“Would you want to do it?” they’ll ask if you’re not a sex worker. “Would you want your daughter doing it?”, they’ll ask if you are. It’s tempting to get defensive and snap back “I love sex work!”. It will get you nowhere. Being degraded is a subjective experience and without doubt some sex workers find the job revolting. Instead you can ask, “are we less degraded if we have to beg or skip meals to feed our children?”

3. So many women are trafficked

Denying the existence of trafficking is both disingenuous and exclusionary to those who most need support. However, it’s fair to say that sex trafficking statistics are frequently exaggerated. A widely touted claim that 80% of sex workers are trafficked is not credible. The most comprehensive and reliable research on migrants in the UK sex industry found instead that around 6% of its female sample “felt that they had been deceived and forced into selling sex”. Crucially, many said they prefer working in the sex industry rather than the “unrewarding and sometimes exploitative conditions they meet in non-sexual jobs”.

Again, facts may help: there is no evidence that the Nordic Model decreases trafficking. A 2014 report by the Swedish police found no reduction in trafficking in the country after fifteen years of a ‘sex buyer’ law. Conversely, New Zealand, which decriminalised sex work in 2003, has not become a hot bed of trafficking. According to the US State Department's 2019 Trafficking in Persons report, New Zealand is in the lowest possible global ranking for trafficking.

Determined campaigning by sex workers in the Global South has furthermore uncovered how anti-trafficking measures frequently serve as smokescreens for racist, anti-immigration policies. They are primarily used to prevent women crossing national boundaries in search of a better life.

Research from Thailand’s national sex worker organisation, Empower, shows the harm caused by anti-trafficking operations. They estimate that for every person classified as a victim of trafficking in Thailand, around six to eight non-trafficked migrant sex workers are arrested, detained and deported.

They also argue that racist stereotypes of sex workers as poor oppressed victims should be unpicked.