While there has been no shortage of sex trafficking panic in the media leading up to Super Bowl 50, there has also been a refreshing plethora of reasoned reporting regarding the oft inflated and falsified statistics that anti-trafficking organizations tout around major sporting events. Friends, I am no statistician, and I will not waste this… Continue reading Some Sportsball Feelings Before Super Bowl 50
Tag: anti-trafficking hysteria
Activist Spotlight: The Migrant Sex Workers Project On Borders and Building Movements, Part One
Toronto’s Migrant Sex Workers Project, “a grassroots group of migrants, sex workers, and allies who demand safety and dignity for all sex workers regardless of legal status”, was co-founded last May by Elene Lam, Chanelle Gallant, and Tings Chak. Lam, who moved to the area from Hong Kong two years ago, saw a gap in local activism… Continue reading Activist Spotlight: The Migrant Sex Workers Project On Borders and Building Movements, Part One
No Victim, No Problem: The JVTA In Practice
This year, Congress decided that the term “john sting” needed a rebrand. What, they wondered, would justify all the wasted resources and manpower under a veil of moral indignation? After they put their collective hive mind together, a new, shinier, more bureaucratic term emerged. John stings are now called federally funded anti-trafficking work. The change… Continue reading No Victim, No Problem: The JVTA In Practice
The State Is A Trafficker: Why Alaska Arrested Amber Batts
On April 4, 2014, Anchorage Police Department officers responded to a report of a “hysterical female.” The woman reported that she had lost her purse and she believed her coworker had taken it. In response, she’d threatened to tell the police about the “prostitution ring” they were involved in, and her coworker had threatened to… Continue reading The State Is A Trafficker: Why Alaska Arrested Amber Batts
Celebrity And The Spectacle Of The Trafficking Victim
With Amnesty International’s announcement that its membership will vote on a policy of decriminalization of prostitution this weekend and subsequent protests from celebrities, there’s been considerable verbal diarrhea spewed from the mouths of rich people on the topic of “privilege.” Sex workers like me—people who have the time and energy to advocate for human rights—have… Continue reading Celebrity And The Spectacle Of The Trafficking Victim