Sex Work, Policing, and Border Abolition

Join us for a live streamed session from the Socialism 2023 conference, in Chicago. ——————————————————————— For over a century, Western states have scapegoated Asian migrant sex working women as “temptations” or victims to justify tighter borders, anti-immigrant restrictions and more policing–yet these workers have been left out of social movements. We explore how solidarity with migrant sex workers can strengthen movements for migrant justice, and the abolition of police, prisons, borders and racial capitalism. ——————————————————————— Speakers Harsha Walia is the award-winning author of Undoing Border Imperialism (2013). 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. Chanelle Gallant has over 20 years experience as an organizer, writer and strategist in movements for sex workers rights and racial justice. She is on the board of Showing Up for Racial Justice and her writing has appeared in dozens of publications, most recently Beyond Survival, Pleasure Activism and Disarm, Defund, Dismantle: Police Abolition in Canada. With Elene Lam, she is the co-author of a forthcoming book on sex work, migration and the politics of the anti-trafficking industry for Haymarket Books. 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 cofounder 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. Robyn Maynard is an award-winning Black feminist scholar-activist based in Toronto, and the author of the national bestseller Policing Black Lives: State violence in Canada from slavery to the present. Her writings on policing, feminism, abolition, and Black liberation are taught widely across North America and Europe.