I think, when we talk about this issue, we need to be clear about what we are going to do here. Are we going to end exploitation and trafficking, or are we going to end sex work? I think this needs to be very clear. I keep hearing the conflation that actually gives a lot of misinformation, that the goal is ending exploitation and not ending sex work, but a lot of recommendations on ending sex work actually create vulnerability and more opportunity for the exploitation of the community, particularly Asian migrant sex workers and racialized sex workers.
When we think about the solution, we need to think about what makes people have the power. We talk a lot about why there is exploitation, which is about the power dynamic and power control. Many of the recommendations, such as keeping more policing in people's lives and more criminal laws, actually make it more difficult for people to protect themselves and to access power. Many of Sandra's recommendations suggest giving the power to the individual.
When I hear the assumption that people cannot make decisions about their own lives themselves, this is extremely violent, because it takes away the agency of people, particularly sex workers. No matter how old the sex worker is, there is a certain agency that people need to exercise. Instead of imposing the moralistic agenda that sex work is bad and they should not do it, we need to recognize and understand the complexity of the relationship. Give people the power and resources so they can make decisions on their lives, like we've done with domestic violence. We would not have the police go and arrest the husband, saying, “You don't know your husband is abusive. You may find it out five years later and arrest your husband.” Why would we do that with sex workers? Instead, you let people know what the power is within the marital relationship. You can have different kinds of support. You can make yourself safe if you want to leave this relationship. What kind of support do you have?
It's similar to sex workers. Assuming that all third parties are dangerous, violent and trafficking is extremely ridiculous. We have workers who do not have credit cards. Their husbands use their credit cards to pay for the bill and are being charged. That is the law and that is what happens now. Now they are not only being charged under sex worker laws. They're being charged by the trafficking law and potentially put away for years in prison.
When you see the picture of who the traffickers are, they are young Black men. When you see the statistics on who are being charged by the third party law, many of them are youth themselves. They help other people. Are we going to see more of our community sex workers and more community racialized people put in prison? Is this something that's a solution? It's not. Here we have a lot of recommendations that are not going to end trafficking. They're not going to end exploitation. They will just make the sex workers, people in the sex industry, more vulnerable, more stigmatized and more marginalized.
That's why, when we ask about solutions, we ask about how we can give power to people and give people their agency. They can tell you what they want and what they need, instead of you assuming that they have no brains and they don't know they are being trafficked. It's about how we can support people to build capacity and have agency to make better decisions about their lives, instead of you putting your moralistic agenda on their lives.
This is what sex workers keep saying: Sex workers should have the right to decide whether they want to continue their work or stop their work. They should have their own say.
Thank you.