white slavery

noun

1. the condition of or traffic in white slaves.

Word History and Origins

Origin of white slavery¹

First recorded in 1815–25

Example Sentences

In 1912, Johnson was arrested for crossing state lines with a white sex worker in his car and accused of violating the 1910 Mann Act, a racist law that was born from growing fears of “white slavery” across the nation.

From Slate

"I'm 33 years old. I'm white. Slavery wasn't my fault, but everyone wants to blame me for it. I'm a rural farmer from West Virginia. My dad was a coal miner. The Democrats want to take away my rights, blame me for something I didn't do and give the minorities everything they want. They want to replace me."

From Salon

Here she plays a pensioner who is good-hearted but also susceptible to the racist fear-mongering of the fascists, and she gives a straight reading of one of the show’s more entertaining lines: “White slavery is a serious problem, Vivien. And a girl like you would go for a very competitive price.”

From New York Times

The “illegal traffic in drugs” is not to be hinted at in any future film, nor is “white slavery.”

From The Guardian

Historian Marilla McCargar points out, in a post on the Canadian fight against “white slavery,” that this false narrative “was quite effective in controlling women, but ignored the plight of women who were most vulnerable to exploitation: new immigrant women who had fewer economic choices than white women.”

From Slate