(Tonite) Anti-capitalist solidarity with sex workers

Anti-capitalist solidarity with sex workers

A panel-discussion to discuss and build anti-capitalist solidarity with sex workers.
Frederique Chabot is an ally in the sex worker rights movement and a member of POWER (Prostitutes of Ottawa-Gatineau, Work, Educate, Resist), an advocacy group for sex workers’ rights. Fred will discuss how criminalization models designed to ‘enforce’ gender or racial equality play out in reality. She will talk about the relationship between sex workers and the Ottawa police, both when the latter were directly targeting street-based sex workers and now that they are targeting clients and ‘traffickers’, and will discuss the construction of sex workers as criminals, deviants or victims and how that plays out in policing settings.
Betty Iglesias works at ASTT(e)Q, Action Santé Travesti-e-s et Transexeul-le-s du Québec. ASTT(e)Q promotes the health and well-being of trans people through peer support, activism, education, empowerment and mobilization. Betty will discuss the work of ASTT(e)Q as it relates to the self-determination of sex workers.
Robyn Maynard has written about the need to decriminalize sex work and works at Stella, an organization to defend the safety and dignity of sex workers. She will be discussing the fight for the decriminalization of sex work from the perspective of self-determination; showing how current Canadian laws and the oft-cited Swedish model impede sex workers’ fight for self determination. She will draw parallels to anti-capitalist support for migrant workers and other workers’ struggles.
Background: http://robynmaynard.com/2012/07/15/carceral-feminism-the-failure-of-sex-work-prohibition-3/