Photo credit: Elene Lam

Sex workers gathered at City Hall in Toronto to fight for their rights

Last month, an Atlanta man made the violent choice to kill eight people and wound another in a targeted shooting of three spas in the area. This hate crime, rooted in misogyny, conservative religious beliefs, and racism, sheds light on the racist fetishization of Asian women.

One person who is working to combat those things is Elene Lam, the Founder and Executive Director of Butterfly, a support network for Asian and migrant sex workers in Toronto.

Before coming to Canada, Lam had experience working with sex workers, and so when she came here she was able to quickly identify a gap in advocacy. Where she saw that other sex workers had organization and a voice, Asian and migrant sex workers had none. She cites language barriers, varying legal statuses, and racism as some of the drivers of the isolation of Asian and migrant sex workers, as well as the fact that many work in parlours and hotels, limiting access to additional business and income. 

“We saw [that] so many sex workers are so well organized and so powerful,” says Lam on her motivation to start Butterfly, “but we found that the Asian and migrant sex workers are still being targeted, and the people in massage parlour [are] still being harassed or even arrested.”

“We need [to] better the collective power and leadership in the community,” continues Lam. According to her, the main mission of Butterfly is to provide organization and leadership to migrant sex workers, who can then support each other and advocate for their rights.

Butterfly works on a number of levels, all focused around filling gaps and removing barriers so that Asian and migrant sex workers can take the lead in their own advocacy and rights.

“The first level is doing the groundwork,” says Lam. “Including going to the workplace of the sex workers. We also have crisis support for rape or assault… so that they can support each other.”

The next level is an information hotline “so they can reach out and get the information about this work, [and] translate all the law and policy to help the people to know about [their] rights.”

Next comes training and capacity building, including helping overcome language barriers and training in anti-racism and community organizing, providing them with the tools to speak confidently for themselves.

“Many workers are not able to participate in the movement because of the language barrier,” says Lam. “That’s why we also try to remove those barriers, and then the people can organize and do collective work and support each other.”

The final layer is public awareness and advocacy, including using social media for public education as well as political lobbying. The lobbying efforts Butterfly has participated in speak to specific safety and policy needs for Asian and migrant sex workers, like giving them the right to lock the doors in massage parlours in the City of Toronto.

The most important thing for Lam is that the work Butterfly does is grassroots, following the leadership of the sex workers as they express their needs. She is pushing against harmful assumptions about women and Asian women in particular: “The whole discourse assumes the woman is naive, ignorant, and needs to be rescued,” says Lam. “That is extremely harmful to those sex workers, but they also re-affirm the sexist and racist ideology of Asian women, that they should be special, and they should not be should not be involved in sex work.”

Lam believes that it is anti-sex work sentiments like this—including anti-trafficking movements that cause violence for sex workers in general—allow Asian women to be perceived as victims.

While the shooting in Atlanta was a high-profile and deeply tragic event, Lam emphasizes that it was not isolated. 

“We know that it is not only in the US, but also in Canada…being targeted because of their race, being targeted because [they’re] doing massage or sex work.”

If you want to support the work that Butterfly is doing, Lam has specific requests: “sign the declaration to support migrant sex workers! It’s so important that we see more people have this very clear vision and are strong to support the sex worker movement. Please, not only sign it but also share it on social media and find your friends to support it.”

Butterfly is also hosting an online exhibition on April 25th called In Addition: 5+ Years of Grassroots Power with Butterfly, which will include opportunities for participatory action.

Additionally, you can call or email your MP, MPP, and City Councillor to tell them that you care about migrant sex workers’ rights, and that you want to see the calls to action listed in the declaration happen in your city.