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[Music]
and we're running with a one minute
delay welcome good evening welcome to
digit Kur tonight we're talking about
sax workers versus surveillance if
you're on the fetty verse you can add us
with the hash CCC cam23 digital K and
without further Ado I'm going to leave
my fields to the fabulous Maggie
Mayhem
thank you so much for such a warm
introduction and I am so happy to be
here and to see so many people who are
interested about this topic that is so
near and dear to my heart really having
a wonderful time thank you so much to
the digital courage Village for
accepting this talk and giving me this
space uh thank you to everyone who has
done any work or labor to make this Camp
happen I hope everyone has been having
as much fun as I have
been
[Applause]
my name is Maggie Mayhem and it has been
my pleasure to be a companion to people
during times of sex birth and death all
underscored by 20 years of experience
with harm reduction harm reduction is a
practice that I think is so important it
comes from uh the drug user Community it
was created by drug users it's intended
by for drug users but It ultimately has
a belief that what we need to work for
for is any positive change and that is a
theme that I hope that um you will all
uh consider as I go through this talk I
am available on the internet in many
forms you will not find me on Facebook I
am not there uh I am affiliated with
some different organizations I am
currently involved with the distributed
denial of Secrets I am formerly on the
sex worker Outreach project USA board of
directors I am also a former train and
leader with the Bay Area abortion
support team uh and doing reproductive
uh rights activism is one of my other
many
hats today we are going to be talking
about sex worker rights these are some
of the things that we're going to be
going over and one of the reasons that
I'm in this room today is because sex
workers are a part of this
community we're here we have always been
here and we are never going away
I also think that it is so important for
the people who build support and subvert
our digital infrastructure to know about
this community what our needs are and
what some of the challenges we Face are
so that we can have a better safer
future as we engage with our lives I'm
going to be doing a brief introduction
to some uh very kind of basic sex worker
um rights topics in jargon I'll be
talking a little bit about Tech I'll be
talking about borders and information
bio uh
biopolitics and I will be doing a little
bit of a talk about subverting
surveillance I only have 45 minutes I
have a lot of slides I tend to speak
very fast so my apologies to anyone who
is a German speaker this I'll do my best
um this talk is being recorded and it is
being streamed but you can also feel
free to take a picture of a slide if
there's like a big overwhelming block of
text that you want to review uh pictures
of me are okay cats out of the bag uh in
terms of this content so I feel very
comfortable with that as a Content note
I will be talking a little bit about um
discussion of some human trafficking and
abuse so be aware that that is something
that might come up and I trust that you
will know yourselves and that if you're
here today you're prepared to hear some
uh conversation about
that
there is a chant in the sex worker
rights uh Community when there has been
labor activism and I would like to share
that with you uh this came out of a um a
unionization struggle at a strip club in
San Francisco there were lots of
protests and one of those chance was
when sex worker rights are under attack
what do we do get dressed fight back so
let's do that what is sex work sex work
is a very Broad umbrella term it covers
so many different kinds of Labor there's
also a lot of other language some of it
is very dehumanizing but people
sometimes reclaim it for themselves they
may use it as a self- identifier it's
also there's some language that is part
of criminal legal or penal codes uh that
may still be used but it may not be
favored by people in the trade
themselves there is such a diversity of
things that people do in terms of erotic
sexual Commerce instead of breaking
things down into legal or illegal
because there is so much variation about
what that might mean in any given
location I would like to think about it
more in terms of high contact and lower
contact but that does not mean
visibility necessarily because there are
people who have less contact with their
clients and their customer base who are
very highly visible and that comes with
its own risks but in general it is the
people who have the highest amount of
immediate contact with their clients and
their customers who face the brunt of
violence and extreme violence at that
they also face risks of infection
exposure um and and also to say that
those infections are not necessarily
just sexually transmitted infections
that includes any possible disease
exposure including covid tuberculosis
any bug that's going around they are up
close and personal with people so the
population of people who are performing
outdoor sex work are very very visible
on our public streets they are subjected
to the highest amount of violence uh and
they also face the highest amounts of
criminalization they're um the people
who are really at the center of this
conversation um it's also important to
note that there is a great deal of
intersectionality in terms of who is the
brunt of this violence uh people of
color especially people who lack
citizens uh citizenship status in the
place where they are working are
particularly at risk people who may be
transgender gender
non-conforming uh they also face a great
deal of violence in what they do there's
a lot of overlap in the international
day to end violence against sex workers
