Butterfly: Migrant Sex Worker Rights

Migration Conversations

Meet Elene Lam, the founder and executive director of Butterfly, an Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Support Network. The tragic deaths of six Asian women in Atlanta have highlighted the intersectional reasons why they were targeted and killed. Perceived as foreigner persons, migrants engaging in immoral and illegal work, fetishized women, and those contributing to the spread of the coronavirus, Butterfly advocates for the full decriminalization of sex work, for full status for migrant sex workers, for immigration laws to allow sex work to be recognized as work, and for no cops at workplaces, among other calls to action. Listen to Elene explain why her organization is part of an alliance of 25 sex worker organizations bringing a Charter challenge to the criminal laws affecting sex work, among other legal reforms.