'"La nouvelle activité des trafiquants de femmes": France, Le Havre and the Politics of Trafficking, 1919–39'

This article examines how the ‘moral panic’ about sex trafficking during the interwar years manifested itself in Le Havre, a French port which, at the beginning of the twentieth century, had become synonymous with the illegal trade. Examining hitherto-neglected material in departmental archives, it explores how the problem of la traite des femmes changed after 1919; how the administrative consequences of directives by the League of Nations could influence behaviours in everyday life; and how an episode in female migration from Eastern Europe interacted with French political agendas to magnify and, in some cases, generate a problem