The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey

Witness for the prosecution

In 1910, Lydia Harvey stood up in court and caused a storm with a shocking testimony of trafficking and abuse. A major scandal ensued following media reports of how the young, working-class woman had been transported from her home in New Zealand to Buenos Aires and forced into sex work. Birkbeck historian Julia Laite traces Lydia’s ordeal, and the moral panic about “white slavery” it fed into.