Criminalization, immigration status, and stigma have stood between im/migrant women and the care they deserve for far too long. In the weeks leading up to GivingTuesday, we’ll share more about the challenges women face and the innovative programs SWAN is providing to close gaps in healthcare access.

The im/migrant women we support rarely experience trafficking, but they're often targets of anti-trafficking enforcement and misinformation campaigns, which perpetuate their marginalization and impact their safety.

LEARN MORE: swanvancouver.ca/resource/critical-anti-trafficking-repository/

But governments continue to pour funding into policing and large mainstream organizations that don’t provide direct support to affected communities, and create a moral panic as they focus solely on public campaigns and media coverage.

Many of the groups leading evidence-based anti-trafficking work are grassroots, community-based, and frontline — sex work organizations, labour and migrant rights groups, as well as Indigenous and harm reduction service providers.

"The women who work here are not forced to do anything [...] if they want to leave, they can leave anytime." @swan-vancouver.bsky.social showed women Canadian news stories about sex work, which was often conflated with human trafficking. Here's what they said: swanvancouver.ca/resource/cur...

The Washington Post reports that the woman arrested was born into poverty in South Korea and was a sex worker for years before becoming a madam. She screened clients, workers kept half the proceeds of services and they were allowed to refuse any services. www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/...

“Despite many of the sex workers involved being Asian—a fact that greatly increases the odds of a prostitution bust being called a 'human trafficking sting'—news reports have largely refrained from trying to portray the women involved as hapless victims of sexual servitude.” - @enbrown.bsky.social