Day of No Sexploitation 2021
What is the Day of No Sexploitation?
Since 2002, October 5th has been observed every year as International Day of No Prostitution since 2002. It was started in Australia and the U.S. but now the day is observed across the globe. What started as a day of remembrance for women who have lost their lives in the sex trade, this day marks significant actions where organizations from around the globe have risen up to combat the sex trade. In Canada, our sisters at Asian Women for Equality observe this day to celebrate it’s accomplishment of winning Canadian laws that decriminalize prostituted women. In the Philippines, CATW-AP staged a rally at the Quezon City Memorial Circle where over 300 women’s rights advocates urged the government to repeal pro-prostitution laws. In Australia, the International Day of No Prostitution Conference was held where workshops on activism and supporting women to leave prostitution were convened.
As anti-imperialist transnational feminists, we staunchly combat the neoliberal narrative and understand the sex trade as a historical process of global exploitative systems that intersects with women’s oppression. In combating the expansion of the sex trade, we learn from the women of our ancestral homelands and study the stories of our foremothers who had to bear the brunt of occupation and war. These lessons reveal the striking similarity of the current conditions that relegate women’s bodies as private property, a site of conquest for colonizers. The racialized and gendered colonial legacy continues today as we see survivors of the sex trade seeking justice. From military expansion projects to the direct funding of international sex trade expansionist groups, we must fight the commodification of women’s bodies across countries and domestically.
This is why we as AF3IRM have decided to move beyond “International Day of No Prostitution” and expand the conversation to include the global sex trade with commemorating October 5th as International Day of No Sexploitation. We define “sexploitation” as the following:
“The sexual corporatization that processes profit generation, whereby the bodies of the female and feminized, the poor, powerless and vulnerable become labor, commodity and factory all in one.”
Please read below for a collection of responses and reflections centered on what a world without exploitation looks like…
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Rape wouldn’t be a coming of age ceremony.
A dog call wouldn’t indicate being a woman.
A world with women’s liberation looks like freedom, finally.
A world where women are truly liberated looks like a world where women and trans women no longer have to live in fear and they can be free from misogynistic, racial, capitalist violence that has been forced upon them.
It is a world where all women, domestic and transnational, are able to lead the lives they were destined for, liberated from all forms of exploitation.
It is a world that allows us to flourish in the ways we genuinely wish to, completely free of coercion of any form.
Where if we make a choice from a lack of good choices, that is not seen as “resilient.”
It is a world where we no longer have to give up a part of ourselves in order to survive, but instead, we are able to be complete and full beings, guided by radical love and grounded in revolutionary joy.
It is a world where I feel truly held by my community without the threat of violence. It is a world where my sisters and siblings feel at peace.
It is a world worth militantly fighting for, no matter what that fight entails. And most importantly, it is a world that will be ours if we dedicate ourselves to it.
Silent cries and dry screams. My heart is heavy, my eyes squeezed shut, and my legs lay open…
Every day I fight repressed memories; I struggle to find validity in my own experiences because of the way that patriarchy has marred my understanding of myself and my self worth.
The body never forgets.
I am proud to be a woman but I fear the thought of being a mother. Of raising a daughter into a world that has shown me so much pain.
When I envision a world without sexploitation I see a world in which women of all shapes, colors, and identities are able to live in solidarity and community as humans.
Our bodies are not commodified for the mere pleasure of buyers and sellers who see us for our anatomy and not our being.
Our words and opinions are listened to and respected. We have control over our own bodies…
I think about how patriarchy has hurt me and it haunts me daily. I think about how patriarchy is finite and can be ended, and that heals me.
A world where women are free is a world where everyone is free. A world where women are free is a world without borders, without police, without scarcity. A world where women are free is a world of abundance.
A world where women are free allows young girls to dream and imagine freely without fear of oppression.
This would allow them to laugh and be creative through joy.
Where my love is not sacrificial but in abundance.
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Thank you.
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