countries where prostitution is legal have higher rates of human trafficking. that’s like an actual fact. not an opinion or anything. so tbh it seems a bit ‘swerfy’ to completely ignore that
speaking, uh, as a formerly-trafficked sex worker, it’s extremely difficult to come forward as a trafficking victim in countries where sex work is criminalized; you just… get criminalized under those same anti-prostitution laws. of course reported trafficking would increase when the sole fact of coming forward as a sex worker at all no longer endangers you.
This line of argument is the same one that you see with conservatives who point to the increase in divorce rates as proof that making divorce safer is endangering marriage, while ignoring the massive drops in domestic abuse, murder, and suicide.
It’s a shot argument with them, and it’s a shot argument here.
In WWI, when they introduced helmets, they saw a sudden spike in head injuries.
What the casual observer may miss was that they were seeing the increase because of a dramatic decrease in deaths from head wounds.
@seananmcguire and everyone else reblogging this: if you care about us at all, i’m fucking begging you, you need to stand for us. there are 22 thousand notes on this right now. there were maybe 90 people at the int’l whore’s day protest in my city this year and that was a much higher-than-expected turnout.
we’re dying. i cannot stress this enough. we are being killed, we are being attacked, we are being raped, and the same is for trafficking victims, trafficking survivors, and wholly “consensual” sex workers. and as much as i see posts like this go viral, at the same time i don’t see allyship. nobody’s standing with us. half the notes on this are “lol op’s a terf”, half the comments are about autism or divorce, and all i see is more people who don’t find us worthwhile on our own.
here’s a fact about criminalization: when you’ve got a prostitution rap—which, to reiterate, you’ll get whether or not you’re “consensually” in the field, and often even if you’re a minor—you’re “tainted”. you’re damaged goods. you might be on a sex offender registry by default.
good luck getting an apartment. good luck getting an above-board job. criminalization is a vicious cycle that more often than not keeps us in sex work, whether or not we wanted to be here in the first place and whether or not we want to be here now.
we don’t have other options. the government is the most efficient pimp there is.
so, please, i’m literally begging you, if you care about us at all. if you think my life has any value at all, if you think my siblings’ lives have any value at all. fight for us. show up for us. call your local politicians. support local organizations fighting for sex workers and trafficking victims. volunteer in harm reduction campaigns. attend protests and sit-ins. there’s a bunch.
the international day to end violence against sex workers is december 17; i hope to run into some of you there, if i’m alive to make it.
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