i’m not wasting anymore of my time arguing with antis who are too ignorant and lazy to do their own research, so I am going to make one post with some main points and some further reading and I am going to link every SWERF and anti to this post in future.
- Sex trafficking does not have one definition. The definition is deliberately obfuscated to enable law enforcement and policy makers to sweep up as many sex workers as possible. The idea that sex trafficking involves captivity by force or victims being transported to work is entirely false. Anyone working underage or voluntarily travelling to work can be swept up in this deliberately vague notion. Migrant sex workers from South East Asia and Eastern Bloc Nations generally end up categorized this way without any evidence that they are not voluntary workers.
- Statistics surrounding sex trafficking and sex slavery are grossly overstated. You can see this for yourself if you look at estimates of victims (which tend to be in the tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands) compared to the number of people actually rescued in any country in any year (which I have personally never seen exceed 200)
- The conflation of sex work and sex trafficking is deliberate. It is an intentional element of manufacturing moral panic and the propaganda surrounding the sex trade in general. To further develop that point
- The distinction between sex work and sex trafficking is not a simple matter. Some people are coerced into sex work through economic circumstance or abuse and still do not define themselves as trafficked or exploited as this word carries specific connotations and mythology in the public consciousness. Coercively labeling people as trafficked or as victims is not okay. Which leads us to
- The rescue industry is capitalist, Statist, racist, misogynist, colonialist and exploitative. It uses misogynist tropes of female victimhood as well as racist stereotypes of trafficked workers from exploited countries to promote a capitalist agenda. Many “rescued” workers are funneled through the justice system or coerced into “rehabilitation programs” to avoid a criminal record where they are actually held against their will. They are then given low-paid work in factories, particularly garment manufacturing, in conditions akin to sweatshops. This is then presented as “saving them from the sex trade and finding them new employment”. This is common in South East Asia.
- The majority of human trafficking is in domestic labor, not sexual labor. The conflation of the two is yet another attempt to heighten moral panic around the sex trade.
- Forcing people out of their living situations is not necessarily going to help them. While the mythology of trafficking imagines women and children under lock and key, in truth many people are in abusive situations but remain there because its the best option of any available to them. This is one reason why “raid and rescue” operations can cause more harm than good
- Anti-trafficking measures funnel victims through the justice system. This is not only traumatic in itself but a criminal record further marginalizes already vulnerable people. When victims (generally minors, as adults are almost always funneled through the justice system regardless of their circumstances) have dealings with police they are often charged with other offenses such as minor drug offenses if police cannot charge them with prostitution. And further
- The police and the state in general is not kind to people in the sex trade. Whether they’re in the industry due to being trafficked, coerced, the need for survival or choice, the state is hostile towards people in the sex industry in general and towards marginalized groups who often engage in sex work, such as PoC, youth, trans people especially women, drug users etc.
- The state and mainstream media outlets are not reliable sources of information about the sex industry. I shouldn’t even need to say this. Independent researchers, grassroots activists and sex workers themselves are the best sources of information. I’ll add that most feminist writers and organizations aren’t good sources of information either. And further
- Sex workers are best placed to identify and support victims of sex trafficking. Some examples include: sex workers doing outreach work through peer-based organizations who have regular contact with street-based workers (who are often lumped into the category of trafficked, especially if they’re underage) and workers in unlicensed brothels; older street-based workers who help protect and look after underage street-based workers; brothel workers who develop friendships with other workers in the same establishment, some of whom may be there working underage or forced by abusive partners; from networking and travelling in the same circles in general. Peer-based organizations already provide services to people in the industry such as sex education, free or cost price prophylactics, emotional support, as well as resume building, interview skills, referrals and assistance to obtain welfare to help people leave the industry. And further
- Peer-based organizations are best able to support people in the industry including trafficked people. This is because their focus on supporting people without an ulterior motive garners trust and enables them to understand the needs of their clients more so than NGOs and government agencies.
- Measures to end the sex trade do not work. The sex trade has existed in every society in every time period. Laws criminalizing sex work do nothing but further marginalize and oppress everyone in the sex trade whether they are there by choice, circumstances or coercion.
- Posturing that the sex industry by its nature is exploitative or misogynist does nothing to help actual sex workers. These philosophical conversations are completely bourgeois and irrelevant to people who are in the industry because they need to work. This argument is irrelevant and privileged posturing that distracts from conversations about what real life is like on the ground.
- You cannot support people in the sex industry while trying to end the sex trade. People who enter the industry to survive even in the presence of economic coercion are doing so because its the best of all the options available to them. Limiting their choices is not going to make their lives any better, in fact it will only make them worse. You will not end sex trafficking or coercion by involving the state, period.
- You cannot tell how someone entered the industry by their identification as a sex worker, their politics or whether they have a tumblr account. Recounting salacious stories of sexual violence to support your own position is not only ignorant, whorephobic and triggering but is absolutely laughable when the person you’re speaking to may well be or have been trafficked themselves. Dismissing sex workers as “libfems” “privileged” and “not representative” is yet another way in which sex workers, including survivors of abuse in the industry, are silenced. If you care about us, listen to us.
Resources
- Emi Koyama, former sex worker and grassroots activist (also on tumblr)
- Maggie McNeill, former sex worker
- Melissa Gira Grant, former sex worker and writer (also on tumblr)
- Scarlet Alliance Australia
- Global Network of Sex Worker Projects
- Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers
- Desireealliance
- Sangram
In The News
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The Truth About Sex Trafficking
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