and the transgender um day of
remembrance where there are people in
the center and those people in the
center are just so so important and the
rights conversation is really about them
and the overlap and why they are facing
those types of consequences for work
where other people might experience more
safety there's also some ambiguity
people may engage in multiple forms of
sex work over the course of their career
uh some people may use different types
of personas they may do little bits to
keep them separate they may have
different names that they use for
different forms of work with different
uh
oh I think it's just a sensitive
chord I can keep talking oh we're okay
this maybe it needs to be taped down
we'll get through
it I have an
idea let's try that let's see if that
little bit of support problem we problem
solve it there can be some ambiguity
that goes on uh criminalization and
stigma also mean that people may hide
their participation in the trade so they
may not be disclosing they may not be as
open about what they do people may also
need um front not RS fronts or plausible
deniability for example I'm a former sex
worker I'm absolutely
retired never happens anymore that's
long in the past you know or as good as
the next offer
is human trafficking is of significant
concern and I want to talk about what
that actually is in detail so this is
where we're going to have some some real
talk going on
on there's a spectrum of participation
in terms of sex work there are people
who um a sensibly are you know part of
this trade by choice because it's they
they find um enjoyment or pleasure out
of it and they are they are real they
are part of our trade there are people
who are here by circumstance they're
kind of in the middle it's the work that
they're doing uh because it meets their
needs but maybe something better will
come along or maybe they'll pay off that
debt maybe they'll be more established
they'll secure their housing they'll be
able to move on to something else
something that they would rather be
doing and there are people who are in
this trade by coercion or by force they
may not be consenting adults they may
not be over the age of 18 they may be
people um who were given a false bill of
goods about what kind of work they might
be doing in their path of migration uh
they might be people who are in an
intimate partner violence Rel uh
situation in their relationship where a
partner or even a parent or a loved one
uh compelled them to do this work rights
Encompass all of these people rights are
not predicated upon empowerment rights
are about add addressing the way power
imbalances have lethal consequences so
rights are necessary for that
respectability politics have no currency
with me that's not what this struggle is
fundamentally about so understanding
that there is this range um is is a very
important thing um to really think
about human trafficking for nonsexual
labor represents the overwhelming
majority of cases and that's simply
because there is more labor in this
world uh that is nonsexual than there is
labor that is sexual human trafficking
is also about the food that we eat the
clothing that we wear the things that we
do every day where we don't have as many
people jumping up to talk about their
rights and the way that they are being
trafficked criminalizing sex work isn't
going to have a benefit for the people
who are being trafficked in that way
those types of laws and penalties don't
necessarily correspond or come to
support them in the situation that they
are
facing uh and oftentimes
anti-trafficking organizations will
really do a lot of shock and awe to talk
about how hard and brutal um human
trafficking and sexual cases is and I'm
not going to deny it it can be
absolutely abhorent and it can be brutal
and there is that brutality that is
present in all forms of human
trafficking uh the more you look into
that the more that that can be seen when
we treat people as disposable when we
treat people as um individuals that we
can just have do our labor and and
disregard and uh throw away bad bad bad
things
happen there are multiple regulatory
models of sex
work legalization is one of them and
often times it's what a lot of people
think would be the best because we have
this idea that legal means good illegal
means bad but that's not necessarily the
case because whenever there is a legal
or regulated form of sex work there are
going to be people who don't fit into
that very well who fall into the cracks
and they still face uh significant
penalties for their
participation uh
and in one case I think it's really
important to say that that's that's
something that's happening here in
Germany I've had some conversations with
people throughout the day who have been
telling me that um this sounds like a
very interesting talk but here in
Germany we have uh you know some
regulated legal forms of sex work so
we're doing pretty
good this is not necessarily what people
who are doing activism here have to say
I'm going to drink some water and
Hope all right uh that's not necessarily
what the activists here have to say and
it it's not my place to speak over the
German sex worker rights activists who
are doing lots of hard work who are the
most
informed but some of the things that
they have um wanted to address are the
fact that licensing creates a uh
potential risk for data breaches if you
have to apply for a license if you have
your information your personal
identifying information and a photograph
attached to this kind of work you are at
risk that's a database of people who are
involved in sex work there are some
people who might want to get their hands
on it who don't have the best intentions
that could be very problematic they
could be outed um there are exclusionary
zones where people can still be
