WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC. The movement for the sup pression of the international traffic in women and children for im moral purposes may be said to some extent to date from the at tempt, in the middle of the 19th century, to introduce what may be described as a system of State regulation of vice into England. This system owed its introduction to the remarkably high inci dence of venereal disease at that period among soldiers and sailors, and as a result, in 1864, the first of the Contagious Diseases Acts was passed. There were then, and still are, two bodies of opinion ; in some cases the State recognized prostitution as a necessity which could not be overlooked, but which called for control by registration and sanitary supervision; in other countries a strong body of opinion favoured no such recognition. In 1875 a meeting was called by Josephine Butler in Geneva to consider white slave traffic from its international aspect and in its relation to state regulation, and as a result the International Federation for the Abolition of State Regulation of Vice was formed. In 1898 and 1899 William Alexander Coote, the secretary of the National Vig ilance Association of Great Britain, visited Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, Russia, Switzerland, Spain, Austria and the Scandinavian countries, and in the capital of each organized a national committee for the suppression of white slave traffic. An international congress was therefore held in London in June 1913, and at that congress the International Bureau for the Suppression of White Slave Traffic was constituted to co-ordinate the work of the national committees. The French Government had called an official conference in Paris in 1904, and an international agree ment was drafted, under which the signatory powers undertook to appoint a central authority in each country charged with the co ordination of all information relative to the traffic. The signa tories undertook to ensure vigilance at ports and railway stations, to notify the arrival in each country of suspected persons, to take declarations from alien prostitutes, to protect and maintain the victims of the traffic pending repatriation (for which they also took the responsibility) and to supervise registry offices or agen cies engaged in finding employment for women and girls abroad.
In 1910 a second governmental conference was called in Paris. A convention drawn up after this conference provided for the punishment of procurers for immoral purposes of girls and women, either minors or of full age, in whatever country the various acts constituting the offence might be committed. It provided also
for the enactment, in those countries where needed, of the neces sary legislation. In addition to the official conferences mentioned, the International Bureau was instrumental in calling together con ferences and congresses in various parts of Europe.
The names of four persons will always be remembered for their active association with the early movement for abolition of the traffic in women and children : Josephine Butler and W. A. Coote (England), Senateur Beranger (France), and Alfred de Meuron (Switzerland).