Trafficking and prostitution of Brazilian women in Portugal: the journalistic discourse between the stereotyping and the victimization

In the beginning of this century, the human trafficking received wide attention in Portugal, which developed several actions to reinforce the legislation in this area. Not by coincidence, this attention is contemporary with the consolidation of the country as a receiver place, which indicates its inextricable relation with migration phenomenon. In this article, we purpose to analyze the representation of human trafficking for sexual exploitation – one of the most prominent vectors of this criminal practice –, in the journalistic discourse about Brazilian women immigrant’s prostitution. However, the Brazilian woman’s image that emerged in the news about prostitution, following the “Mothers of Bragança” case, in 2003, privileged the stereotyping, put in the background issues about trafficking and exploitation (Correia, 2014). Analyzing some texts of Público and Expresso newspapers published during these years, we observe an erratic route which sometimes privileges a sensational tone, and sometimes pay attention to the exploitation and trafficking issues, reflecting in this way the inconsistency found in the law about the theme.