Many in our industry cannot access basic banking or financial services due to stigma and discrimination. Accounts, including FSC’s own, are routinely threatened or closed with no warning – or denied altogether. 

Securing access to banking means that workers control their own finances, rather than third-parties, and businesses can operate securely, as tax-paying members of society. Banks should not be in a position to deny people access to basic needs or chill Constitutionally-protected speech.

Have you Experienced Banking Discrimination?

Importance of Banking Access in Ending Human Trafficking

Cutting off a victim’s access to economic resources can even be more effective than the more overt methods of force. Without access to banking, legal adult industry workers must hand over financial control to someone who could exploit them. 

• Earnings can be stolen or withheld with no legal recourse

• Establishing credit and building equity are impossible. 

• Established accounts provide attack vector for malicious actors

Because access to existing financial services accounts can be weaponized, legal participants in the adult industry have become subject to extortion by those who report the nature of their income to banks and financial services providers, causing them to lose accounts. In 2018, there was a coordinated terrorization campaign by members of the “incel” community to report performers to PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, Amazon Pay, Stripe, Circle Pay, Snapchat, Kik, and even the IRS in order to intimidate and harass them.

Ensuring access to banking not only helps prevent trafficking and exploitation, it’s an integral part of catching and prosecuting traffickers when crimes are committed. Financial evidence is key to identifying additional victims and perpetrators, corroborating testimonial evidence, and proving coercion.

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