Drawing on fieldwork carried out in Kropyvnytskyi (formerly Kirovohrad), Ukraine, Dafna Rachok discusses local sex workers' narratives of work and migration, challenging the salvationist rhetoric of human trafficking that is employed by some international agencies. Analyzing sex work in the context of the "weak state" and economic instability, she examines how the discourse around human trafficking in Ukraine obscures structural issues such as unemployment and poverty (as well as global inequality), overshadowing them by its emphasis on the individuals concerned and their agency, or lack of such.
Dafna Rachok is a PhD student in Anthropology at Indiana University Bloomington, and received an MA in Anthropology from the University of Alberta in 2018 and an MA in Critical Gender Studies from Central European University in 2014. Her paper on sex work in Ukraine recently won a prize from the Women's Network of the Canadian Anthropology Society.