In New Orleans, Calvin Duncan - a man who spent 30 years incarcerated for a murder conviction later vacated - has just been elected clerk of criminal court. His victory isn’t just historic; it’s a reminder that the people most harmed by the criminal legal system often understand its failures better than anyone else. 

Labor trafficking doesn’t always involve chains or cages. Sometimes it looks like contracts written in legalese, passports held just out of reach, or threats veiled as “rules.” It’s coercion in a cocktail dress. It’s violence dressed up as opportunity.

When it comes to “bad girls of the Bible,” Eve takes the crown as the original troublemaker. She’s the woman who - according to centuries of sermons, paintings, and pop theology - single-handedly ruined paradise.

Let’s skip the polite economic euphemisms and call this what it is: we are headed straight for the mountain, and the seatbelt light just came on. Inflation’s not cooling; it’s calcifying. Wages haven’t caught up, rent’s still a blood sport, groceries feel like luxury items, and if you’ve tried to buy a used car lately, you know it’s giving “end times barter system” vibes. 

Myth #10: Ending Demand Will End Sex Work “End demand” laws—often marketed under the more palatable name of the Nordic Model—are...

From city zoning boards to neighborhood watch meetings, sex work is often blamed for everything from falling property values to rising crime.

Heads up: this one’s messy, hard, and urgent. Charlie Kirk - 31, political firebrand and cofounder of Turning Point USA - was fatally shot at Utah Valley University while doing a Q&A about, of all things, gun violence. His last words to a crowd of 3,000 were literally “gun violence” before a single shot from a rooftop ended his life.

She was twelve the first time the bruises should have mattered. The teacher noticed. The nurse filed a report. A caseworker visited the...

Myth #4: Sex Workers Can Just “Get a Real Job” Reality: Many already have other jobs. Barriers like discrimination, criminal records,...

We want to give credit where it’s due: More To Her Story, a youth-led feminist platform, was one of the first to sound the alarm on a deeply disturbing change in the 2023 U.S. State Department Human Rights Reports - the complete erasure of any dedicated section on women’s rights.

This myth isn’t just about who people imagine when they hear the words “sex worker.” It reflects who feminism has historically chosen to see and who it has chosen to leave out.

Reality: Evidence from New Zealand and parts of Australia shows the opposite—decriminalization can improve safety, reduce exploitation, and increase cooperation with law enforcement for actual trafficking cases.

We bring you facts, figures, and context - not only so you can hold your own at the next policy meeting, but also so you can dismantle lazy arguments at the dinner table, on social media, or even in the comment section of that “concerned citizens” Facebook group your aunt keeps inviting you to.

With the 2026 FIFA World Cup coming to North America, it’s already shaping up to be the “new” Super Bowl for trafficking rhetoric, complete with recycled myths, inflated statistics, and the same cast of anti-trafficking organizations eager to cash in on the global spotlight.

This week, the national conversation once again spiraled around the so-called Epstein “client list.” The same question resurfaced:Where is it? Who’s on it? When will it be released? And just like every other time, the obsession with the list revealed more about the public’s craving for spectacle than their actual commitment to justice.

The sex worker rights movement has long explored how the public—and too often, the courts—struggle to grasp the realities of exploitation, especially when it hides behind wealth, consent, or celebrity. We’ve written about coercion, manipulation, and the blurry gray lines that survivors are expected to define in black and white.

On July 2, 2025, a Manhattan federal jury delivered a split verdict: Sean “Diddy” Combs was acquitted of racketeering and sex trafficking, but convicted on two counts under the Mann Act—transporting individuals across state lines for prostitution. The public reaction was swift and polarized. Some called it justice served; others saw it as yet another reminder that wealth and fame insulate men from real accountability.

When a certain child rescue organization—you know, the one whose name sounds like a Christian indie band—published their recent reflection titled “Mistakes happen in anti-trafficking work. We must learn from them,” a strange thing happened across the sex worker rights community.

Remember when tariffs were marketed as the golden ticket to economic salvation?

Good morning, Red Umbrella fam. Hope your coffee is strong and your boundaries stronger, because this weekend delivered a full-course meal of carceral nonsense, QAnon fever dreams, ICE agents crashing into elementary school zones, and a grown man throwing himself a military parade for his birthday.