviewed government officials, police authorities, brothel operators, traffickers, and women involved in prostitution. Part One only.

The report marks a turning point in the evolution of international anti trafficking law. Earlier international agreements of 1904 and 1910 had focused primarily on diplomatic cooperation and criminal sanctions, but the League sought to construct a permanent fact finding apparatus capable of generating comparative evidence for future policy. The text repeatedly returns to questions of state regulation, asking whether licensed houses of prostitution encouraged international recruitment, how immigration systems facilitated or obstructed trafficking, and what obligations governments assumed under emerging international conventions. Its discussion of licensed vice districts, border controls, deportation practices, and international police cooperation reveals how the League attempted to transform prostitution from a matter of local morality into a subject of international administration.

Also included are two annexes with the 1923 resolution by the League of Nations to conduct an investigation into trafficking by the Advisory Committee on the Traffic in Women and Children and a 1923 memorandum by Grace Abbott on the necessity of investigation and legal protection against sex trafficking in the United States. Light tanning at edges; minor chipping and short closed tears to wrappers; chipping along spine; textblock holding but separated from wrappers. Overall good condition. A contemporaneous record of the League of Nations' effort to create an international legal and administrative framework for regulating prostitution and suppressing cross border trafficking.

Item #23586

Price: $325.00