Sex work, migration and the Rescue Industry in Ottawa

My signature talk Sex at the Margins comes to Ottawa, which possibly will not look so white when I arrive in a few weeks. It is many years since I’ve been in any part of Canada and I have never visited Ottawa before. There are events in Montreal before this one. Please come meet me if you can, to talk about sex work, Rescue Work and the troubled relationship between them.

21 November 2011
1900-2100

University of Ottawa Law Library
Fauteux Hall Room 351
57 Louis Pasteur Private
Ottawa, Ontario K1N6N5   Map here

Free and open to the public. The talk will be in English, but you may ask questions in French if you like. Vegetarian snacks and beverages provided.

Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry

The Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa and Students for Sex Worker Rights are proud to host Laura Agustín, an internationally renowned sex worker rights advocate and an expert on undocumented migration and informal labour markets. She will be giving a talk based on her book, Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry.

Sex at the Margins questions several popular beliefs about migrants who sell sex: that they are all passive victims, that the job of selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín argues that the label ‘trafficked’ does not accurately describe most migrants and that a Rescue Industry  disempowers them. Based on extensive research amongst migrants who sell sex as well as social helpers, Sex at the Margins demonstrates how migration policy marginalises informal-sector workers and how anti-prostitution campaigns turn sex workers into casualties of globalisation.

–Laura Agustín, the Naked Anthropologist

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