We fight for sex workers’ rights. This is what solidarity looks like

Over 300 migrant sex workers took on city hall to keep their businesses, showing the power of collective organising

In the past several years, there has been a surge in anti-migrant rallies, racist policies and anti-rights movements, alongside a broader pushback against diversity, equity, decolonisation, and inclusion.

These forces promote racism, xenophobia, transphobia, nationalism, colonialism, and imperialism. Racialised and low-income communities, especially migrants, are being further scapegoated: not only blamed, but also criminalised, arrested, detained, incarcerated, and deported. All this fuels the expansion of state violence and intensifies marginalisation and oppression.

At the same time, fascism, right-wing nationalism, and imperialism are gaining ground both in the US and globally. This lurch to the right is creating widespread frustration and fear that erode hope and collective power. In such difficult times, building collective strength – rooted in love, care, and mutual support – is all the more vital.

This article shares the experiences of Asian migrant sex workers organising in Canada. Despite being targeted, marginalised, and criminalised, they continue to resist and build power. Their ongoing solidarity and collective action offer powerful insights into movement building and grassroots resistance.

Self-organising by criminalised people

At the heart of the migrant sex worker movement is the self-organisation of migrant sex workers themselves. A successful movement requires members who feel a sense of their own collective power. This is especially critical for communities that are hyper-criminalised, as migrant sex workers are.

Butterfly (Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Support Network) is one such organisation based in Toronto, Canada. Over the past ten years, Butterfly has connected with more than 5,000 Asian migrant sex workers across Canada and supported building Asian migrant sex worker organising in the US through training and capacity building. It has built a community rooted in love and care, where food, warmth and mutual support are central.

Many workers describe Butterfly as a home – a place to rest, connect and build collective power. Community outreach is a core strategy. Even during Canadian winters, where the temperature can drop below -20 Celsius, outreach teams visit workplaces door-to-door to ensure that no worker is left isolated. A 24-hour hotline offers emergency support to workers facing violence or in need of urgent health or legal assistance.

Beyond crisis response, Butterfly creates joyful and nurturing spaces. It offers community dinners, day trips for workers who rarely get time off, and even support for organising weddings or funerals. Many workers view Butterfly not just as a community organisation, but as family.

300 workers mobilised at city hall in the largest show of power by migrant sex and massage workers in Canadian history

For Butterfly, community building is not charity – it’s mutual aid. It is a political act of resistance rooted in collective care. Butterfly links individual struggles to systemic issues such as racism, xenophobia, and transphobia, while organising the community for advocacy and collective action. It builds capacity and leadership by offering English classes, anti-oppression education, and advocacy training. Migrant sex workers are not seen as passive recipients of services, but as agents of change fighting for their own rights. This work also includes training service providers, removing policy participation barriers, and advocating for systemic change.

A grassroots, family-based model

Butterfly is organised by and for Asian migrant sex workers. It has a Global South-style organising model, where members are welcomed like family, with mutual care and support as the foundation. Members are encouraged to focus on collective rather than individual goals, and to practice tolerance in managing disagreements. This strengthens solidarity.

With extremely limited power and a very small budget, Butterfly prioritises its members. In its early stages, it did not seek immediate inclusion in broader political coalitions. Starting small allowed it to be flexible, creative, and avoid bureaucratic entrenchment. Members had high levels of involvement and agency, which helped them define their own priorities, relationships, culture, and strategy.

Butterfly also documented anonymised member stories to raise awareness about the realities of migrant sex workers and help allies understand their struggles and resistance.

Creative resistance: the 2019 massage business crackdown

In 2019, the City of Toronto harassed and threatened to shut down its ‘holistic centres’ which are massage businesses mainly staffed by Asian non-registered massage providers – some of whom provide sexual services and most who do not. This move was driven by anti-sex work stigma, and it would have ended the livelihoods of the overwhelmingly Asian migrants who staff these establishments.

For criminalised, racialised migrants, public action carries serious risks. Despite this, workers responded with an outburst of creative organisation. At a Chinatown cultural festival, for example, Butterfly members ran a booth offering massage services – turning the act into a protest and storytelling platform. They collected over 400 petition signatures to protect their workplaces.

Later that year, 300 workers mobilised at city hall, supported by over 100 allies from migrant rights, racial justice, LGBTQ+, labour, and feminist organisations. It was the largest show of power by migrant sex and massage workers in Canadian history.

As of 2025, Toronto’s massage businesses remain open, and harassment by city officials and inspectors has significantly decreased, though the bylaw continues to pose challenges. Their success has inspired workers in other Ontario cities like Newmarket, London, Richmond Hill, and Markham to organise and defend their rights.

Butterfly’s three levels of transformation

Butterfly aims to cultivate:

1. A heightened sense of personal power and autonomy.
2. A shared collective identity. Members who proudly say, “we are Butterfly."
3. A sense of belonging to a broader movement – with members participating in wider campaigns for migrant, gender, and labour justice.

