Not Your Rescue Project: Migrant Sex Workers Fighting for Justice

Join longtime organizers and authors Chanelle Gallant and Elene Lam in conversation with Harsha Walia on ways to deepen solidarity with migrant sex workers.

In Not Your Rescue Project: Migrant Sex Workers Fighting for Justice, long-time organizers Chanelle Gallant and Elene Lam deftly expose the harms of criminalization in the name of “anti-trafficking” and lift up migrant sex workers’ organizing. In doing so, they make the compelling case that the only effective response to the needs of migrant sex workers must be led by migrants in the sex trade, as they fight for rights, safety, and autonomy.

An indispensable exploration of the relationship between migration and sex work—and the underlying societal conditions they reflect—Not Your Rescue Project is a thorough indictment of the anti-trafficking industry as an engine of criminalization and state violence, and an instructive account of the emancipatory politics already being practiced by migrant sex workers in their organizing.

***Please note: This discussion was recorded on November 26, 2024.***

Speakers:

Chanelle Gallant is an author, activist, and movement strategist who has worked in the areas of sexuality and criminalization for over two decades. Her writing has appeared in dozens of publications, most recently the New York Times best-seller Pleasure Activism, Beyond Survival, and Defund, Disarm, Dismantle, and her work has been discussed in the Washington Post, the Advocate, Esquire, Vice, and every national media outlet in Canada. Chanelle is on the national board for Showing Up For Racial Justice and has helped to found or support numerous sex worker organizations. She has an MA in sociology and was a Lambda Literary Fellow.

Elene Lam is an activist, artist, community organizer, educator, and human rights defender. She has fought for sex worker, migrant, gender, labor, and racial justice for over twenty years. She is the founder of Butterfly (Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Support Network) and the co-founder of Migrant Sex Workers Project. She has used diverse and innovative approaches to advocate social justice for migrant sex workers, such as leadership building and community mobilization. She holds a master’s of law and master’s of social work. She is a PhD candidate at McMaster University (School of Social Work) and is studying the harm of the anti-trafficking movement. She was awarded the Constance E. Hamilton Award for Women’s Equality by the City of Toronto.

Harsha Walia is the award-winning author of Border and Rule and Undoing Border Imperialism. Trained in the law, she is a community organizer and campaigner in migrant justice, anti-capitalist, feminist, and anti-imperialist movements, including No One Is Illegal and Women's Memorial March Committee.