The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon was the headline of the Pall Mall Gazette (July 1885). Written by newspaper editor William Thomas Stead (1849–1912), it featured a series of sensational subheadings such as "The Violation of Virgins" and "How Girls Were Bought and Ruined". He claimed London was the heart of the 'white slave trade', a term that was quickly popularised to mean exploited prostitution, particularly the exploited prostitution of young, innocent white British girls. This can be understood as one of the very first sex trafficking panics.

After Stead's publication, crowds filled the streets, demanding that the government pass the the Criminal Law Amendment Bill. The Act was given Royal Assent just before Christmas of 1885. It raised the age of consent from 13 to 16, and criminalised procuring for prostitution (trafficking and grooming, but the person being procured could 'not being a common prostitute, or of known immoral character', as in only applicable if an 'innocent' woman had been trafficked). It also made brothel-keeping a non-indictable crime (meaning that cases could be heard in front of magistrates, quickly and cheaply). This can be understood as an example of how legislators attach measures to repress commercial sex to measures designed genuinely to protect women from sexual harm (eg raising the age of consent).

The history of the Criminal Law Amendments Act is an example how an ideologically conceived law is written and then applied in the real world. Once in the hands of lawmakers and the police, demands to end exploitation in the sex industry can morph into repressive measures that target all commercial sex without addressing actual exploitation. For example, raising the age of consent to 16 did little to improve the success rates of prosecutions of rape and assault for girls under this age. There were also very few prosecutions for procurement, not necessarily because very little grooming and procuring was happening. Women were regularly abused and misled by people within the sex industry, but because these women were usually already selling sex. Because the law went on to stipulate that it was only possible to procure a woman if she was not already a 'common prostitute' or have 'immoral character', it deliberately excluded the main group of women and girls who had may have helped. All the prosecution needed for a not guilty verdict was proof that the woman who had been procured had already sold sex or even had sex out of wedlock.

This Act and the campaigns surrounding it launched an unprecedented legal crackdown on prostitution that is still in effect today in Britain.