A few weeks ago, Tiana Bien-Aime, Executive Director of Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, published “The Framing of Gender Apartheid: Amnesty International and Prostitution”
Bien-Aime’s blog, as you might imagine, was inflammatory and misconstrued Amnesty International’s policy on sex work. It misrepresented Amnesty International’s stance, Amnesty International’s decision-making process, and decontextualized the circumstances and conditions of people engaged in commercial sex and of women globally. The blog was also problematic in appropriating the term “apartheid” to describe the sex trade, something Canadian activist Robyn Maynard has already brilliantly criticized:
By hijacking the terminology of slavery, even widely referring to themselves as ‘abolitionists’, anti-sex work campaigners have not only (successfully) campaigned for funding and legal reform; but they do so without any tangible connections to historical or current Black political movements against state violence.
Please read and and share our response.
