International Abolitionist Federation
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.
Attendees at an IAF Conference in Geneva, c. 1900
Josephine Butler, founder of the IAF
James Stansfeld, general secretary of the federation
Alison Neilans was the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene (AMSH) general secretary in the 1920s.
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.
Butler in 1851, portrait by George Richmond
John Grey, Butler's father, portrait by George Patten
George Butler, Josephine's husband
Bust of Butler in 1865, aged 36, by Alexander Munro