House overwhelmingly passes a bill that conflates sex work and sex trafficking (ThinkProgress)

Read the full article by Casey Quinlan on ThingProgress.com 

The House bill (FOSTA), which claims to protect trafficking victims, would only place sex workers in more dangerous situations.

[...]

Kate D’Adamo, a partner with Reframe Health and Justice, a consulting collective focused on economic justice and public health, said sex workers often use online platforms for harm reduction.

“When I was an organizer, we had a listserv where we sent out information about violent clients so people could screen for violence,” she said. “That doesn’t exist if you curtailed anything related to the facilitation of prostitution. Any harm reduction and screening posted online would be subjected to a federal crime punishable by 10 years.”

D’Adamo explained that when sex workers can go online to find clients, they are less vulnerable to violence than if they did so on the street. When sex workers are more worried about law enforcement attention, they seek out more isolated areas to work and as a result, they experience more violence.