The Victorian Sex Trafficking Panic

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

History Hit

Society, History, Education, Sex, Scandal

4.8 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 31 March 2026

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Was there really a boom in sex trafficking at the end of the 19th century? What was 'white slavery'? And how often did the traffickers get caught?

Kate is joined by Dr Julia Laite for this episode. Julia is a historian at Birkbeck, University of London, and the author of 'The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey'.

This episode was edited by Hannah Feodorov. The producer was Sophie Gee. The senior producer was Freddy Chick.

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Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history?
0:03.2	Like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods?
0:06.8	Or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era?
0:10.8	We'll sign up to History Hit,
0:12.5	where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history,
0:15.3	as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries,
0:18.7	plus new releases every week, covering everything from prehistoric
0:22.8	Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore
0:29.2	the past just visit history hit.com forward slash subscribe hello my lovely betwixters it's me Kate Lister you are listening to Betwicks the Sheets once again. I do have to actually give you quite a spicy fair-dews warning today because this is all about sex trafficking in the Victorian and Edwardian periods. So it's going to be a bit of a rough ride. And if you don't want to listen to this one, then fair enough. You don't have to. Dig one out for the back catalogue and we'll see you next time. But for the rest of you, this is an adult podcast, spoken by adults, other adults, about adulty things, an adult way, for arranged adult subjects, and you should be an adult too. Right, let's go on with it. Buenos Aires, the Paris of the south of the early 20th century.
1:11.6	People are speaking Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, English and a host of Eastern European languages.
1:16.6	A young girl steps off the gangplank, boots squeezing her growing feet.
1:22.6	She carries a small bag with her in hurries to keep up with her custodians, a married couple.
1:29.3	She keeps her eyes on their back, trying not to get lost amongst the dock workers and other arrivals.
1:35.3	She's arrived in a whole new world, searching for a life outside of domestic work and a new opportunity for herself.
1:42.3	But it's not going to be all that she hoped for,
1:45.9	not by a very long shot.
2:21.7	I'm going to be a new opportunity. Hello and welcome back to Betwixtash the's The History of Sex Scandal and Society with me, Kate Lister.
2:28.5	In 1910, a 16-year-old girl lands in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from her home in New Zealand.
2:35.7	Her name was Lydia Harvey, and within a year she would be in the custody of police officers on the other side of the world in London. Her story is just one of those many girls and women who were trafficked into
2:41.9	sexual exploitation. Today I'm joined by the wonderful Dr. Julia Leight, author of The Disappearance of
2:48.7	Lydia Harvey to hear about sex trafficking in the early 1900s
2:53.0	and why there was such a moral panic around it.
	...

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