Pornography and Prostitution: In Conversation with Gail Dines

September 2, 2021 by admin
Tagged culture reframed, debunkingsexwork, gail dines, pornhub, pornography, prostitution, sex work, trafficking, traffickinghub

Pornography and Prostitution: In Conversation with Gail Dines
#DebunkingSexWork

In spring 2021 Associazione Iroko Onlus organized a series of seminars entitled “Debunking sex work: conversations around prostitution”, bringing together various experts, survivors and activists from around the world. Every week two women explored the phenomenon of prostitution from a different perspective: from the links with trafficking and pornography, to language, current laws, and finally the policies needed to implement the abolitionist model.

The first session was hosted by Esohe Aghatise, who welcomed Gail Dines, professor of sociology and studies on women at Wheelock College in Boston and founder and president of Culture Reframed. For many years, Dines has been carrying out research on pornography and the sex industry and has been called “the world’s leading feminist anti-pornography activist” by The Guardian .

Debunking ‘sex work’ #5 The Role of the Buyer with Rachel Moran and Melissa Farley

June 15, 2021 by admin
Tagged abolitionism, abolitionist, buyer, debunking sex work, esohe aghatise, Melissa Farley, nordic model, prostitution, Rachel Moran, sex buyer, sex work

Join us once again this Thursday 17th June to hear our own Esohe Aghatise in conversation with Rachel Moran, author of Paid For: My Journey through Prostitution, executive director, feminist campaigner, founder of SPACE International and sex trade survivor, and Melissa Farley, psycologist, author, activist, founder of Prostitution Research & Education.

Their conversation will focus on:

Responsibility of buyers and demand for prostitution
Attitudes of buyers as barrier to equality
Shifting the focus from women onto men: changing mentalities

There will also be time for audience Q&A

See you at 6pm CET/ 12pm EDT on Zoom (where Italian interpretation will be available) or on our Facebook livestream (only in English)

https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ADrU6NnUS-6GrlbeHT-D7A

#DebunkingSexWork

Debunking ‘Sex Work’: Conversations about Prostitution May/June 2021

May 25, 2021 by admin
Tagged abolitionism, abolitionist model, debunking sex work, equality model, esohe aghatise, France, gail dines, italy, migration, modello abolizionista, nordic model, pornography, prostitution, sex work, sexual exploitation, trafficking, trauma

We are so excited to have kicked off our series of online events entitled Debunking ‘Sex Work’: Conversations about Prostitution! Last week saw conversation #1 hosted by our very own Esohe Aghatise, who talked to Gail Dines, PornlandAuthor and Founder and President of Culture Reframed, on the theme of Pornogrpahy and Prostitution. You can watch the recording of the event here.

Check out our event page on Facebook for updates on all of the exciting speakers that will join us from around the world each week.

This series continues every Thursday at 12 noon EDT / 5pm UK / 6pm CET until 1st July, so follow this link to sign up to watch on Zoom (with Italian translation available) or follow the event on Facebook Live!

Debunking ‘sex work’: Pornography and Prostitution

May 24, 2021 by admin
Tagged associazione iroko, esohe aghatise, gail dines, pornography, prostitution, sex work

We were thrilled with the response to the first in our series of online events entitled Debunking ‘sex work‘!

On Thursday 20th May our founder and director, Esohe Aghatise, was joined by the brilliant Gail Dines, Pornland Author and Founder and President of Culture Reframed. Their conversation touched on:

the overlaps between the pornography and prostitution
how women involved are affected
the trauma associated with being filmed
how they affect society as a whole

If you missed it, you can watch the event in full on Facebook.

Rachel Moran’s Book Recommendations

November 11, 2020 by admin
Tagged advice, exploitation, feminism, feminist, feminist books, feminists, Janice Raymond, Julie Bindel, kathleen barry, Paid for, pimp, prostitution, Rachel Moran, radical girlsss, reading list, sex work, sexual exploitation, sheila jeffreys, trafficking, trauma, violence, women, young women

In her interview with Radical Girlsss to mark the EU’s Anti-Trafficking Day 2020, Rachel Moran, whose own book Paid for: My Journey through Prostitution we consider a must-read for everybody, was asked about what advice she would give young women today. She talked about the modern challenges posed by social media and the way young women are constantly bombarded with images and messages about sexuality, as well as the importance of arming ourselves with information, learning from the feminists who have gone before us.

“We, all of us – young women and middle-aged women like myself – we need to respect our elders, and that’s something that I don’t see us doing often enough. Because there are women who’ve come before us, who have written extremely important texts and, honestly, if I had read – I’m not sure when Sheila Jeffreys’ The Idea of Prostitution was actually published, I think it might have been during the ‘90s. But I can tell you had I read that book before I got into prostitution, I wouldn’t have gone near prostitution. You know, because it lays out so very clearly the dynamics of what prostitution involves.

IROKO’s Statement on EU Anti-Trafficking day 2020

October 18, 2020 by admin
Tagged anti-trafficking day, criminalise demand, end demand, equality model, honeyball resolution, human trafficking, Iroko, nordic model, Palermo Protocol, prostitution, sex work, sexual exploitation

Associazione Iroko’s Statement on 18th October 2020, European Union Anti-Trafficking Day:
End Demand to End Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation

Human trafficking is, by its very nature, an extremely difficult phenomenon to measure, and the data on the number of identified victims inevitably gives an incomplete picture of the scale of the problem. Between 2017 and 2018, a total of 74,514 victims of trafficking were detected in over 110 countries. The US Department of State reports 105,7876 identified victims worldwide in 2019, showing a clear increase year on year. The estimated total number of victims is much higher, with the ILO putting it at more than 40 million in 2016. Trafficking disproportionately affects women and girls, who – according to UNODC data – represent 72% of detected victims of trafficking globally. Moreover, sexual exploitation is the predominant form of trafficking.

