Organizing for Sex Workers Rights in Montral: Resistance and Advocacy

(Hardback)

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Description

This book is based on a case study about Stella, lamie de Maimie a Montral sex workers' rights organization, founded by and for sex workers. It explores how a group of ostracized female-identified sex workers transformed themselves into a collective to promote the health and well-being of women working in the sex industry. Weighed down by the old and tenacious whore symbol, the sex workers at Stella had to find a way to navigate the criminality of sex work and sex workers, in order to do advocacy and support work, and create safer spaces for sex workers to engage in such advocacy. This book focuses on sex workers, but the advocacy challenges and strategies it outlines can also apply to the lives of other marginalized groups who are often ignored, pitied, or reviled, but who are seldom seen as fully human.

Reviews

In Organizing for sex workers' rights in Montreal: Resistance and Advocacy, Francine Tremblay takes readers through a journey of struggle and perseverance to explain the juxtaposition of sex workers and the labor economy. She masterfully weaves the narratives of sex workers with rich historical context of Montreal's sex-workers' rights movement. Tremblay highlights the commonalities between sex work and other occupations. She is unapologetic in her critique of prohibitionists and illustrates the struggle to legitimize, decriminalize and protect sex workers. It is evident that in her work she aims to protect the sex worker community as a whole and the families who love and support them.

Author Bio

Francine Tremblay teaches at Concordia University.