penalized and in general just anytime we
have a form of policing it is going to
Target marginalized identities um and
people who are non-citizens may not have
full access to the rights and
protections that come from a legal
framework so if you want to know more in
depth about what's happening here in
Germany I it is upon me to refer you to
German sex workers themselves Hydra is
that organization their website is
listed and um this is a QR code that
goes to a very detailed paper analyzing
the policies that are happening here
this is uh the one that is in German and
this is in the English this uh QR code
will not be available for more than two
weeks so it's really for those of you
who are here in the audience if you're
watching this later on you can still get
this information on their
website full criminalization is what we
see in most of the world in most places
sex work is prohibited it is
criminalized with a full set of laws um
detailing what that looks like and the
reason that these laws can be so precise
they're so detailed is because
communication and Association are the
only ways that we can distinguish a sex
that is commercial from one that is
recreational or relational so ultimately
it does become a matter of expression um
the way people are communicating it it
comes down to the way people are
dressing on the street the way they can
be visibly identified it has to do with
who they're associating with um you know
if they're with someone who has already
been known or identified as a sex worker
and they're in that company you can be
held accountable for their actions too
or you can be lumped in with them so so
the fact that that's such a nebulous
issue means that all of these laws are
always going to be um are going to have
collateral damage and they're going to
ultimately uh extend beyond their quote
unquote intended targets because it's
just not as clear what makes um a legal
sex act different from an illegal one
other than biases judgments stigmas and
perception of the people that you're
looking at when you're thinking about
it the Nordic model or in demand is the
uh it sounds great on paper it's the
idea that we could criminalize the
purchase of sex only but not the people
who are selling it asymmetric
enforcement of laws will always infringe
upon the fundamental rights of the
non-criminal party and one way to
explain this is if I told you that we
were going to propose a law that it was
totally okay and totally legal to attend
a concert but not to be a musician
playing one that would mean we're not
going to have too many concerts because
people would not be able to go there
they're still going to be surveilled the
whole event is going to be shut down
it's going to be impossible to do so it
does it sounds really really great but
it just doesn't work out that way um in
practice decriminalization is the idea
that we can just take the laws governing
um SE forms of sex work off the book and
entirely um and just move away from the
form of
policing full decriminalization is never
going to be possible in a world with any
form of policing and criminalization in
many ways for the same reason that end
demand is is problematic if we still
have laws that criminalize people um
then we can't actually accomplish
decriminalization but this is the model
that has been most preferred by people
in the sex trade New Zealand is an
example of a place that has had uh
success UC F decriminalization happening
uh but it also too has its own limits
because as I said again when there's
anyone in society who is being
criminalized then this type of work can
still be subject to penalties and
punitive
reactions we've also been moving away
from the idea that we need to
criminalize or eliminate sex work
because it's a moral bad issue and we're
moving on to a new era of humanitarian
securitization
that's the idea that we're going to have
laws and surveillance and policies that
aren't necessarily just intended to be
mean and bad to people who are in this
you know the sex trait or um you know
with a moralizing idea but rather for
for humanitarian purposes to end
trafficking the anti-trafficking
movement relies on this but humanitarian
securitization is still a form of
security securitization it's still the
implementation of mass surveillance it's
still um
another way to justify establishing
stronger policing but it sounds good and
sometimes people don't realize it's
creeping up on them too even though
they're not in the sex trade it just
means that those apparatuses are
emboldened and they have more money they
have more power they have further
reach rights not rescue is one of the
ways that we can address the the wrongs
the brutality of trafficking we we
really cannot arrest our way out of this
kind of violence we need to start
establishing a world that provides
resources for people regardless of how
they came into the sex trade we need to
have resources for people who are
escaping intimate partner violence that
are have very low barriers that are
accessible Beyond business hours we need
to have a full set of resources and
support for people who may have
substance use disorders that don't have
barriers so the moment that they're
ready to start detoxing or enter
recovery there's a place for them that's
open that has a bed where they feel safe
those places all of these places have to
be ready to handle people of all
identities of all genders of all Races
of all kinds of relationship statuses
they have to be safe spaces and there
has to be enough of them they must be
well funded they cannot just be
something that are done cheaply or um
with so many barriers they just don't
work for the people who need those
resources all raids are going to be
violent and rescue is just a nice way of
saying a
raid that's all that it is it's just a
euphemism there are no teddy bears and
