A landmark abolitionist primer on migration, sex work, policing, and the “anti-trafficking industry”—and a powerful argument about who is really leading the way toward justice: migrant sex workers themselves.
In this impassioned corrective to decades of misguided, carceral approaches to migration and sex work, long-time organizers Chanelle Gallant and Elene Lam deftly expose the harms of criminalization in the name of “anti-trafficking” and lift up migrant sex workers’ organizing in the US, Canada, and elsewhere. In doing so, they make the compelling case that the only effective response to the needs of migrant sex workers must be led by migrants in the sex trade, as they fight for rights, safety, and autonomy.
Gallant and Lam illustrate how this movement is taking aim at the root causes of violence and abuse: the white supremacist securitization of borders, the criminalization of both migration and sex work, the patriarchial devaluation of women’s labor, and forced displacement due to climate disaster, war, and poverty—all fueled by racial capitalism.
An indispensable exploration of the relationship between migration and sex work—and the underlying societal conditions they reflect—Not Your Rescue Project is a thorough indictment of the anti-trafficking industry as an engine of criminalization and state violence, and an instructive account of the emancipatory politics already being practiced by migrant sex workers in their organizing. Throughout, Gallant and Lam place migrant sex workers at the center of struggles against border imperialism, carceral states, and capitalism—dispelling a range of poisonous myths and paving the way for deeper alliances across movements with the shared goal of dismantling and abolishing carceralism in all its forms.
Spis treści
Foreword by Harsha Walia
Part I: Migrant Sex Worker Realities
Introduction: A Radical Reframe of Sex Work, Migration and Justice
Chapter 1 Who Are Migrant Sex Workers?
Interludes I
Chapter 2 Why Migrants Sell Sex
Interludes II
Chapter 3 Migrant Sex Workers and State Violence
Part II: Migrant Sex Workers and State Violence–Introducing the Anti-trafficking Industry
Chapter 4 “Red Flags”: How Migrant Sex Workers Are Constructed as “Modern Slaves”
Interludes III
Chapter 5 “Consent is Not Relevant” Criminalizing Migrant Sex Workers
Interlude IV
Chapter 6 The Police Are the Predators
Part III: Migrant Sex Workers Fighting for Power
Chapter 7 The Left and Migrant Sex Workers
Chapter 8 What is Migrant Sex Worker Justice?
Chapter 9 The Butterfly Effect: Solidarity and the World We Dream Of
Afterword by Robyn Maynard
Further Reading
Acknowledgements
Notes
O autorze
Harsha Walia is the award-winning author of Undoing Border Imperialism (2013). Trained in the law, she is a community organizer and campaigner in migrant justice, anti-capitalist, feminist, and anti-imperialist movements, including No One Is Illegal and Women’s Memorial March Committee.