Sorry to hear about this incident, Anna, but it is to be expected in Sweden, unfortunately. I agree with what’s been said. I hope the university administration takes a sound approach based on academic freedom. It is not the purpose of academia or the conference to align with a specific Swedish policy or that of one singular organization. Organizations who disapprove of its thematic do not have to attend! It really sucks that any event trying to further sex work related knowledge has to be sidetracked by stupid complaints such as these. It takes so much effort to deal with, if one chooses to engage…
On Thursday, February 27, 2025, Vuolajarvi,N <N.Vuolajarvi@lse.ac.uk> wrote:Thank you Petra and Ines for the great advice!! Anna this happens to everyone who tries to organize something around sex work in Sweden. It is quite unbelievable, we have seen many events cancelled or locations changed because of this. Let us know if there are any other ways we can support you!
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From: Ines Anttila <inesanohni@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 27, 2025 3:14:33 PM
To: Anna Ratecka <anna.ratecka@sh.se>
Cc: Charlotta Holmström via Fosme <fosme@lists.sunet.se>
Subject: [Fosme] Re: please help!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@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?
BestAnna_________________
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Ines Anttila
MSc Sociology | Researcher
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