More information on how the FOSTA-SESTA amendments are affecting sex workers especially in the US. Forums for support are being shut down. Sites which help to screen potentially abusive clients are in danger. Those affected are free or low cost advertising which affects the most vulnerable of my fellow workers. Google drive files on sex work advocacy are being deleted by Google. This is all going to serve to make sex work increasingly dangerous by forcing workers to go back on the streets, and ironically be even more at risk of sex-trafficking scenarios by having to utilise pimps in potentially abusive relationships.
The real needs, as espoused by Sex-trafficking survivors and advocates are providing housing, job prospects and integration for those genuinely affected or victims of sex-trafficking. None of this has occurred. No strategies in place for those who wish to move out of sex-work. Nothing. Just knee-jerk laws pushed by conservatives, anti-sex work groups, religious organisations, and people with no experience in the sex-industry using “trafficking” as a buzz word to directly affect the wellbeing and livelihoods of hard working people.
Sex work is work. It is the world’s oldest profession. It will never, ever be eliminated nor should it. Working in the industry in various forms has given me real opportunities, personal growth and a sense of purpose and fulfilment in my life. Sure there’s been some really shitty times, but as a whole I’ve been happier than I ever have been. And the same for many of my friends and coworkers.
We are intelligent, hard working people who fulfil a need in the community. There are people from all walks of life and all situations as in any industry out there. But this is where I’ve found my second home.
Real policies and strategies to eliminate and battle sex trafficking are required, not this mass censorship of the internet. This is opening the doorway wider to mass control of a democratic medium.
Fight against this.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/sex-workers-fear-for-their-future-how-sesta-is-putting-many-prostitutes-in-peril