hot cocoa when they come in to shut
these things
down the un uh un AIDS the World Health
Organization and Amnesty International
have all recognized that the rights not
rescue model is what is important and
that decriminalization is a step that
will help protect the rights the dignity
the health and the safety of people who
are in the sex trade so it's not just me
um it's some very big organizations and
experts who do work in human
rights uh it's also important to note
that rescue Industries receive most of
the money and most of the funds and
there is a lot on the table they get a
lot of money for a lot of programs and a
lot of that will go to their overhead or
their staff budget and it doesn't
necessarily go to a full range of
services in the United States there's a
very big anti-trafficking organization
called Polaris they they get millions
upon millions of dollars and uh very
often they would refer people who were
looking to get information or support um
who were in the sex trade uh to the swap
USA hotline and we funded that with
volunteer hours and a very small budget
from our like meager ability to fund
raise so we were doing work that they
claim to be doing without getting any of
that monetary support to do it
uh we simply are just not necessarily
eligible for the same kind of Grants or
we're not trusted to be able to do this
work within the
community uh police militarization
budgets have all gotten so much bigger
they get a lot more money to get a lot
more
tools um and so there's all this money
is not going to sex workers
themselves having these types of laws
can Rel result in a lot of censorship
limited speech for everybody who is
communic ating the more surveillance
networks we have the more people who
will be caught in that kind of a drag
net no matter what you're talking about
so sexual speech and sexual education um
is all going to be uh potentially at
risk and we are definitely seeing
consequences of that in the United
States this also means that reproductive
health information is going to be
limited and we are seeing this as a
consequence as well uh information for
people who are looking for transgender
resources or queer resources they're
going to lose lose those because it
could possibly be Associated or people
are going to be afraid to possibly be
associated with trafficking for having
any of the buzzwords or the keywords um
that are the same or held in common so
this collateral damage is important
because these are resources that we need
that need to be um really fully fleshed
out because people have a right to
information unrestricted information
they need to get the best tools that
they need to live their best lives
and in response to these shifts in
public perception a lot of religious
organizations have actually started to
do some deceptive things in their
marketing and their practices so they
may sound like a secular organization
but they're not they're actually
far-right Christian
organizations uh the um uh Moral
Majority was a group that started in the
United States in the 1960s they are
Evangelical Christians they are now
rebranded as the National Coalition um
to oppose um sexual exploitation of
children and they chose that t their
name because it was so similar to
another organization that had been long
established to help children who were
missing or vulnerable who are exploited
but the difference between those orgs is
in their ideological agenda the
legitimate one was really working with
the hard reality that children who um go
missing or are exploited are often being
harmed by someone they know know and
love it is often a parent it is often
someone in their family and it's not
because there was a big bad sex traffic
or who threw them in a van it's because
there was someone they loved who was
hurting them and um often times it's
also as simple as a custody dispute
issue where parents have split and one
parent has decided they don't like the
arrangement or how things have worked
out and they're going to come take their
kid and go somewhere else far away that
may not be safe or the best place for
them
one great example is there is a movie
that is Making Waves in the US I don't
know if it's out here yet but it's
called the sound of freedom and uh it
it's simply um a propaganda piece that
has a lot of very very bad information
and it comes from some very bad
practices uh I don't know if anyone here
is familiar with pizzagate that was a
problem in the United States it was a
conservative political just nightmare
where some people on the internet
suggested that there was a pizza parlor
that was responsible for sex trafficking
children they were being held in the
basement by Hillary Clinton uh and it
was going to be necessary to storm the
pizza parlor to save the children and
this was a bad tip there there were no
children in the basement it was just a
pizza parlor and someone showed up with
a very large weapon and um there was no
one there to rescue that was what was
happening with the people who were
making this happen they actually started
by traveling to um the
Caribbean and they would try to set up
their own stings they were not
professionals they didn't have a
background in this they really didn't
know what they were doing they were
possibly driving up the demand for child
SE trafficking by even trying to
facilitate this or make it happen and
they would storm the situation with guns
and they would terrify those kids they
would Pat themselves on the back but
they didn't make sure that those
children were safe afterwards no one
heard where they went or what happened
to them no one made sure they were okay
After experiencing that um and they're
just very misleading and when we have
these propaganda pieces we're not able
to do the work that we need to do to get
people out of these situations and into
something
