Survivors Manifesto

Survivors of Prostitution and Trafficking Manifesto

The global sex industry makes more money than the illegal gun and drug trade combined. It doesn't need anyone's support or defence - but all over the world the most vulnerable women and children do.

Download the document below to hear the voices of those who have survived this terrible "industry".

Why are we here in the priveleged West so quick to believe that all those involved in prostitution are loving it and that our only concern should be how to keep them there? We do not apply similar arguments to those men who are involved in harmful or forced labour - we don't talk about immigrant men working for gang masters in the agricultural trade for example and say that they must love working from dawn till dusk in appalling conditions and sleeping in substandard overcrowded housing for next to nothing in payment... We don't glamourise what they do and fight for their right to do it. We rightly condemn poverty wages and those people who exploit desperation by paying practically nothing to those who have nothing.... We on the left work for a better world where that does not happen.

Prostitution depends on a social belief that men have a right to buy women and children for sex. This is a symptom of an unequal society. Yet a vocal minority of people seem to have no vision of a different world, and too many people are quick to believe their narrow and reactionary view. Whatever happened to 'another world is possible'?

Imagine if men stopped believing these myths.