While there has been growing awareness over the last decade as to the urgency to address trafficking for sexual exploitation and exploitation within the sex-industry, advocates have not always agreed on the most appropriate approach to tackle it. Debates are played out and amplified by media stories, backing the prevalence of dominating discourses.
The conference intends to be a forum for the effectiveness of such approaches to be discussed and for their complementarities to be explored. It will bring together speakers from the policy, academic and NGO fields to examine current efforts to counteract the trafficking and exploitation of migrant sex workers. Plenary discussions will be followed by three workshops which you may sign-up for in advance.
The event has been put together by CAWN and Frauensolidaritäet as part of their current project, “Women’s rights, social inclusion and the media” funded by the European Commission. If you would like to attend, please RSVP to campaigns@cawn.org by 18th April.
The day's itinerary is as follows:
- 10.00 - 10.15 Registration
- 10.15 - 10.20 Introduction: Why a forum on exploitation and trafficking in the UK sex industry, by Marilyn Thomson (Central America Women's Network co-director)
- 10.20 - 11.30 Plenary 1:The exploitation spectrum: current approaches to tackle exploitation and
- trafficking of migrant sex workers, by Julia O’Connell Davidson (Professor of Sociology at the University of Nottingham) and Baroness Mary Goudy (APPG Human Trafficking)
- 11.30- 11.45 Tea break
- 11.45 - 13.00 Plenary 2: Media and campaigns' representations of exploited and trafficked women by
- Rutvica Andrijasevic (Lecturer at University of Leicester), second speaker TBC
- 13.00 – 13.45 Lunch and refreshments
- 13.45 - 15.15 Workshops: The use of media in Nicaragua to advocate for women's rights, facilitated by Central American women right's activists Yamileth Chavarria and Helen Dixon; Trafficking and exploitation in Southern Africa: stories from the ground, facilitators TBC; Global events: examining some connections between women's exploitation and the Olympics facilitated by Anti-Slavery International and x:talk
- 15.15 – 15.30 Tea break
- 15.30 - 16.15 Workshops' facilitators panel
- 16.15 - 16.30 Conclusions: Latin American migrant women sex-workers in the UK, by Carolina Gottardo (Latin American Women's Rights Service Director)
