https://doi.org/10.1177/1177180119876679 AlterNative 2019, Vol. 15(3) 261–270 © The Author(s) 2019 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/1177180119876679 journals.sagepub.com/home/aln Indigenous young people in Canada who trade sex frequently move locations as part of their survival tactics in negotiating the myriad vulnerabilities they face. 1 Both Canadian law and social activists label all such mobility “trafficking”, which conceals the ways in which Indigenous youth are forced by structural factors beyond their control to be mobile in order to survive. We examine the two most prominent, but politi- cally opposed, frameworks that attempt to understand and advocate for the needs of sex trading Indigenous youth. While each narrative explains some vulnerabilities faced by these young people, both overlook others. Understanding structurally induced vulnerability as rooted in historical and on-going colonialism, we posit mobility and sex trading as strategic responses to the material and ideologi- cal conditions faced by Indigenous young people—but strate- gic responses rooted in vulnerability and rife with exploitation. 2 We resist efforts by recent governments and some anti-traf- ficking non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to subsume all forms of sexual and labour exploitation under the umbrella of “trafficking”. The meaning of trafficking is nebulous, and it often pathologizes Indigenous young people’s movement to urban areas while obscuring the structural causes of their migration and institutional entanglement. Our analysis unites the strengths of the two existing frameworks while foregoing an over-reliance on carceral solutions to problems of inequal- ity and remaining sensitive to the structural location of youth who trade sex as opposed to their adult counterparts. Ultimately, we argue that mobility is a response to vulnerabil- ity rather than its source. Context: shifting definitions of “trafficking” Canada amended its Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to include the offence of human trafficking in 2002, and also added trafficking-related provisions to the Criminal Code in 2005. In line with expanding legal definitions in other nations of the Global North, the Criminal Code no longer requires that a victim of trafficking be physically moved (Sikka, 2009). Instead, section 279.04 of the Criminal Code states, “Trafficking in persons is about exploitation,” substituting the purpose (exploitation) for the means (movement). Eliminating transportation from the definition of trafficking has enabled a conflation of this crime with what is commonly known as pimping (Roots & De Shalit, 2015). In addition, trafficking has now sup- planted “youth prostitution” and “commercial sexual exploitation of children” as the dominant way of under- standing young people’s engagement in sex trades (Hunt, 2015, p. 29) both to highlight youth victimization and for groups to be eligible for government research and service funding. In addition, the issue of “missing and murdered Structural intersectionality and Indigenous Canadian youth who trade sex: understanding mobility beyond the trafficking model David Allan Jun-Rong Ting 1 and Carisa R Showden 1 Abstract Indigenous young people in Canada who trade sex frequently move locations as part of their survival tactics in negotiating the myriad vulnerabilities they face. Both Canadian law and social activists label all such mobility “trafficking”, which conceals the ways in which Indigenous youth are forced by structural factors beyond their control to be mobile to survive. Two politically opposed frameworks have been offered for understanding sex trading by Indigenous youth. While each explains some vulnerabilities faced by these young people, both overlook others. We posit mobility and sex trading as strategic responses to the material and ideological conditions faced by Indigenous young people, but strategic responses rooted in vulnerability and rife with exploitation. Ultimately, we argue that mobility is a response to vulnerability rather than its source. Keywords Canada, Indigenous youth, intersectionality, mobility, sex trades, traffcking 1 School of Social Sciences, The University of Auckland, New Zealand Corresponding author: Carisa R Showden, School of Social Sciences, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142, New Zealand. Email: c.showden@auckland.ac.nz 876679ALN 0 0 10.1177/1177180119876679AlterNativeTing and Showden research-article 2019 Article