Given the scale of this problem, we have written a statement to mark the day and outline what the data and what our experience have taught us about trafficking for sexual exploitation and how it can be combatted.

Read the full statement.

Rosso Indelebile: Liliam Altuntas on Trafficking and Prostitution

October 8, 2020 by admin
Tagged Brazil, exploitation, gender-based violence, Liliam Altuntas, prostitution, resistenza femminista, sex work, trafficking, turin

For the second year in a row, Iroko was invited to participate in the event Rosso Indelebile (Indelible red), a series of artistic events, which took place in Turin and focused on the theme of gender-based violence. For two years Rosso Indelebile has brought art to various shared spaces around the city not usually designated as artistic locations. Similarly, the theme of gender-based violence is part of our everyday lives and “cannot be enclosed in an auditorium, but must be exposed and talked about by everyone”, by society, as highlighted by Isabella Bulgheroni, a member of the organisation Artemixia, one of the organisers of the event, in collaboration with the NGO MAIS. The aim of taking art onto the streets is to encourage people to ask themselves questions, and potentially find the answers, stimulating both the individual and the collective to try and see the world from different perspectives.

Gender-based violence, specifically, is a pressing issue, with a “war being fought around the world”, as defined by Esohe Aghatise, the president of Iroko. On 29th September Iroko participated in the 2020 installment, attending an event dedicated to migration flows and trafficking – details of which are here (in Italian) – and bringing the testimony of a survivor of trafficking and prostitution, Liliam Altuntas, who has told her story through the book of which she is the protagonist, I girasoli di Liliam’ (currently only available in Italian).

Global support for Parliamentary efforts in Germany to adopt the Equality Model

September 23, 2020 by admin
Tagged brothel, CATW, enomw, equality model, germany, human rights, human trafficking, Ingeborg Kraus, Liliam Altuntas, lockdown, nordic model, prostitution, Rachel Moran, sex industry, sex trafficking, sex work, sexual exploitation, survivors, trauma, violence, women

The Gloria Steinem Equality Fund to End Sex Trafficking, the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW), SPACE International and The Sisterhood is Global Institute have written this letter to express the global support for Parliamentary efforts in Germany to adopt the Equality Model. Associazione IROKO has signed the letter and we give our full support to efforts in Germany and around the world to recognise that “prostitution is not work but rather a very harmful and dehumanising system, which fuels the sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of women and girls”.

Liliam Altuntas, survivor of trafficking and prostitution, told IROKO “reading this letter has really made me happy, especially because Germany is a country that’s very close to my heart. Because when I was trafficked, I was sold and brought to Germany. Hearing that there are people who support and make way for this kind of legal change is really important to me. It would represent a real response to the suffering that we have endured, so I’m very happy to join this fight and I’m sure that we will win.”

We encourage our friends and supporters to read and sign the letter.

Click here to watch an interview with Dr. Ingeborg Kraus, conducted by ENoMW‘s Anna Zobnina, in May 2020 just after the publication of a letter signed by various German MPs calling for brothels to remain permanently closed after the coronavirus lockdown.

Ingeborg Kraus and Sandra Norak Video: The Failure of the German System of Prostitution

July 27, 2020 by admin
Tagged abolitionism, brothels, Dr Ingeborg Kraus, exploitation, financial exploitation, germany, human dignity, Ingeborg Kraus, nordic model, prostituion, prostitution, Sandra Norak, sex buyers, sex work, sexual exploitation

In 2020 IROKO partnered with Resistenza Femminista to host a series of webinars on the theme of prostitution and the abolitionist model. During the 5 webinars we had the pleasure to host various experts who gave us invaluable insights into the violence of prostitution and the particulars of the various laws that exists around the world. Among these were Dr. Ingeborg Kraus, activist and psychologist specialising in the trauma of prostitution, and Sandra Norak, a survivor activist. Ingeborg and Sandra created this video for us, which explains the failure of the system they have in Germany, where prostitution has been legal and regulated since 2002.

Marie Merklinger: the role of survivors in the fight against prostitution

July 23, 2020 by admin
Tagged sex work

“If there was nobody to buy women, no woman would think about selling the abuse of her body. I remember it quite well, the moment I decided to offer the abuse of my body and to sell this. And it really like crossing a border inside myself. I know now it was the first time I dissociated because it felt like I was changing the body, like I was watching myself crossing this border. And I felt it meant something. But I would never have crossed this border if there hadn’t been buyers, because that’s nothing you do just for fun. It has nothing to do with a fulfilled female sexuality.”

This is a quote from the testimony of Marie Merklinger, a German survivor of prostitution and activist with SPACE International, which she shared as part of our series of webinars entitled ‘Prostitution is Violence: Abolish the Oldest Oppression in the World’, which was organised by IROKO and Resistenza Femminista. She tells us about how she got into prostitution, the necessity of exit programmes for those who wish to get out of prostitution, and she explains why she promotes the Nordic Model as the best legislative system to combat sexual exploitation, to guarantee support to survivors. A necessary part of the model is the criminalisation of the buyers because the purchase of sex is a criminal act and should be punished, as exploitation is.

To hear the testimony of Rosen Hicher, a French survivor activist, click here.