How to actually fight trafficking

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After I published Even the right is boarding the decrim sex work train a reader asked me about how legislation can both protect trafficking victims and consenting sex workers.

First, most sex workers prefer a decrim model over a legalization model. Here’s a good Twitter thread and Instagram post and paper on why.

For legislation, things like making it illegal to use carrying condoms as evidence in a prostitution case is helpful. Another one is to try to get loitering for the purposes of prostitution laws off the books, as California did earlier this year.

At the end of the day, however, it's less about the laws on the books and more about how cops and prosecutors treat sex workers. The idea that cops and prosecutors must enforce every law on the books exactly as proscribed is ludicrous. They absolutely do not do this and shouldn’t. Cops and prosecutors have tremendous discretion, and they should use it to create a positive relationship with sex workers both in order to be decent fucking humans and to effectively fight trafficking.

That means make sure cops don't rape, harass, or arrest adult, consenting workers. When workers report crimes, treat them with respect and actually investigate them instead of doing what they often do. It means more prosecutors should follow former SF DA Chesa Boudin’s lead and stop prosecuting consenting adults for sex work.

There’s a reason decrim is associated with decreased rates of trafficking, along with lower rates of violence, exploitation and STIs. The reality is that sex workers have the closest, clearest view into who’s being trafficked. When workers trust cops to rescue victims instead of making arrests or worse, workers will tell cops when they suspect trafficking is happening.

Header images come from me putting the headline or some body copy when the headline violates the TOS into OpenAI’s DALL-E. Today’s prompt was “loitering” but that gave four images of groups of males so I went with “loitering women.”