Sex Work Issues

Thank you! unfortunately Pondering has been impossible to reason with for more than 9 years.

I went back to see if you were involved in the attacks on Canada's first sex workers Cooperative and you weren't so, i apologize. It was before your time here and was mostly lead by a former member who was banned after revealing his inability to refrain from attacking me personally for being a sex worker.

There were death threats against me attached to links in that thread and the whole shabang.

I will say however, that assertions of increased trafficking, violence and exploitation in New Zealand are false, full stop. All research and information from "ethical and reliable sources" state so.

Links to reports by extreme anti sex work crusaders do not qualify as evidence in this country nor should they be considered while working on the issues facing my community.

Police are not enforcing the law. They state themselves that they only use the law to combat exploitation as the Human trafficking laws are not sufficient. They use the most highly contested section of the criminal code - the Communication Provision - so that victims of exploitation do not have to testify in court.

Perhaps if the Justice Committee had spent more time listening to sex workers during consultations on the Human Trafficking Legislation and less time texting and looking at their phones, we wouldn't be in this position.

But instead we are left with the loudest most privileged voices - anti sex work crusaders - dominating the discourse with no regard for fact or the lives and safety of members of my community.

Pondering, I am a sex worker. I work on these issues every single day. I work with sex workers all over the planet who are being impacted by this ideological war on sex workers.. Because that's what it is, a war against a group of PEOPLE who are mostly WOMEN.

Right now in Parliament and the Senate they are working on legislation to remove adult content from the internet under the guise of "protecting children from porn".

Every sex worker in Canada has adult images in the internet.... that;s where we meet our clients. Even sex workers on street use their phones and on-line ads to earn money.

So, here we go....again.... total exclusion and dismissal of sex workers voices and concerns and movement towards once again narrowing people's choices and forcing sex workers onto the street.... into the hands of predators and to where law enforcement violence via over surveillance and detention are regular occurrences.

Please.... stop promoting myth as fact.... stop trying to undermine efforts to better our lives and safety. Why not join us and fight for our inclusion as citizens of this country?

sorry old goat... yes you were here then. my comment isn't clear enough. Pondering was not here then and I had made a comment that she was part of the Olympic Brothel Debacle, she wasn't so I apologize.

I have come to the conclusion that anti sex work crusaders are zealots, there is no more chance we will change their minds then we could change the minds of other extremeists. they are blind in their faith that they hold the "moral high ground"....

It's unfortunate and is a serious barrier to actually doing something that would impact the levels of violence experienced by sex workers.

Overcoming isolation, sex workers are organizing for life-saving reforms

Sex work is among the most dangerous jobs in Canada. But a movement of increasingly-organized sex workers says the dangers they face aren’t inherent to the work. It’s the stigma, myths and criminalization that have made their trade so high-risk.

Jelena Vermilion, a sex worker who is the co-founder and executive director of the Sex Workers’ Action Program in Hamilton, says putting people in conflict with the law makes them more vulnerable to violence and exploitation.

“It’s not that the work itself is vulnerable,” she told The Breach. “It’s that [the law] fosters situations where exploitation and violence and harm can occur.” 

The federal government is dragging its feet on reform. Trudeau’s Liberals have mostly have not parted ways with laws written by Harper’s Conservatives. And despite the efforts of sex worker activists, organized labour still doesn’t see them as a meaningful part of the working class.

Migrant sex workers face additional risks like deportation, in part because of barriers they face in the job market more generally. Indigenous women have also been particularly impacted by anti-sex work laws, according to testimony shared during the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in 2018.

Even though current legislation makes it illegal for sex workers to organize, they are building power and mobilizing in cities across Canada. Their struggles have reinvigorated a push to change legislation, and to shift the focus away from influential and well-funded messages about human trafficking and the need for police intervention.

Fighting for legal change

Over the past year, the Canadian government has been reviewing the 2014 Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA) — a law opponents say criminalizes sex work and opens sex workers up to further harm, violence and stigma. 

Normally bills like this are subject to review after a five year period, however, that didn’t happen with PCEPA. The review process was initiated only after public pressure from the Canadian Alliance For Sex Work Law Reform (CASWLR), a coalition representing 25 sex work advocacy groups from around the country. In addition, the group filed a constitutional challenge against PCEPA (also known as Bill C-36) last year, and began presenting their arguments to the Ontario Supreme Court this month.

But representatives from the Alliance say the most recent federal meetings on the constitutionality of the law—along with reports the federal government has published as part of their review of PCEPA—are rehashing the same issues brought forward in 2013.

