The International Abolitionist Federation, founded in Liverpool in 1875, aimed to abolish state regulation of prostitution and fought the international traffic in women in prostitution. It was originally called the British and Continental Federation for the Abolition of Prostitution.

Josephine Elizabeth Butler was an English feminist and social reformer in the Victorian era. She campaigned for women's suffrage, the right of women to better education, the end of coverture in British law, the abolition of child prostitution, and an end to human trafficking of young women and children into European prostitution.