Abolition makes strange bed fellows.....
Abolition makes strange bed fellows....
In recent years i have noticed a disturbing trend amongst the abolition of prostitution movement in the questionable alligences they seem to be willing to make in order to obtain their goal.
It seems as if there is no limit to the depths to which they will sink in order to prove their point even holding up admited exploitative pimps and pedophiles as heros and champions of their cause and accepting funding from faith based organizations.
How, in the face of everything faith based and moralist groups have done to sex workers, can they justify accepting finacial support from these people? Is it simply that they have not examined the historical context of the dangerous conditions sex workers face? Do they not see that these groups are largely responsible for destroying the safety of sex workers through uninformed actions over the last 100 years? Or is it fine for them as long as the money flows? Who cares who we get into bed with as long as we can achieve our goal.
In our work we have often discussed how to adress the difficulties of securing finacial support for our activities but we have also discussed and agreed that never would we ever accept money from the people who had cost so many members of our community their lives. For us, it is unthinkable.
Recently alot of people have been hailing former madame and notorious Vancouver pimp Tania Fiolleau as a courageous hero leading the fight to save sex workers and abolish prostitution. This woman has done no research and is speaking purely from her own personal experiences. Vancouver sex workers remember her well. When she speaks of women and girls being pimped and abused she is speaking of exploitation she herself helped to facilitate and did not report to police. When she speaks of workers being afraid to report she is speaking of how she herself contributed to creating that fear.
This is a woman who admittedly exploited women, her fellow workers, profited from their pain as a pimp then wrote a book about their pain once again attempting to profit from the very pain she herself caused. How can the abolitionist side justify their alliance with this admitted exploiter of women? I would strongly urge no one to buy this book. Do not support this woman in once again profiting from the pain she contributed to.
Finally, so called reformed sex consumers who champion the abolitionist cause. These men have done no research, they are not experts but rather are once again speaking from their own personal experiences. A man speaking from his own experience exclaiming that yes, all sex consumers want to find little girls to rape is describing what he himself wanted as a sex consumer. He wanted to rape under age girls.
How is an admitted pedophile rapist a person who should have any say or sway over the future and safety of sex working women? A person who admits to wanting to harm girls then hailed as a leader and shining example in the fight against prostitution?
I am at a bit of a loss as to how the abolitionist side can casually dismiss concerns about their funding sources and questions about the alliances they make.
Really, how is it that pimps and pedophiles are champions and heros? and when will the abolitionists finally work with actual sex working people towards increasing their safety, choices and empowerment?
just to add here- i wonder how sex workers she exploited feel about the abolitionists being allies with their exploiter? if they feel that these groups actually care about them and the violence they experienced. most importantly if sex workers support their former pimp being hailed as a hero....i hear nothing but terrible stories about this woman...i wonder if the abolitionist groups have even considered the message they are sending to the very people they claim to want to help by being allies with the person who committed crimes against them.
could you provide some background on how faith based groups are funding the fight to abolish prostitution laws? that's interesting if the same groups that have freaked out about the moral question of prostitution in the past are now funding activities to advocate for the legalization of it.
Hi Susan,
You've made some very controversial statements about an individual, and the innuendo alone in your post could cause rabble.ca some legal difficulties.
I'm temporarily removing this thread until you can provide me with supporting evidence via either PM or my email: rebeccawest@rabble.ca
Susan - thanks for your response!
from a discussion with a friend, she wrote the following about the faith based funding of abolitionist groups;
On another note, I was just referred to a very interesting and well-referencedarticle on the alliance between US abolitionist feminism and the Christian right, noting that anti-prostitution policy initiatives gained strong momentum following the election of George Bush.
The author writes: "Š this article seeks to demonstrate the extent to which evangelical and feminist anti-trafficking activism has been fueled by a shared
commitment to carceral paradigms of social, and in particular gender, justice (what I here develop as ³carceral feminism²) and to militarized humanitarianism as the pre-eminent mode of engagement by the state."