That year, sex workers led a challenge to Bedford vs. Canada, arguing Canada’s anti-sex work laws were unconstitutional. The challengers won, and the laws were unanimously struck down by Canada’s Supreme Court.

Just months after the Supreme Court decision, Harper’s Conservatives enacted PCEPA, putting forth a framework based on the “Nordic Model” that criminalizes clients, advertisers, and third parties—for instance, anyone who helps book, drive, or provide security to a sex worker—while also framing all sex workers as “exploited persons.” 

The third parties criminalized by the law are often members of networks of support that sex workers rely upon and have built as a labour force. Not only does PCEPA characterize sex workers as victims of their own profession, it suggests that any attempt at organizing as the root of that victimhood.

The inability to advertise also forces sex workers to take on potentially more dangerous clients. Criminalizing third parties involved in the process relies on harmful stereotypes like “pimps.” But it also prevents sex workers from organizing alongside one another, or asking non-sex-workers for help with things as simple as making phone calls or booking dates.

“Fundamentally the conversation is just still very peppered with this idea of trafficking being the same thing as sex work,” said Angela Wu, project manager at the Vancouver-based Supporting Women’s Alternatives Network (SWAN). 

Wu describes the PCEPA hearings as disheartening given that the federal Liberal Party hasn’t considerably shifted away from Conservative policies, as illustrated in its most recent Committee Report......

..yet more.

quote:

Increased risks for Indigenous sex workers

Lanna Moon Perrin is one of the applicants challenging the constitutionality of PCEPA alongside the CASWLR. She’s a sex worker, artist and activist based in Sudbury, ON. 

During the Knowledge Keeper, Expert and Institutional Hearings on Sexual Exploitation for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, Perrin spoke out against the anti-trafficking laws and detailed how they harm Indigenous sex workers and can push them into riskier situations where they may be trafficked or experience violence. 

“This whole trafficking scare has really made it hard for women, particularly Indigenous women in the sex trade industry to do our work safely, because now we have to hide from police, we have to go places that are more isolated, to advertise our services is even more tricky,” Perrin said in her deputation at the 2018 hearings.

“We’re being pushed and pushed further into isolation, further into dark places to hide our work. When we’re being pushed into isolation, it gives ample opportunity for those situations where we can become victims.” 

Indigenous scholars and legal experts have cited the Indian Act as a central influence on how sex work is policed in Canada today. Naomi Sayers of Garden River First Nation is a sex work advocate and lawyer. 

Sayers has written about how the Indian Act criminalized Indigenous women as prostitutes, and defined Indigenous homes as “bawdy houses,” a term meaning “brothel” that was only repealed from the Criminal Code in 2019 (and therefore appears in PCEPA’s original drafting). 

Indigenous women considered “Indian” before the law could be criminalized for the mere “intent to engage in prostitution,” according to Sayers. 

In addition, Indigenous residences were referred to as “bawdy houses,” a term meaning “brothel” that remained in the criminal code until 2019, which stated that anyone living in such a dwelling was engaged in or intending to be engaged in prostitution. 

“This provision operates in a similar way to the communication provisions as well as the bawdy house provision in PCEPA (i.e., being present in an area known for prostitution),” wrote Sayers in 2016.

A violent attack in Hamilton

In June, a sex worker was violently attacked and sexually assaulted on Barton Street in Hamilton, leaving her in a coma and critical condition. 

The Sex Workers Action Program (SWAP) runs a physical drop in space not far from where the assault occured, and where many street-based sex workers in the city operate. After the attack, the SWAP held a vigil and fundraiser for the woman, who is still in the process of rehabilitation, and is now relearning how to walk. 

Every Saturday, the SWAP holds drop in hours, during which people are free to use the space to rest, wash up, do laundry, access therapy, restock on harm reduction supplies, and learn about the history of sex worker struggle through the organization’s archive. 

Vermilion, who co-fouded the SWAP, sees laws like PCEPA harming street-based sex workers in particular, since they are often the most maligned, even within the profession. 

“There can often be a hierarchy, even laterally, within the industry,” said Vermilion. “Sex workers themselves can sort of pit themselves against each other or consider themselves better or worse because of [the kind of work] they engage in.” 

Stigma and the perpetuation of it is the reason why Vermilion and others organizing for decriminalization instead of the legalization of sex work in Canada.

“What [legalization] would also do is create a tier of legal and illegal sex workers, where the restrictions or requirements that would be necessary to be considered a ‘legal’ sex worker, would be inaccessible for some poor, working class sex workers,” she said......

..cool!