safer here's some example of some of
these organizations this is just one
that I picked because I like to pick on
them um the nationville anti um anti um
human trafficking Coalition and they
also encourage just a lot of religious
volunteers to jump into work that they
are not trained or ready to do um so
they have uh this may not be clear on
the slide but at their their level four
the highest honor is after you've
volunteered enough and done enough
Church work you too can join in on the
rescue um so again people who just
aren't ready to do this work and they
can make situations worse some of these
organizations have also done a little
bit of what we might call tourism of
various sex trade districts where they
would get people together in prayer
groups to get in a shuttle and go by
outdoor sex markets to look and gawk at
the people who were there and you know
pray the rosary um but really that's
that's just uh that's not helpful and
it's degrading it's absolutely degrading
uh they also collaborate with law
enforcement so they they may not
actually be in law enforcement but they
they like to work with them and
sometimes law enforcement really likes
these groups because these groups can do
things that they wouldn't necessarily be
able to do because they don't have the
same types of policies or um body cams
or accountability so there is that
little bit of a joint partnership there
with the rank amateurs who make
everything
worse there's a fantastic project called
rate that rescue it is a sex worker-led
project it does cover rescues
internationally and it analyz es what
the budgets are what the outcomes are
and whether or not the people who were
involved felt that their life was better
as a result of that
rescue the US Department of Homeland
Security is of course very concerned
with human trafficking because they want
to have um a you know good way to
justify a lot of surveillance that
they're doing that is extending um as
far as possible to extend that reach and
I want to focus in particular with what
they were doing with the hospital ality
industry they were doing a lot of
mandatory training with hotel chains um
to help people there spot the scourge of
trafficking and here are some of the
indicators of human trafficking and um
some of these might whether or not
you're in the trade might sound familiar
such as simply leaving the do not
disturb sign up for multiple days in a
row having lots of technical devices
anyone travel with a few computers or
some extra things like that
very
suspicious good reason to check in you
could be a trafficker um so some of
these things might actually be kind of
accurate and helpful but a lot of them
are also quite obvious um sometimes
their guides will have things like you
know if there's a child who's you know
talking about overt sexual acts and
looking for money in the lobby um be
suspicious and yes perhaps that is
suspicious um but it's interesting to
see the other things that get thrown in
there as reasonable cause for a search
or reasonable cause to call law
enforcement in to investigate the
situation the private sector of course
is coming in to charge you know every
kind of business possible with their
model of training so lots of these
companies are opening up and they have
their own how to spot and stop human
trafficking um they're making a lot of
money off of this industry and we have
no way to tell if they're actually doing
anything to prevent it they just sell C
our es and certification for
people palente
teer they're
fun we all love paler uh I think they
are definitely being uh making fantastic
use of the human trafficking rhetoric to
justify the expanded scope of um the
surveillance that they have been doing
everywhere that they possibly can and um
one of the the things they they wrote in
this article I thought that was quite
interesting is to give non-technical
people a view of the world as discreet
objects relationships and they
describing data and that's a good thing
right we're all just data and
relationships that can be mined and
pulled for different purposes but they
can expand the scope they can uh keep
growing especially when they have this
type of um a project that they can push
to the Forefront we're not here to
invade your digital privacy and your
rights we're just trying to find the bad
gu guys and that's all we'll
do and they're getting some major
contracts um with the US government and
they are absolutely putting that to the
Forefront of their website and their
promotional materials they're spending a
lot of time going into conferences and
occupying a lot of space in this domain
but I think we all have some questions
about what their intentions really
are this is a poster that was made by
traffic brothel workers in Thailand and
these are people who were experiencing
some of the worst outcomes of
trafficking and they had an opportunity
to um to share some of that and what it
was and this is some of the text that
they wrote to transcribe it in case it
was hard to read on the poster and this
was the experience of people who were in
the midst of trafficking who were doing
work that they wouldn't have chosen
otherwise um who were looking for a
different or a better kind of life and
they made it a point to say that their
their income their saving their money
was seized that they were locked up that
they were intain detained that they were
interrogated by many people for many
long hours that they were forced and
compelled to be Witnesses even if that
might be dangerous for them that they
were held until their court case and did
not have the ability to move freely in
the place where they were living that
they were forced into retraining into
industries that they didn't necessarily
find any better for example the Garment
industry that we're going to save you
