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by Chanelle Gallant (Author), Elene Lam (Author), Harsha Walia (Foreword by)
A landmark abolitionist primer on migration, sex work, policing, and the "anti-trafficking industry"--and a powerful argument about who is really leading the way toward justice: migrant sex workers themselves.
In this impassioned corrective to decades of misguided, carceral approaches to migration and sex work, 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 the US, Canada, and elsewhere. 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.
Gallant and Lam illustrate how this movement is taking aim at the root causes of violence and abuse: the white supremacist securitization of borders, the criminalization of both migration and sex work, the patriarchial devaluation of women's labor, and forced displacement due to climate disaster, war, and poverty--all fueled by racial capitalism.
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. Throughout, Gallant and Lam place migrant sex workers at the center of struggles against border imperialism, carceral states, and capitalism--dispelling a range of poisonous myths and paving the way for deeper alliances across movements with the shared goal of dismantling and abolishing carceralism in all its forms.
Author Biography
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 Worker 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.
Chanelle Gallant is the eldest daughter of a poor single mother. She has been building movements that can protect the lives and liberation of poor and working class women and queers for 25 years. Chanelle is a movement writer, organizer, strategist and consultant whose writing has appeared in over a dozen books and publications. She co-founded the Migrant Sex Workers Project, SURJ-Toronto and has provided training and advocacy on sex work and racial justice, from city hall to the United Nations. Chanelle sits on the national board for Showing Up for Racial Justice and Catalyst Project and has helped to move millions into organizing through donor advising and grassroots fundraising. She holds an MA in Sociology and was a Lambda Literary Fellow. Find her at chanellegallant.com.
Harsha Walia is the award-winning author of Undoing Border Imperialism (2013) and Border and Rule (2021). Trained in the law, she is a community organizer and campaigner in migrant justice, anticapitalist, feminist, and anti-imperialist movements, including No One Is Illegal and Women's Memorial March Committee.
Robyn Maynard is an award-winning Black feminist scholar-activist based in Toronto and the author of Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present and co-author of Rehearsals for Living. She is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto and her writings on policing, feminism, abolition, and Black liberation are taught widely across North America and Europe.
