Members of the Association of Transgender and Hijra at Bengal light a lamp to mark Transgender Day of Bengal in Kolkata, India, in 2017.
AP Photo/Bikas Das
A sociologist explains that the ability to claim transgender identities in India may appear progressive, but this can further marginalize historically stigmatized gender-nonconforming groups.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro gives a press conference in January 2022.
(AP Photo/Marcelo Chello)
Until Bolsonaro’s election win, sex workers had been gaining rights. His ultra-far-right, homophobic, racist and mysoginistic views have made the reality much worse.
Financial strain exacerbated by the pandemic could be driving increased student sex work, whether through apps like OnlyFans or other platforms and avenues.
(AP Photo/Tali Arbel)
The timely re-release of ‘Working Girls’ by Lizzie Borden brings sex work into the public eye as activists in Canada prepare for another Supreme Court challenge to laws criminalizing commercial sex.
Strip away the sexy marketing and what you have is just another digital platform shifting legal responsibilities and risks.
A billboard in Mounds View, Minnesota, put up by the nonprofit National Human Trafficking Resource Center.
Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Children are not routinely being snatched from pizza parlors and sold into sexual slavery. Sex trafficking more often looks like ‘vulnerable people struggling to survive’ through sex.
Supporters of sex workers’ rights marched in Las Vegas in 2019.
AP Photo/John Locher
COVID-19 restrictions created life-threatening challenges to female sex workers as they weren’t able to access their medication, support or their clients.
The UN warns sex workers face increased discrimination under COVID-19. In Australia, they have been an ‘afterthought’ in the country’s pandemic response.
The red umbrella is a symbol used by sex worker activists to draw attention to the work conditions and human rights of people in the sexual service industry.
(Shutterstock)
From a young age, Neaera was trained for the life of a hetaira, or courtesan. Her tragic story comes to us only through court documents, but she deserves to be remembered.
A law enforcement guide to human trafficking sits on a table at a drop-in center for victims of sex trafficking in Washington.
AP Photo/Ted S. Warren
Jeffrey Epstein may be the current face of sex trafficking, but buying and selling youth for sex is a common practice in the US.
Sex worker rights – fought for at this red umbrella protest in Vancouver – are under threat by ‘hospitality’ programs which ask civilians working in hotels to ‘report’ on their guests.
Caroline Doerksen
While there’s still a great deal that is unknown about sex trafficking, research studies and nonprofits have been able to gather telling data on this industry’s victims and perpetrators.