and pull you out of the sex trade and
now you're going to go work in front of
a sewing machine um not necessarily for
much more money in fact often times less
than they were making before they were
not compensated by anyone for their loss
of wages or income their family was then
having to do more work to help support
everybody they were of course worried
because they're out of contact and they
don't know where their loved one is they
had to deal with the stigma and Judgment
of people after being subjected to a
raid if you are pulled out by a lot of
police and dragged through town
um people tend to make some pretty big
judgments about
that um soldiers and other people were
looking for more information about them
and therefore asking questions of their
friends and their family uh and people
in their Community bribes have to be
paid they're sent back home where it
could be dangerous to have this kind of
um uh you know experience and this
knowledge in your community where people
might um really have some serious
judgment about that um their family then
maybe some more debt to pay and that
regardless of whether or not they were
rescued they had to find a way to get
back because that was the way the only
means that they had to keep making a
living was to go back into really bad
brothel conditions and since nothing
improved all they could do is go through
the arduous Journey once again go back
into those conditions once again just
recycling The Experience ret
traumatizing over and
over this is what raids look like um and
this is what rescues look like uh I just
have a few examples taken from the media
um about the dehumanizing type of photos
that are used uh and the way that people
who are victims are being treated um
Detroit Michigan this is Anaheim um
these guys look so friendly isn't this
exactly who you would want to see if you
were having a really bad day
um this is
London this raid in particular was in
SoHo and they actually called the police
or the media ahead of time to document
what they were doing I haven't included
any of the photos that they were using
of the people inside but they were of
course in their work gear and their negl
um so they were very vulnerable they
were very exposed and this was about
gentrification about upsetting that type
of Industry not because they were
worried about anyone in it but because
the real estate was really
valuable of course in India again here's
some more of the dehum izing stock
footage that is used they have used that
handcuff picture for like pretty much
any
um uh nonwestern raid like that's the
raid photo you see so that's probably
not from that exact raid and you can see
the people who are arrested um and what
their ages were and um whether or not
they were victims is really not fully
taken into consideration in New York
there was a raid that went very very
very horribly wrong and this was yang
song who was in an Asian massage parlor
that's where she worked she had had
previous negative experiences of sexual
violence from the police um and they
were so bad they were so traumatic that
when she was experiencing a raid once
again rather than just kind of comply
with what they were saying and go along
with them she jumped out of a four-story
window where she was working and she
died uh to any members of law
enforcement who may be here with us
today or watching from the comfort of
Their Own
homes I strongly suggest that you find
new employment because someday there may
be
people who come to rescue them
too sex worker rights really are
inextricably linked to migrant rights
because often times this is the only
work that people have when they are not
considered full citizens in the places
that they are going it is just simply
the only possible form of income that is
available and that really has to be um
the important focus of of what we're
doing because migration is something
that has happened for a long time and
it's something that we're going to see
more and more of with climate change
we're going to see more people who are
going to be forced to leave their
Homeland not by choice but because they
are facing extreme danger or a total
lack of
resources of course some more um the
ways that sex trafficking and sex work
can be linked to a lot of uh xenophobia
and a lot of our anti-migrant sentiments
um for example the Twitter count the
Border Observer um complaining about the
sex workers who are available and the
the rhetoric that they're using you can
see is really it's not one of care or
concern or love it's about we need to
stop this because these people are
coming and that's their intent and that
is their dehumanizing
tone and again deportation is a big
consequence of these laws there is no
guarantee for a victim that they will be
given safety and a chance to stay in the
place that they have moved to in the
long term they will not be granted
housing um they're simply deported so we
have to ask when people are rescued
because they were traffi what were they
offered what happened to them let's
follow up on that story we can't just
end the sentence with they were rescued
we have to ask what does rescue
mean uh another example of a Ukrainian
only fans model who was barred from
being able to evacuate from war because
she was linked to her um information and
couldn't get over the borders so there
is a lot of Border problems that are
happening right now where people simply
cannot move because they are being
associated with sex work um from their
digital
footprint so the criminalization of sex
work it does not alter or remedy the
socioeconomic context that precipitates
entry into the trade whether that is by
choice coercion or Force all sex workers
all workers benefit from rights and
solidarity and desigm destigmatization
protection from violence protection from
the police and the freedom of movement
