I can't celebrate International Women's Day until ...

Survivor Rebecca Mott has a powerful new post about International Women’s Day up on her blog.  She says she can’t celebrate International Women’s Day until trafficking/prostitution becomes a central issue in the women’s movement, not a sidebar.   She can’t celebrate until survivors are allowed to lead the anti-trafficking movement.   Many survivors feel the same.  Here’s an excerpt of her ice clear post:

I cannot celebrate as prostitution and violence inside porn becomes just an appendix to the feminist revolution – or our lives and truths are just viewed as a terrible example, but ignored for it’s too big to deal with.

I cannot celebrate when always voices of amazing exited women are side-lined in the campaign for abolition – our voices are made statistics, made part of some academic book, used as quotes – we are spoken over, spoken through, and spoken around.

I cannot celebrate until the abolitionist movement put the voices and writings of exited women in a leadership role – we are not your token prostitute, we will not be treated like pets.

I cannot celebrate as every day I feel in my gut what is happening in hotels, in flats, on the streets – that so many walk pass and say is normal.

…..

I cannot celebrate when all round images of the prostitutes are just the happy hooker or the dead victim – there is no reality to these images, and they drown out any truths spoken.

I will celebrate IWD – when all prostituted women and girls have complete freedom, are give a voice, and are made fully human.

I cannot celebrate until then.

Read more of this post at Rebecca’s blog.

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