What Ashton Kutcher represents for me, as a trafficking survivor, is exactly the problem with the global anti-trafficking movement today: paternalism and the trafficking savior complex.

clarawebbwillcutoffyourhead:

[Kutcher] discussed, ominously, how he had recently seen a video of a 7-year-old girl in Cambodia being raped. Search for his speech online, and shockingly, no one seems to have one word of criticism for the actor-turned-crusader. Kutcher, who has been championing the fight against sex trafficking for years now, has received little blowback over this speech — despite the fact that he was caught contradicting himself by (allegedly) coming out of a Thai massage parlor in December of 2015. And, according to his own admission, is somehow getting ahold of and watching what is essentially child snuff porn — and then crying about it to the senate, where he’s praised for his compassion.

Unlike Kutcher, I am a trafficking survivor. I have also come to the sex industry at various points of my own choosing and have worked as an escort, adult film performer and street-based sex worker. My identities and ties to the sex industries are neither cohesive nor straightforward. They are complex and non-binary.

What Kutcher represents for me, as a survivor, is exactly the problem with the global anti-trafficking movement today: paternalism and the trafficking savior complex. As a trafficking survivor attending multiple community based anti-trafficking task force meetings, coalition meetings and conferences on a regular basis, it has become abundantly clear to me that there might be — at most — one other trafficking survivor among potentially hundreds of people at these events. This is precisely why Kutcher is problematic.

If there is anything that third-wave, intersectional feminism has taught us, it is that representation matters. Why does it matter? Because without representation, access and inclusion, we are only reinforcing white male patriarchal supremacy. The key to dismantling these hegemonic systems of oppression when you are an ally to the cause and not a survivor is to step aside. Give up your platform and be willing to challenge your personal relationship to power and privilege as someone who has not experienced sexual exploitation.

What Ashton Kutcher represents for me, as a trafficking survivor, is exactly the problem with the global anti-trafficking movement today: paternalism and the trafficking savior complex.