Human Trafficking Awareness

In the Booth with Ruth – Tara Burns, Survivor of Labor Trafficking in the Sex Industry, Sex Worker and Sex Workers’ Rights Activist

October 29, 2014 // 10 Comments

We need anti-discrimination laws (as recommended by the Obama administration in 2010) to protect us from discrimination in accessing housing, employment, child custody, public services, financial instruments, health care, and education. This is not an abstract concept. If you don’t want people to be prostitutes, or even if you just want people to be able to leave the sex industry, making it impossible for sex workers and sex trafficking victims to get other jobs or rent a home is the opposite of effective...

Take Off The Cape: Why Using The Word “Rescue” Is Harmful To Anti-Trafficking Efforts

October 20, 2014 // 4 Comments

Guest post by Becky Owens Bullard When I came to the human trafficking field from working on domestic and sexual violence, I was shocked by a lot of things. It was

In the Booth with Ruth – Jemima, Sex Worker, Writer and Student

August 15, 2014 // 13 Comments

I was a sex worker, but like most isolated by the nature of the work. Whilst I knew the law as it applied to me I was unaware there were people campaigning to change the laws, or that other countries has different systems, many of which were a lot worse than the UK. I started talking to and reading other sex workers writings, and attended a few events. Realising that I was not alone was such a huge moment for me.

Collateral Damage: Sex Workers and the Anti-Trafficking Campaigns at Kampnagel, Hamburg

August 7, 2014 // 17 Comments

I am honored to screen Collateral Damage: Sex Workers and the Anti-Trafficking Campaigns at Kampnagel’s sex work issues conference “FANTASIES THAT MATTER. IMAGES OF SEXWORK IN MEDIA AND ART.”

More Rights For Victims of Human Trafficking

August 1, 2014 // 0 Comments

Originally posted on Research Project Germany:
UN Member States appraise Global Action Plan to combat human trafficking. Photo: Mark Garten/UN Interview with Heike Rabe, Policy Advisor at the German Institute for Human Rights (Deutsches Institut für Menschenrechte) The UN calls for a global fight against human trafficking. In Germany, the focus lies on forced prostitution.*…

In the Booth with Ruth – Pye Jakobsson, Sex Workers’ Rights Activist from Sweden

March 17, 2014 // 12 Comments

I am concerned with labour exploitation in general. I have my doubts regarding if the trafficking terminology is really helpful... Without a clear distinction between sex work and forced labour we can never really address the exploitation that happens in the sex industry as well as in other industries...

In the Booth with Ruth – Meg Munoz, Former Sex Worker, Trafficking Survivor, Ally and Rights Advocate

March 2, 2014 // 47 Comments

Too many human rights abuses are happening, too many opportunities being lost, and too many freedoms being denied... When you have those being trafficked being criminalized, we’ve got a problem. When you have sex workers being denied the full opportunity to engage, participate, and provide for themselves, something’s horribly wrong...

George Perez & Mohammad Maaty Discuss Their New TV Series ‘The Life’ Raising Awareness of Child Sex Trafficking

February 22, 2014 // 7 Comments

Since our goal was to shed light on a real issue happening in the present day, in order for it to have a realistic impact on our viewers we had to make absolutely sure that our stories were true. In other words...

Knowing the difference between sex-trafficking & sex work – A survivor speaks | WNN Features

January 17, 2014 // 3 Comments

“The sex industry includes two major demographics of people who are widely segregated. Sex workers are viewed by society as helpless souls who can’t possibly make healthy choices because they are victims and in desperate need of rescue. Trafficking survivors are viewed as pity cases who are incapable of doing much of anything besides art or sewing, and a pretty bedroom will solve the issues of complex trauma,” she continued. “Both views are wrong but it’s hard to hear the voices of sex workers and trafficking survivors through the billowing echoes of the ‘voice of the voiceless’,” she added.

In the Booth with Ruth – Jes Richardson, Sex Trafficking Survivor, Former Sex Worker and Anti-Sex Trafficking & Sex Workers’ Rights Activist

January 8, 2014 // 17 Comments

When I was trafficked, it was a sex worker who helped me escape and she provided me with great support and encouragement in those early years of my healing. I knew law enforcement would not protect me because I had committed the crime of prostitution and only had false identification that was given to me by my pimp...

Sex trafficking in Sweden, according to the Swedish police

January 5, 2014 // 0 Comments

Originally posted on Feminist Ire:
I’ve commented several

Ruth Jacobs Speaks on Social Networks: The Good, The Bad and The Horrifying

October 8, 2013 // 5 Comments

What was your most astonishing experience on a social network? The most horrific was discovering what was very obviously a large interconnected group of child sex abusers on Facebook. Being aware of Facebook’s inadequate policies and procedures, I reported this to law enforcement instead – the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) in the UK…

Victim-centred: The Merseyside Model – Ruth Jacobs interviewed on Policing Today (Part 2)

August 8, 2013 // 12 Comments

In the second part of an exclusive Policing Today interview, author and human rights campaigner Ruth Jacobs talks about human trafficking and the urgent changes needed to the criminal justice system’s attitude towards victims of sexual crime.

From Prostitution to Art – Artist Sherry Dooley’s powerful and moving life story

August 8, 2013 // 12 Comments

Being gang raped by knife-point wasn’t one of the highlights of being manipulated into the lifestyle... Having the Portland Police look me straight in the eye, as I stood before them, bloodied, beaten, and with my breast exposed, and tell me that no crime had been committed because I was a prostitute was just another blow.