Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society The Victorian Sex Trafficking Panic
Mar 31, 2026
Dr Julia Laite, historian at Birkbeck and author of The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey, explores Victorian 'white slavery' panics. She traces how migration, male anxiety and sensational investigations shaped moral scares. Conversations cover rescue homes, racialized stereotypes, real trafficking methods like isolation and grooming, police responses, and links between past reforms and modern laws.
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Migration Sparked The Moral Panic Over Trafficking
- The late 19th century panic combined real migration changes with moral alarm about women's freedom.
- Cheap transport and global job markets sent young women to cities and abroad, increasing vulnerability and fueling a moral panic.
William Stead Became The Scandal He Exposed
- William Stead's 1885 exposé staged a trafficking 'rescue' that actually involved him buying a girl and transporting her to France.
- The scandal sold massively, helped pass the 1885 law, and ended with Stead jailed for his own actions.
Why The Term White Slavery Was Misleading
- 'White slavery' was a euphemism that racialized prostitution and erased non-white suffering.
- Campaigners borrowed abolitionist language to dramatize trafficking, producing a deeply racist and misleading term.
