Local Sex Workers and Allies Respond to Cambridge/Watertown Brothel Case 

For Immediate Release: March 27, 2025 

Contact: bostonswac@gmail.com 

We the Boston Sex Workers and Allies Collective, a group of active and former sex workers, sex trafficking survivors, and allies advocating for the health and wellbeing of sex workers in Massachusetts, are speaking up in response to the recent naming of alleged clients of the Cambridge/Watertown brothels, including Cambridge City Councilor Paul Toner. We caution the public and the press against making assumptions about the women who worked in these brothels and their circumstances based on the limited information available. These women’s voices have so far been absent from the details provided to the public, making it difficult to ascertain whether this was a case of sex trafficking or of consensual sex work. 

The international definition of human trafficking requires an element of force, fraud, or coercion. Evidence from the official affidavit is unclear on whether these elements were present in this particular case; it does not say that the women were forced, prevented from leaving, or threatened. It does mention some concerning details that suggest exploitative conditions, such as the women not being allowed to negotiate their services and prices directly with clients, and the availability of services without a condom. Other details that have been used to suggest trafficking are more dubious; the affidavit notes that the brothel owner locked the door to the apartment when leaving, but it does not indicate that the women could not simply unlock the door from the inside (as is the case in most apartments). The charges that Han Lee, the brothel manager, pled guilty to are not equivalent to sex trafficking, but rather involve recruiting people to travel for prostitution, which may or may not have been consensual. 

The lawyer for Han Lee has indicated that Lee herself was a sex worker in the brothel network and that the other sex workers were well paid, well treated, and able to turn down work when they wished. Worryingly, sex workers are often charged with sex trafficking when they attempt to work together for safety. We need to hear testimony from the women themselves in order to know whether they were working freely or under duress. These women may also be facing pressure by federal agents to either testify that they were being trafficked or face deportation. Unfortunately, federal prosecutors, the media, lawmakers, and even advocacy groups often conflate trafficking with consensual sex work, making it difficult for the public to understand the differences. 

People all over the world choose sex work in order to improve their standard of living, and some migrate across borders to do so. Sex work typically pays better than other forms of work available to immigrants, enabling them to send remittances home to their families or save up to start a better life. Criminalizing either party – worker or client – involved in commercial sex makes everyone less safe, as it prevents the reporting of violence and abuse to law enforcement. Criminalization especially puts migrant sex workers at greater risk of trafficking, because traffickers can threaten migrants with deportation if they go to the police. 

Criminalizing clients of consensual sex workers does not reduce trafficking; instead, it makes clients less likely to report to the police if they witness a case of trafficking or exploitation and less willing to provide the screening information that sex workers use for safety. Many of our sex working members are currently struggling to survive financially, and we fear that the current climate of naming and shaming sex buyers will scare our clients away and reduce our incomes even further, putting us at risk of eviction and homelessness. When sex workers lose our incomes, we become even more vulnerable to traffickers who seek to exploit us. 

BSWAC supports the full decriminalization of adult consensual sex work, as well as other policies that protect both sex workers and trafficking survivors. These include amnesty from arrest or deportation for migrant workers who report exploitation to the police, robust financial resources for anyone trying to exit the sex industry, and labor protections for those who continue to do sex work. Forcing the sex industry to operate illegally and underground increases the risks that both sex workers and trafficking survivors face. 

We have recently filed multiple bills in the state legislature to support sex workers’ rights, including H1747, which would enable sex workers to report crimes without fear of arrest, H2467, which would create a committee to study what policies would help protect sex workers in Massachusetts, and H1980, which would decriminalize consensual adult sex work while keeping laws against trafficking in place. We ask the public to write to their state legislators in support of these bills. 

We offer our support and solidarity to the women in this case. We encourage those interested in learning more to check out the resources provided by Red Canary Song, a grassroots collective of Asian sex workers in New York. Read more about why full decriminalization is the safest approach here. 

About the Boston Sex Workers and Allies Collective 

BSWAC is the preeminent sex worker-led advocacy organization in Massachusetts, founded in fall 2023 out of a sex worker support group. We are a grassroots collective of sex workers, sex trafficking survivors, and allies in the greater Boston area advocating for the full decriminalization of sex work and other policies which support the health and safety of sex workers.