To close out National Human Trafficking Awareness Month, I just want to share the main thing I became aware of as both an RA and an intern doing support work on anti-trafficking projects for a big non-profit: no one expects survivors to be working in these spaces

Out of one side of their mouth they'll say "ANYONE can be a survivor" and out of the other side they'll tell you how you can "reach survivors" or "hire them as consultants." Survivors are never assumed to be in the room, doing the work, holding a degree.

Out of one side of their mouth they'll say they're "trauma-informed" and out of the other they'll speak from the assumption that if you've survived trafficking you are a) traumatized and b) so traumatized that you are not really functional

This is very, very different from how things work in anti-sexual assault and anti-DV. Anti-trafficking is a top-down movement, some "voice for the voiceless" bullshit through and through, and it's worth asking why (bc of whorephobia and xenophobia).

If survivors were granted real power and agency in anti-trafficking work, they couldn't use us as pawns to create policies that harm sex workers and immigrants

It took me a long time to even start using the term "trafficking survivor" for myself, because I have experienced much more traumatizing violence both within and outside the sex industry, and it didn't make sense for me to identify with an event that didn't have a lasting impact

I only started using it once I realized that doing so upended people's expectations of what violence looks like in relation to sex work and gives me power to talk about the policies that continue to impact my life as a consensual sex worker

All survivor experiences are important, but it's very weird that mainstream carceral feminism created a hierarchy that places survivors at the top *in theory only* and discounts the voices of the people still at risk of violence-- current workers in all industries

Someone who was trafficked 15 years ago is allowed to be brought on in a limited capacity as a consultant, usually unpaid, and people fighting labor violations currently are only considered as targets of outreach.

That's the extent of survivor + worker involvement in most mainstream anti-trafficking work, and it's bullshit.

Even most professionals treat trafficking as an anomalous, life-changing, extreme event, when it's just one point on a spectrum of exploitation most people experience at some point. Imagine if we took that exploitation seriously. We don't even criminalize wage theft.

But taking it seriously would mean re-examining all of our assumptions capitalism and borders and no neoliberal NGO is prepared to do that, so they have to make it this extreme anomaly.

Gonna end this by saying there's no reason to separate sex trafficking from labor trafficking except to continue to criminalize prostitution.

Separating them also contributes to the misconception that all trafficking in the sex industry is for sex and not labor (labor trafficking happens in strip clubs and parlors!), and that trafficking in other industries never involves sexual abuse (when it very often does).

Ok ok wait I'll actually end with this tweet from @KateDAdamo. Most of this shit is *theater*. If you actually care about anti-trafficking, you care about workers' rights https://twitter.com/KateDAdamo/status/1354453121481793545?s=20