Butterfly approaches strategy one step at a time, meaning our goals are not necessarily long-term. Decisions are organic, responsive, and members approach each new crisis as an opportunity to mobilise and organise. Butterfly also supports other migrant sex worker groups, such as the Massage Parlor Outreach Project in Seattle and Red Canary Song in New York City, and advises them on campaigns.

Building enough solidarity

After a year or so of strengthening their internal organising, Butterfly began engaging with external allies – especially those working on labour and migrant rights – to discuss collaborations and campaigns. By sharing experiences, migrant workers from different sectors identified shared struggles. This helped bridge the gap between migrant sex workers and other migrant labourers.

In the beginning, allies were asked to support migrant sex workers. Now, they’re asked to recognise them as comrades in a shared struggle

Not all potential allies were welcoming. Some in labour movements disapprove of sex work and push back against migrant sex worker leadership. The anti-Asian racism movement has often left migrant sex workers behind. For example, some organisers have opposed Butterfly members speaking at rallies and marches, saying they felt uncomfortable with their presence. Even some gender-based violence organisations which claim to support sex work, continue to back harmful anti-trafficking policies that increase the surveillance and criminalisation of sex workers. Butterfly continues to call on support from their allies, despite these obstacles.

Rather than reacting negatively, Butterfly tries to keep the focus on shared experiences. Whether they’re working in agriculture, domestic care or sex work, most migrant workers know what it’s like to be separated from family, and for most, the important part of their work is the income they are generating. Butterfly has joined coalitions focused on community and collective power, shifting the narrative and demanding inclusion. Groups like Canadian Alliance of Sex Work Law Reform, the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change and Chinese Canadian National Council (Toronto) played key roles in getting Butterfly into policy discussions, including at city hall.

Butterfly never works with just one group, because their members’ issues are intersectional. Allyship is built around those intersections. In the beginning, allies were asked to support migrant sex workers. Now, they’re asked to recognise them as comrades in a shared struggle. With the rise of the racist and anti-immigrant right-wing, solidarity has become even more urgent.

Growing an anti-racist sex workers’ rights movement

Asian voices are often missing from the mainstream sex workers’ rights movement as well. Racism and classism within the movement are real and harmful. Some white sex workers see Chinese sex workers charging $40 for a range of sexual services that white women can charge higher rates for, and accuse them of dragging rates down – or instead view them as victims of exploitation. But these rates reflect the reality of racialised labour hierarchies in the West, where immigrants are routinely paid less. For many migrants, that $40 is more than what they would have earned in a grocery store or factory in the same amount of time.

This internal division is a weakness that harms all sex workers. Anti-trafficking organisations, particularly carceral feminists, often exploit the absence of migrant voices to claim that they represent the interests of poor, racialised women when they call for more criminalisation and funding for anti-trafficking policies. These policies harm the very people they claim to protect. Addressing racism and classism within the movement is essential for unity and strength when fighting anti-sex work campaigns that cloak themselves in the language of women’s safety and equity.

Butterfly has worked with organisations such as Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform, Migrant Rights Network, Showing Up for Racial Justice and Worker Action Centre and others, to elevate migrant sex worker voices. This includes disseminating research, creating resource materials, and joining policy meetings. Today, many within the mainstream sex workers’, labour, migrant and gender-based violence movements (and others) acknowledge that migrant sex workers are disproportionately harmed by anti-trafficking laws.

Piece by piece, Butterfly has built solidarity within and across broader movements.

“Migrant sex workers are like matchsticks. Together they have the potential to become a massive fire that can burn the whole system down. Their creativity and fearlessness can transform society. People think that butterflies are small and insignificant. But because we are all interdependent, small changes can make a huge difference, taking us far from where we started. Change is not linear. By building solidarity, step by step, one person at a time, we can create the world we dream of—a new world where we never need to fight for justice for migrant sex workers”.

Not Your Rescue Project: Migrant Sex Workers Fighting for Justice

Cover photo: Hundreds of workers gathered for the May Day rally in New York in 2023, calling for stronger labour protections and safety nets. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images. All rights reserved

Text by Elene Lam, Chanelle Gallant

Elene Lam is the founder of Butterfly (Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Support Network) in Canada. She has fought for sex workers’, migrant, labour, racial, and gender justice for over 20 years. She is an Assistant Professor at the School of Social Work, York University. She is the co-author of Not Your Rescue Project: Migrant Sex Workers Fighting for Justice.

Chanelle Gallant is an abolitionist feminist who has been fighting to free women’s sexuality from criminalization for over 25 years. She is a movement writer, thinker, consultant and the co-author of Not Your Rescue Project: Migrant Sex Workers Fighting for Justice. Chanelle is currently a visiting Activist-Scholar at the Centre for Feminist Research at York University, Toronto.

Published 10 November 2025

Source portal opendemocracy.net