To Whomever It May Concern At Mastercard;

Note: I still have not received a response from Mastercard, but attached here is the email I sent to them recently with the help of an organization I trust. For a much more in depth essay of my thoughts on these issues, please read my blog post from August 2021 if you haven’t yet: https://www.rosekalemba.com/blog/dg05qroc6c9s3m7f1g2m7duv5kaojp

Also, friendly reminder that I’m currently taking an extended break from all social media to focus on healing, & here on my blog is where I’ll continue to speak in the meantime. I’m forever grateful to anyone who reaches out to me online, just please be patient with me as I won’t see it for a while 🙏🏼 I’m also going to be taking a short hiatus from my blog as well because of things going on in my family & I’s lives.

Please feel free to share this post anywhere you think it may be helpful, all I ask is that 1.) you don’t separate my words from my name & 2.) that you share the full post- not just out-of-context bits, especially if you are going to try to use them to further encourage banking discrimination which is the opposite of what I’m trying to do here. Thank you!

To Whomever It May Concern At Mastercard:

 My name is Rose Kalemba, and I am a multiple survivor of human trafficking as a child. One of the nights I was abused ended up being global news because it was uploaded onto PornHub, who then refused to remove it for over six months until I impersonated a lawyer as a last resort, still a child at the time. 

 PornHub destroyed my life, and I still to this day am dealing with the backlash and fighting tooth and nail to rebuild my life. The thought of them facing some kind of accountability for what they did to me and so many others fills me with hope. However, the thought of innocent people suffering for PornHub’s crimes is devastating to me. Punishing sex workers by cutting off credit card payment processing is not the way to make PornHub face consequences for their crimes; it only creates even more victims. 

 This is where you at Mastercard can really help me by hearing me out on this as someone in impacted communities. Contributing to banking discrimination by withholding earned funds from sex workers does nothing to hold accountable the people at PornHub who actually are complicit in my abuse and many others. It’s especially detrimental to do this during an ongoing pandemic. By preventing sex workers from accessing money they made online, where in many ways it’s safer to do sex work, often pushes sex workers into more dangerous work like full service street based sex work.

 Criminalization also makes it harder for sex workers to take safety precautions like being able to properly screen potential clients. Preventing sex workers from accessing funds harms all, but it’s the most marginalized, vulnerable workers who are going to suffer the most. The Black sex workers, the Indigenous sex workers, the undocumented sex workers, the trans sex workers, the disabled sex workers, are going to be left with the fewest options and fighting just to survive. 

 It does not help me or any other survivor when someone who did nothing to us is punished, whether falsely blamed for what someone else did or even just treated as collateral damage.

 My name and my trauma have been used without my consent to lobby for things I don’t agree with, like what I’ve come here today to speak on — credit card companies preventing online sex workers from accessing their income. I will never support PornHub or any other Mindgeek owned site or business after what they’ve put me and so many others through, but I must speak up and make it known to whoever will listen that I also do not support sex workers suffering financially.

 As someone who has almost always, and still does, struggle significantly financially I know that it impacts virtually every aspect of day to day life. It’s so very hard to take care of ourselves, our families, and our health when just keeping the lights on and food in the fridge is a huge obstacle. I don’t want any other person to go through this, especially in the name of helping survivors like myself. Also, the false dichotomy between trafficking survivors and sex workers is a dividing tactic. Most sex workers are also survivors, and many survivors have done some form of sex work at one point or another, whether they talk about it openly or not. It’s certainly not easy, because once we speak up about our experiences we’re often silenced all around if we are not seen as a “good victim.” Banking discrimination does not help any victims, it creates new victimization- often times for those of us who have already survived trauma, now having to face further danger just to try to survive. 

 I’ve been very vocal as have many other survivors and sex workers about how so many individuals and organizations alike are quick to speak over us, and then call us voiceless. They claim to know what’s best for us, but it’s more often than not just what best serves their agenda which is not actually helping us at all. In many cases, their solutions contribute to further harm against us. Anti sex worker “activists” pretending to care about victims do not speak for me, I speak for myself.

 I don’t know a single survivor who supports credit card companies like your own pulling out from these sites. We need justice and we need change, but this is not the way despite others claiming to be our voice saying so with their hands over our mouths. We are not voiceless. Please listen to us. Please hear us.

 I would welcome to opportunity to talk through Mastercard’s policies and provide more details over a call. I would also appreciate it deeply if representatives from Freedom United, an organization that’s both pro survivor rights & pro sex worker rights (& understands that many of us are both, not two separate categories) could be part of these communications as well. They have been advocating for PornHub to put in place stronger protection measures, while also being concerned for sex workers not losing their income during the pandemic and in the future. 

Thank you for your time and I hope to hear from you soon.

 Sincerely,

 Rose Kalemba