Sex Work ≠ (Is Not) Trafficking

Sex workers and supporters come together to discuss the way anti-trafficking campaigns and arrests impact us and ways to move forward to fight abuse on our own terms.

An evening of short movies and discussion for sex workers and allies who are in the cross hairs of anti-trafficking campaigns. Our community includes people who identify as sex workers and as trafficked persons or survivors. We are students, social workers, attorneys, journalists, filmmakers, artists, academics as well as sex workers trying to make sense of this new war against us.

This evening we will hear from diverse panelists who are committed to working together to support sex workers rights and challenge prostitution abolitionism, 'end-demand' strategies and the hypocrisies of the rescue industry.

Speakers include representatives from Cal-Pep, Red Light Legal and more.

Videos screened tell the stories of the ways sex workers face repression, state abuse and state violence as a result of anti-trafficking policies.

Becky’s Journey by anthropologist Sine Plambech is a narrative about migration, sex work and human trafficking seen from the perspective of Becky, offering a fascinating take on migration for the purposes of sex work that is never heard in the mainstream press.

Being a Refugee is Hard by Muchaneta with SWEAT from South presents widowed Muchaneta, a refugee of the economy of her home country, where working as a secretary she still cannot earn enough to feed her children. She migrates to South Africa in hardship and learns how to make ends meet.

Unraveling by Anne Elizabeth Moore & Melissa Mendes is an illustrated story tracing the relationships between anti-trafficking efforts and the garment industry: “The threads that connect the sex industry to the garment industry are many... But if you look closely you can figure out how to unravel them.” http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/25657-unraveling-anti-trafficking-ngos-and-the-garment-industry

New clips from a work-in progress focus on anti-trafficking campaigns in Cambodia Somaly Mam and police abuse. Collateral Damage: Sex Workers & The Anti-Trafficking Campaigns demonstrates how anti-trafficking is a sacred cow, but behind this humanitarian concern is a century-old movement that historically reflects xenophobia and prostitution abolitionism.

Doin’ It For Themselves: the Hunt Sisters by Feminist Whore is an extremely informative rant about two sisters, female scions of the Hunt family. “Helen and Swanee Hunt have conservative Christian values, and more money than any ten million of us will earn in our little lifetimes, all of which they use to advance their agenda regarding the silencing and general disenfranchisement of sex workers. Spoiler alert!! The revolution will NEVER be funded through the many foundations these two own," explains Festival Curator Laure McElroy.

Movies will be screened from 7- 7:45, followed by presentations, emphasizing community discussion. We come together to learn (and teach) about anti-trafficking issues from the perspective of sex worker rights.