Abstract: Drawing on Indigenous, queer, and other marginalized temporalities, this article challenges the positioning of exit as the only possible goal for women in the sex industry. It applies the concept of temporal discrimination to argue that the entry-to-exit imperative in Canadian anti-human trafficking reflects a linear temporality comprised of settler colonial, "clock time" understandings of progress and "civilization." We highlight the stories of four key participants, two of whom are Indigenous, to illustrate lived temporality in the sex industry. Their journeys demonstrate a mode of nonlinear temporal becoming that occurs on terms outside of the entry-to-exit imperative. The article identifies three common factors in how the women navigated violence through the exercise of tactical agency: self-reliance, the use of informal supports, and dealing with stigmatization. These three factors point toward key principles for service provision that honor agency and self-determination. This provides for socially just and effective supports that align with lived experience. We further identify the need for a stronger policy focus on dismantling structural violence, including colonialism, and ensuring the delivery of supports to all persons in the sex industry, not just those deemed to have been trafficked or seeking exit.
Nagy et al. (Thu,) studied this question.