the world that we live in is what shapes
our choices and we cannot prosecute our
way out of an inequitable world we
simply can't we have to change our world
we have to make it better for the people
who are trying to live Thrive and
survive in it so how do sex bers use
technology many different ways I'm
running out of time so I'm going to
really be rushing through this um but
they've had a long history of finding
Innovations at the Forefront of
technology to facilitate their work um
and they also help Advance things like
streaming video um digital uh Anonymous
currencies uh a lot of technologies that
people use were really developed um from
the use of sex workers and of course all
those technologies have the other side
of harm and ways that there can be
negative outcomes simply from um how
prevalent they can be uh banking banss
are increasingly um a big one that that
may not be a form of criminalization but
if you can't have a bank account you
really can't function in the place where
you live um automated license plate
readers deep web search tools all of
these things can be used to create harm
in the lives of people in the sex
trade and we can see a positive effect
for example this is a study on
Craigslist effect on violence against
women in the United States where um
Craigslist was associated with a 177%
reduction in the homicide rate for women
uh in the country 17% for all women and
most of those was understood to be
involved in the sex trade some people
have said this could be a correlation or
causation but I can tell you as an
Outreach worker that when Craigslist
went down that we saw an eight-fold
increase in outdoor sex workers that
people were using phones to book ads and
I don't have to tell this crowd that um
opening an email can sometimes have a
negative outcome but it is always safer
to open an email than it is to stick
your head in a car window in a remote
part of town where no one can hear you
or come help you so having that distance
and ability to move indoors is very
protective um here's a migrant sex
worker who benefited and was actually
able to move out of a trafficking
situation through her adoption of
Technology um she was able to move away
from um brothel and outdoor work and
what is she using it's kind of blurry
but she's using a phone and she's able
to own clients and although she's still
ambivalent being in the sex trade she's
having a much safer experience of it and
she's making enough money to support her
family so not perfect but better project
doxy spotting is another example of the
way people are using technology to
harass sex workers they're using um
Google search kind of images to identify
and make a giant
database and of course there are always
going to be some limits and uh our
government this is a quote from
president bar former President Barack
Obama about using technology
specifically um to Target traffickers
but they really mean sex workers in
general these are some examples of
border crossing issues that people are
facing um all over where they're finding
that um just going Court they are being
identified and they are being halted and
they are being denied entry and this is
happening more and more and more as Ai
and facial recognition software gets
more sophisticated so even though it may
not be a parent they um are being
recognized simply from these um these
smarter Machine
Tools cesa fasta in 2018 has had a major
Global impact because we live on an
American dominated internet so companies
that are based in America of course have
to answer to the policies that they have
there so cloudflare for example based in
the US does a lot of hosting and they
certainly um have to answer to this and
people are being discriminated against
not just for uh using uh being doing
Commerce but for using these tools um I
still have two minutes I'm going to rush
I see they're getting ready to kick me
out um digital safety has many
interdependent axes and we have to
reconceive of the fact that we don't
just have external territorial borders
anymore our borders are internal they
are omnipresent they are always watching
us and they are distinguishing fit
citizens from unfit citizens so we can't
just think of them as a place that we
cross one time this is is going to rush
through this um one of some of the key
things if you're traveling and you are a
sex worker um say as little as you
possibly can know as much as possible
what about what your Crossing process
will be um understand that there is
going to be a lot more involuntary
facial recognition I experienced that on
my flight from San Francisco over here
for the first time um being uh about to
board my plane I had to undergo facial
recognition Biometrics literally right
before boarding so that's going to be
happening to
everybody um so please use some of these
um practical steps uh please look at the
this the show later to see what they
are and remember that borders are
systems of domination but not absolute
domination we can figure out some ways
to get around it this was a great paper
got me real hot that some of these uh
facial recognition aren't always
insurmountable so don't tell me the odds
because the odds are really bad this is
some big technology it's very widespread
instead please let's talk about the goal
and the goal is that people need to live
freely in this world and we need to
support others in living freely in this
world too that's our goal these are
pictures of me from my work in Moria
Camp I was there in 2015 before it
burned to the ground and I am never
going to forget the people that I met
and the work that I did there many of
those people are going to go on to do
sex work voluntary or involuntary um and
I hope that they have the best lives
possible and that by teaching these
things that can that can happen for them
thank you so
[Applause]
[Music]
much