Open AccessTime to Turn Up the Volume
Author(s) -
Nadia van der Linde
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
anti trafficking review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2287-0113
pISSN - 2286-7511
DOI - 10.14197/atr.2012191213
Subject(s) - session (web analytics) , sex work , sex workers , panel discussion , social work , work (physics) , public relations , human rights , political science , service (business) , sociology , law , business , advertising , marketing , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , engineering , medicine , mechanical engineering , population , demography , family medicine , research methodology
I remember my first self-organised donor panel well. It was at the Global Social Change Philanthropy Conference in Washington, DC in 2013. I had just started work as the first coordinator of the Red Umbrella Fund—the newly established fund for and by sex workers. I organised a session that would clarify the distinction between sex work and human trafficking and emphasise the need to fund sex worker organising. We had a strong panel: an awesome sex worker activist, a knowledgeable academic, a passionate service provider, and a committed funder. I was, however, in for a rude awakening: even though the line-up was great, the audience was scarce. I thought to myself, if we can’t even get funders to show up and learn about sex workers’ rights, how will we ever meet the needs of sex worker organisations fighting for their basic human rights?