Purple Rose Day 2026
Purple Rose Day 2026: Sexual Exploitation is Violence and a Tool of the Oppressor
On Purple Rose Day, commemorated every February 14th where the so-called United States corporatizes love and romance, AF3IRM unequivocally opposes the exploitation of women’s and children’s bodies. As we are currently faced with a fascist regime that prioritizes profit over humanity, AF3IRM reasserts our line that women, children, and gender-oppressed people are not commodities to be bought and sold.
Purple Rose Day 2026 holds a deep significance for women and survivors who are grappling with the patriarchal violence and impunity exposed by the Epstein files. As an organization of transnational women with histories rooted in the colonization of our ancestral homelands, we recognize these files as a truth we have long known – a lurid testimony to the brutality of the sex trade and the systems that protect it. They are a stark reminder of how deeply entrenched the commodification of women’s and girl’s bodies remains in our society.
As Black, Indigenous, women of color who are survivors of the sex trade and descendants of people who were in the sex trade, we recognize that sexual exploitation operates through a colonial logic and imperialist framework. In Mexico, 45 out of every 100 youth victims of trafficking belong to Indigenous communities.Women from Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, and other countries were trafficked as “comfort women” by the Imperial Japanese military. The same forces that drive the invasion of land and exported labor across occupied territories also commodify women’s bodies for profit and pleasure. Their subjugation renders women as infrastructure for the pillars of capitalist patriarchy. From sex trafficking and pornography to surrogacy and the military-prostitution complex, women's bodies are treated as sites of extraction that are exploited by markets and then deemed disposable.
Opposing the acceptance of women’s bodies as commodities demands challenging systems that normalize a violent global sex industry that exists at the intersection of misogyny, rape culture, white supremacy, and capitalism. It also means rejecting narratives that frame exploitation as “choice” while ignoring grooming and coercion. It must reject the idea that exploitation can be reformed or regulated when survivors report experiencing long-term psychological and physical health effects.
Combating the commodification of women’s bodies also requires more than condemning abusers named in the Epstein files. It demands upheaval. Accountability must not end with one man. We call for accountability across all institutions where men in power perpetuate abuse. We refuse to allow men with wealth and proximity to power to continue to function without consequence. This moment is larger than emails – it is about calling for the dismantling of the global sex trade that preys on the most marginalized and vulnerable.
Our feminism must insist on genuine and collective liberation for survivors, which includes strengthening healthcare services, improving techniques on trauma-informed care, and ending the feminization of poverty.
But most importantly, we must stand with all survivors, past and present. Not just as symbols, but as forces whose lived experiences challenge the structures of power and entitlement to women’s bodies.
The Epstein files cannot fade into history as “another scandal.” It is a call to action, to expose all the systems that enable abuse and to envision a world that rejects women and girls as objects to be consumed or traded.
Let’s be clear: sexual exploitation is violence and a tool of the oppressor.
END THE PATRIARCHAL ACCESS TO WOMEN’S BODIES!