Sex Trafficking Will Never Die As Long As There Is Stigma Against The Sex Industry
This week, a news report was released reinforcing what sex workers already know; that the passage of anti-trafficking house and senate laws FOSTA (Fight Online Sex Traffickers Act) and SESTA (Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act) have only served to make trafficking worse. According to latest law enforcement statistics in the San Francisco Bay Area, trafficking cases have increased by 170% since the passage of these bills.
It’s time for the backers of these bills to come out and admit they rushed to push poor legislation through the system without taking the time to research or consult with experts as to how such legislation might impact sex workers and trafficking survivors alike. We as sex workers and survivors of sex trafficking cannot be collateral damage simply because it’s uncomfortable to publicly declare that you passed poorly vetted and frankly sloppy legislation just so you as politicians could wear the badge of honor for your constituency that you’re “saving” poor, helpless “sex slaves.” Sex workers should not have to be dying, be evicted, made homeless, made hungry because those of you who passed the bills wanted to maintain your power in political office through the manipulation of public perception.
Let’s get real about the sex industry: Sex trafficking will never and can never be addressed until sexual labor is legitimized. How do legislators begin to legitimize work in the sex industry? By including us in any and all decision making processes around combatting sex trafficking. As a trafficking survivor myself, I get tired of the rhetoric used by the anti-trafficking movement to invalidate work in the sex trade and to write it off as always inherently exploitative. In a roundabout but still very strategical way the anti-trafficking movement has been able to quite literally oppress and marginalize sex trafficking survivors through the condemnation of the sex industry as a whole.
We as a community of sex workers are suffering greatly in this moment precisely because of governments puritanical and oppressive need to promulgate the belief that the only experience in the sex industry is an exploitative one. Even if politicians personally feel this to be true, it is their job as a public servant to consider all sides of a social justice and political issue and recognize that there are experiences and opinions beyond their own personal ones. If they are indeed serving the public, then it is unethical and unprofessional to pass legislation based on an untested theory or premise and without properly vetting the need within a community of a certain form of legislation, as well as the potential impact and ramifications to said community.
It is stigma against work in the sex industry that is holding back sex trafficking survivors from getting the real help and resources we need. It is stigma against work in the sex industry that creates a climate where sex trafficking survivors often have no other choices or opportunities but to stay in the industry, even after their escape, simply because the system does not recognize sexual labor as legitimate labor nor does it have a vested interest in helping to give survivors alternatives should they want one. It is stigma against sex work that has lead to a 170% increase in sex trafficking since FOSTA/SESTA passed. It is precisely that which political officials do not want to acknowledge that has us dying in the streets. And that is unacceptable.
