MO-Sen: Dick Durbin (D. IL) Slams Josh Hawley (R) Over Remarks Linking Feminism To Sex Trafficking

Received this e-mail today from U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D. IL) in support of U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill’s (D. MO) re-election campaign:

 

Last week, Missouri Senate candidate Josh Hawley made an absurd and offensive claim that feminism and the women’s rights movement are the cause of human trafficking.

He said that the 1960s feminist revolution “has led to exploitation of women on a scale that we would never have imagined.”

If you agree that this attack on the feminist movement is outrageous and unbefitting a candidate for the U.S. Senate, chip in to Claire McCaskill’s reelection campaign now to help her fight back >>

Josh Hawley couldn’t be more wrong. The women’s rights movement has empowered women to speak up about sexual violence and hold their perpetrators accountable. It’s made it possible for women to earn economic freedom, and persist in the fight for workplaces free of sexual harassment -- all critical in the fight against human trafficking.

 

Senator Claire McCaskill has long been a leading voice in this fight -- she even led a bipartisan investigation along with Republican Senator Rob Portman to uncover issues of sex trafficking online.

We need your help to ensure we can keep Claire McCaskill’s voice in the Senate. Will you join me in supporting her reelection campaign by chipping in now?

It is deeply disturbing that anyone would blame women for these horrors. Human trafficking existed long before the women’s rights movement, and the women’s rights movement has only worked to end sexual violence and exploitation.

We cannot allow Hawley to win with this hateful and false rhetoric. We must fight back, and do all we can to keep Senator McCaskill in the Senate.

I hope I can count on you to stand with Claire,

Dick Durbin

Click here to donate to McCaskill’s re-election campaign.