Pro-sex work protesters stormed a Melbourne conference about sexual abuse and exploitation on July 28, interrupting the speaker who is also a abuse survivor.

The protesters entered the lecture hall at Melbourne’s RMIT university, carrying signs stating “Blow jobs are real jobs” and “Fuck you pay me” during Professor Caroline Taylor’s lecture on child sexual abuse and rape. In a heated exchange two women accused Taylor and others at the Australian Summit Against Sexual Exploitation (ASASE) of stigmatizing sex work.

“I’m not talking about sex work. I’m giving a talk on child sexual abuse and rape. That’s the talk I’m giving, girls,” Taylor told the women as they repeatedly interrupted her. “You’re disrespecting not only everybody here, I happen to be a person who experienced child sex abuse, for a long, long time, in horrific ways, I can’t have children because of what was done to me.”

One of the protesters replied: “Sex work is not child abuse” and told Professor Taylor she should be “ashamed”. Taylor was speaking at the ASASE, a forum where lecturers spoke out against sexual abuse, and exploitation in sex work and pornography.

Taylor was awarded the Member of the Order of Australia for her advocacy for children and runs a not-for-profit organization to help people affected by sexual abuse.

Caitlin Roper, who was a speaker at the summit, filmed the incident and wrote on Facebook: “Some of us tried to inform them that the speaker was speaking about child sexual abuse. They didn’t care. The conference included presentations on a range of topics, including sexism in advertising, child exploitation material, and the harms of pornography exposure to children.”

“It took security half an hour to remove the protesters. A number of women told us how shaken they were. They were also survivors of violence. A younger woman was in tears. Some women present had recently left the sex industry, others were not publicly ‘out’ as sex trade survivors, all were deeply distressed by the ordeal. After the protesters left, women were frightened to go to the bathroom without a group.”

She told Storyful: “The protesters also trashed display tables, threw objects at audience members and shouted abuse throughout.” Credit: Caitlin Roper