As part of the Count Me In!* initiative, the Counting Sex Workers In! campaign ran from October 26 to November 10, 2020. The campaign shone a spotlight on sex worker-led advocacy by raising the voices of sex workers of all genders, in order to advance the understanding that sex workers’ rights are human rights and a feminist issue. The two-week campaign was designed to start conversations, offer resources and encourage solidarity for sex workers and sex workers’ rights through social media.
Due to the common misconception that all sex workers are victims of trafficking or exploitation, one of the fact sheets the campaign shared addressed this conflation: ‘Sex Work versus ‘Sex Trafficking’ and understanding the difference. While I was not directly involved in producing this fact sheet, it was heartening to see that the ‘Sex work, Exploitation and Migration/Mobility Model’ that I had helped to design along with my colleagues Becky Walker and Alex Etchart had been included:
We developed this model in order to shift the sex work, migration, and human trafficking discourse in South Africa to a more productive and inclusive space. To learn more about the empirical studies that helped inform this model read our Anti-Trafficking Review journal article; ‘Sex Work, Migration, and Human Trafficking in South Africa: From polarised arguments to potential partnerships’.
*Count Me In! is a special joint initiative led by Mama Cash, including the sex worker-led Red Umbrella Fund (RUF), together with the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID), Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action (CREA), Just Associates (JASS), the Urgent Action Fund – Africa (representing its sister funds in the US and Latin America), and the Dutch gender platform WO=MEN as strategic partner.