Militarized Humanitarianism Meets Carceral Feminism: The Politics of Sex,
Rights, and Freedom in Contemporary Anti-trafficking Campaigns
Elizabeth Bernstein http://www.sph.umich.edu/symposium/2010/pdf/bernstein2.pdf
I had to look up "carceral," so I'll perhaps spare others that task: carceral: 1 (adj) carceral belonging to a prison. Wikipedia notes: A carceral state is a state modelled on the idea of a prison - this took me to an article on
Foucault who has much to say on the carceral state. Some facts on the US prison culture:
- The US has less than 5% of the world¹s population but over 23% of the
world¹s incarcerated people - the incarceration rate in the US is four times
the world average.
- The US incarcerates the largest number of people in the world.
- The US imprisons the most women in the world.
- Crime rates do not account for incarceration rates.
And, I think most of us know those imprisoned are, in the great majority, from poor and racialized communities. If Harper¹s omnibus crime bill gets passed this fall, we will have our very own American-style prison culture to look forward to.
There is further Canadian link in play here as BC¹s Salvation Army moves deeper into it¹s fundraising campaign featuring an entirely uninformed anti-trafficking message exploitation writ large. On another front, Canadian women who identify as members of the Baptist faith are also active on the issue.
Michelle Miller, an American Christen abolitionist based in Vancouver who I have met on several occasions runs REED, which describes itself as follows:
"REED seeks to end trafficking and sexual exploitation and strengthen the anti-trafficking movement through a comprehensive approach to change in the radical tradition of Christ." Miller works with Rape Relief, the Aboriginal Women's Action Group and local Christian churches.
As some might recall, tin 2010/11 there was a major series of anti-trafficking/anti-sex work events across Canada. I got interested in trying to find out how the series was funded and this is what I found.
From the: North American Baptist Women¹s Union
http://www.nabwu.org/Action.html (Worth a visit if you want further
information about what these people believe and who they work with.)
"Becoming aware - Taking action
Across North America, God is calling Baptist women to reach out to and speak up for women and children caught in the trap of human trafficking, prostitution, and other forms of commercial sexual exploitation. American Baptist Women¹s Ministries have led the way with their Break the Chains campaign (below). In 2009, 2010, and 2011, NABWU has allocated Day of Prayer offering grants to programs that reach out to women in prostitution or girls at risk in Canada, the USA and Guyana. Here are some of the other initiatives NABWU has encouraged.
Here¹s how NABWU works: The Community Coalition Against Human Trafficking urges persons to wear white on January 11, 2011, Human Trafficking Day. Virginia Holmstrom e-mails this suggestion to her American Baptist Women¹s
Ministries constituency, encouraging them to sponsor or attend an event to raise awareness about human trafficking. Her e-mail is forwarded to Brenda Mann of Canadian Baptist Women of Ontario and Quebec. Result? Brenda and the CBWOQ board don white T-shirts at their January meeting.
On Canada¹s west coast, Michelle Miller of REED received a 2009 Baptist Women¹s Day of Prayer grant for outreach to prostituted and trafficked women during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. ³We had 357 people, largely women, volunteer with us! They came from England, Texas, Finland, Toronto, Michigan, and other spots on the globe,² Michelle reported to NABWU and the BWA Women¹s Department.
Her team decided that the best way to create long-term change for trafficked women was to stand against the male demand for paid sex, and to do it very publicly. ³The Salvation Army and others were doing outreach directly to the women, so we decided to tackle the root issue of demand,² Michelle said.
³There is currently a challenge to [Canada¹s] Charter of Rights and freedoms around the prostitution laws, and there is a good chance that it will become legal to buy and sell women. It was critical to make a strong statement that we will not tolerate the normalization of trafficking.²
Leading up to the Games they held twelve public forums about trafficking.
Speakers included formerly prostituted women, Aboriginal women, Christian women, and men speaking about demand. ³We found that many women caught the vision and were ready to go out into their own spheres of influence to work on ending the demand for sexual access to women¹s bodies,² Michelle said
Canadian Baptist Women of Ontario and Quebec helped Michelle and her friends bring their ³Buying sex is not a sport² campaign to Toronto and raise awareness of the reasons why prostitution should not be legalized in their province. Several CBWOQ leaders joined Brenda Mann in the 2010 ³Black Tie Dash² Human Trafficking Awareness event in Toronto."