The Invisibility of Violence Against Women in Prostitution: Hungarian Women’s Narrative Strategies Within and Beyond the Industry

Abstract

This paper examines how violence against women in prostitution becomes socially invisible through the interplay of structural inequalities and narrative processes. Drawing on socialist and radical feminist theory alongside world-systems analysis, it conceptualises the prostitution industry as embedded in a capitalist patriarchy structured by relations between semiperipheral and core countries, where women from semi-peripheral regions are disproportionately exposed to exploitation. The empirical analysis is based on twenty-five qualitative interviews with Hungarian women engaged in prostitution in both Hungary and Western Europe. The study focuses on how temporal, spatial, and emotional distance from the prostitution industry shapes the narration of violence and trauma. The findings show that women still in prostitution tend to normalise and minimise violence, reproducing individualising narratives of control and responsibility. In contrast, women who have exited the industry – often with access to shelters and therapeutic support – articulate more structural interpretations, linking their experiences to gendered and economic inequalities. The paper argues that the capacity to narrate trauma is socially conditioned and that distance from exploitation is a key precondition for making violence visible.