"Everyone dreams about leaving": Debates on Human Trafficking in State-Socialist Poland

Abstract:It is commonly assumed that during the state-socialist period in Poland the problem of human trafficking ceased to exist. Yet, at least two cases labeled as such were made public in the 1970s and 1980s, spurring vivid debates about the changing sexual mores and the role of the state in controlling migration and foreigners. This article analyzes how human trafficking was understood and debated by journalists, criminologists, and state representatives in the last two decades of state socialism. Thus, it contributes to the scholarship on human trafficking by bringing the Second World into the debates on migration and sex work after the Second World War. This article also showcases how seemingly outdated discourses of "white slavery" could be reapplied to serve the purposes of Cold War competition.