“Precocious girls” : age of consent, class and family in late nineteenth-century England

A fixed legal age of consent is used to determine when a person has the capacity to consent to sex yet in the late Victorian period the idea became a vehicle through which to address varied social concerns, from child prostitution and child sexual abuse to chastity and marriageability of working-class girls. This article argues that the Criminal Law Amendment Act (CLAA) 1885, the Act that raised the age of consent from thirteen to sixteen, and its application were driven by constructions of gender in conjunction with those of social class and working class family. The article firstly argues that CLAA 1885 and related campaigns reinforced class boundaries, and largely framed the working class family as absent, thereby, requiring the law to step in as a surrogate parent to protect the girl child. Secondly, the paper focuses on narratives emerging from the archives and argues that while narratives of capacity and protection in particular were key concepts behind reforms, the courts showed limited understanding of these terms. Instead, the courts focused on notions resistance, consent, and untrustworthiness of the victim, even when these concepts were not relevant to the proceedings due to victims' young age

The benefit cap and the complexity of discrimination : R (SG and others) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions

In R [on the application of SG and others (previously JS and others)] v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the United Kingdom Supreme Court evaluated the legality of the benefit cap. The Court was sharply divided but decided by a narrow margin that the benefit cap did not amount to a violation of the claimants’ human rights. While the majority accepted that the gender discrimination was justified, the Court noted that the current measures fell short of the United Kingdom’s responsibilities under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This could prove of the outmost importance as the government elected in May 2015 has announced further reductions to the existing benefit cap. The case comment evaluates whether the Court paid enough attention to the multifaceted nature of poverty and discrimination, and argues that the impact the benefit cap has had specifically on women from black and ethnic minorities should have been considered

Regulation 40D : punishing promiscuity on the home front during the First World War

In 1918, the British War Office introduced Regulation 40D as an amendment to the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA). The short- lived regulation allowed the state to remand and imprison a woman for the transmission of venereal disease to a member of His Majesty's armed forces. This paper examines discourses on national security and female promiscuity surrounding the enactment of Regulation 40D and the prosecutions under this controversial measure. The paper argues that the regulation was merely symbolic, and that it empowered magistrates to assess, judge and ultimately control women's sexual behaviour in the name of national security

Trafficking, rape, or deceptive sex? a historical examination of procurement offences in England

This article examines the origins of procurement offences and their historical development in England. Procurement offences were created in 1885 to tackle so-called white slavery, as trafficking in women was then sensationally called. Through an analysis of a series of lower-level and appeal cases heard between the years of 1885 and 1925 and their social context, this article dispels myths about procurement for prostitution as an international, organised crime, showing instead how it was localised and poverty driven. The article also shows how procurement transformed from a narrowly defined trafficking-related offence into a broadly applied sexual offence. It came to be used as a ‘catch-all’ sexual offence that had the potential to encompass various distinct offences, from trafficking, rape and child sex abuse to deceptive sex. The legal history of the procurement is of particular importance as deception and questions of conditional consent remain deeply contested in modern criminal law

Anti-White Slavery Legislation and its Legacies in England

This paper argues that the foundation of modern anti-trafficking laws in England and Wales was created at the turn of the twentieth century, during the peak of white slavery hysteria. It shows that a series of interrelated legal interventions formed that foundation. While white slavery as a myth has been analysed, this paper turns the focus on legal regulation and shows why it is important to analyse its history in order to understand modern responses to trafficking. It focuses, in particular, on the first legal definition of victims of trafficking, involvement of vigilance associations in law reform, and on restrictions put in place on women’s immigration. Finally, it reflects on how laws enacted at the turn of the twentieth century still resonate with those of today

Dadaji Bhikaji v Rukhmabai: Rewriting Consent and Conjugal Relations in Colonial India

Through an examination of the late nineteenth century case of Dadaji Bhikaji v Rukhmabai this article traces the history of the doctrine of restitution of conjugal rights (“RCR”) in Hindu law in colonial India. It highlights the importance of caste in situating the life and trials of Rukhmabai in their wider social, colonial, and legal contexts. Following the methodology of the global feminist judgements projects, the paper also offers a re-written judgement for Rukhmabai’s case located in 1886. This new judgement, while bound by the legal rules of the time, puts forward an alternative application of the doctrine of RCR, one that treats the issue of consent as central to such suits. It argues that the legal transplant of RCR ought not to have been applied to Hindu marriages which are often entered into in childhood and makes a case for taking into account female consent to both marriage and to conjugal relations

International legislation on white slavery and anti-trafficking in the early 20th century

The chapter focuses on the emergence of international legislation against trafficking in the early twentieth century, focusing on the years between 1904 and 1949. The chapter will introduce key legal measures adopted during that time but focus on the enactment of the International Agreement for the Suppression of the “White Slave Traffic” 1904 and the International Convention for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic 1910. These measures, unlike modern anti-trafficking legal standards that recognize more comprehensive forms of exploitation, focused solely on recruitment for prostitution and the exploitation of prostitution. The chapter argues that the early-twentieth-century legal framework was mostly a result of civil society action in the field and that the framework enabled the control of immigration and emigration of young women. The chapter will further show how the terminology changed from “white slavery” to a more neutral “traffic” with the League of Nations. Despite this change, immigration control and nationalism continued to underline much of the rhetoric even after the League of Nations took over the legal framework in 1921