Rethink Resources

This is a picture of the screenprinted poster I made a few months ago (yay for Discovery World and the newest screenprinting equipment ever).

‘Rescue is for kittens’ is the title of the major paper I wrote to finish school. I imagine I’ll talk a lot here about the ideas I developed in that paper.

You hear a lot about “rescuing” youth in the sex trade from advocates and in research, governmental efforts, and media reports. While I empathize with the urgency and emotions expressed, I disagree with the philosophy behind this idea.

Rescuers pose youth as helpless and unwilling to defend themselves. Rescuers portray youth as unable to participate in efforts at community change - except to tell their stories. Rescuers focus on individual change and don’t address the systemic inequalities that youth deal with inside and out of the sex trade.

I believe we can be far more effective and helpful by working together as partners with youth; recognizing their knowledge, skills and ability to make change in their lives and our communities. We need serious changes in our whole communities to make a difference for youth in the sex trade.