Trafficking Hysteria – Page 10

The Week In Links—December 20

Behold that jubilant smile, and that everpresent, oh-so-stylin' riding crop. Terri Jean Bedford is a woman who knew she was going to win. Along with the two other sex worker plaintiffs of Bedford v. Canada, Amy Lebovitch and Valerie Scott, Bedford won the day today when the Canadian Supreme Court struck down Canada's anti-prostitution laws. Looks like Canadian sex workers have a lot of decriminalized whipping to do. (Photo by Jack Boland/QMI Agency Files, via northumberlandtoday.com)

What a triumphant end to this week of International Day to End Violence Against Sex Work: today, the Canadian Supreme Court struck down the country’s prostitution related laws in a unanimous decision on Bedford vs. Canada, calling all three statutes—prohibiting brothels, living on the avails of prostitution, and communicating in public with clients—over-broad and “grossly disproportionate.”… Continue reading The Week In Links—December 20

“Dragged Off By The Hair”: An Indian Sex Worker Recalls a Raid

VAMP members after the raid (Photo by Dale Bangkok, courtesy of Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers)

Sitting in a warm room in Phnom Penh with several other women from the Asia Pacific region, Kamalabai Pani, a sex worker and a board member of Veshya Anyay Mukti Parishad (VAMP, Prostitutes’ Collective Against Injustice) in India, became visibly upset when discussion turned to the efforts of U.S.-led feminist groups to discredit several United… Continue reading “Dragged Off By The Hair”: An Indian Sex Worker Recalls a Raid

World Leaders: An East Asian Sex Worker Round Table

Mariko Passion, from "Colonizer Fantasy" series (Photo by Alex Safron, copyright Mariko Passion 2010)

Participants: Ho Lee Fuk 1, Nada 2, Christian Vega3, and Kate Zen; moderated by Mariko Passion We at Tits and Sass wanted to run a series on racial fetishization in sex work. We were interested in questions like “What is it like for sex workers of color to labor in an industry where customers’ racist… Continue reading World Leaders: An East Asian Sex Worker Round Table

The Week In Links—December 6

This awesome graphic came from the Cross Border Collective.

On Dec. 4 brothels, strip clubs and sex shops in Soho, London were raided by over 200 police officers. The officers arrived in riot vans and were reinforced by a police helicopter. Think about that for a second: 200 police officers were deployed. That’s a literal army. The English Collective of Prostitutes’ response to this… Continue reading The Week In Links—December 6

Equality Now, Or Else?

Meena Seshu (via her twitter)

While Western-led feminist groups such as Equality Now continue to conflate consensual sex work with trafficking and violence, where do sex workers themselves fit into concepts of feminism and gender equality, especially if they live in countries like India? “When you are coming from a place like India, you have the whole caste system, stigma… Continue reading Equality Now, Or Else?