4:14 p.m.
Dear Anna,
I am very sorry that you have to experience this.
Before sharing some points that you might raise in your response (which, by
the way, you are not obliged to provide, nor is the university), I can put
Child X in context by sharing that Swedish Amnesty recently changed their
'decriminalisation' position thanks to the person who is employed by Child
X, who submitted a motion at their general meeting after becoming a member
shortly before the annual gathering, together with other persons associated
with Child X. Other information is probably not suitable for an email
format, those that I acquired while working at RFSL Stockholm.
Sex 'work' is not used in terms of legality but in terms of informal labor
being performed by persons. This is an academic context where labor and
other regulations are not needed in exploring the phenomenon, similar to
exploring household labor (in Swedish, *hushållsarbete*), which is not
recognized as an occupation and where exploitation might happen as well.
Playing dumb by stating that this is outside of the context of Child X's
work and expertise, which is focused on trafficking for commercial sexual
exploitation of children. You are sorry that they misunderstood that this
is something relevant to their area, as it covers subjects beyond their
competence, such as an academic approach to 'sex work' concept, as well as
what other organizations focus on, the adults who sell sex who are not
children and not trafficked. An example is RFSL, which uses ‘sex work’ in
their *principprogram*, or internationally, the World Health Organization,
Transgender Europe, and ILGA. You are ‘decentering debate’ by focusing on
these queer perspectives as they are, and you approach it as an academic.
You empathize with their struggle and focus on exploitation and violence
within the context where the selling of sexual services is involved, just
as you empathize with those who focus on sexual exploitation and violence
within 'homes' (domestic violence), which, according to national
statistics, is the place where the highest number of sexual exploitation
cases occur.
Playing low, you can say that this exact perspective of theirs is what you
are trying to achieve with this conference—developing and decentering the
debate, partly also outside of the ‘sex work’ context and closer to sexual
exploitation. If it turns out that you have not received applications
focusing on this area, you can always clarify later, if and when they see
the program, that there were simply no submissions of that type. Also, this
is an international conference that focuses on different state contexts,
not just Sweden and the abolitionist perspective.
Mvh,
Ines
On Thu, Feb 27, 2025 at 3:17 PM Anna Ratecka via Fosme <fosme(a)lists.sunet.se>
wrote:
Dears,
the rektor of Södertorn University has received a letter form Childx
organization complaining about the title of the conference I am organizing
in May. They attack the use of sex work as contributing to harms of women
selling sex.
This is a citation form the letter:
*Begreppet sex worker (sexarbetare) har etablerats av sexindustrin och
senare fått fäste inom vissa akademiska och aktivistiska kretsar, och är en
term som rymmer normativa implikationer. Termen kan ge intrycket av att
prostitution är ett arbete jämställt med andra yrken, trots att svensk lag
och policy – genom sexköpslagen och den abolitionistiska hållningen –
tydligt markerar att prostitution inte ska betraktas som legitimt arbete
utan som en form av exploatering och våld. *
My supervisor supports me but I have to prepare a very well formulated
response. You have definitely more knowledge about how the Swedish context
work, do you have any ideas how to best address it?
Best
Anna
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*Ines Anttila*
*MSc Sociology | Researcher*
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