Informative links topic

More articles:

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/06/16/prostitution_bill_a_foolish_fusion_of_right_and_left_lunacy_dimanno.html

Bill C-36 is an act of regression, foolishly formatted, reactionary rather than progressive and harm-reduction focused, as the Supreme Court was so clearly encouraging when it unanimously knocked down anti-prostitution laws prohibiting brothels, living off the avails of prostitution and communicating in public with clients, ruling the legislation was too broad and “grossly disproportionate.”

Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote: “Parliament has the power to regulate against nuisance, but not at the cost of health, safety and live of prostitutes,” further noting that “it is not a crime in Canada to sell sex for money.”

 

http://www.nationalmagazine.ca/Blog/June-2014/Reactions-to-proposed-prostitution-laws.aspx

This analysis of the potential of using the Nordic model, as in criminalization of clients (a ban on purchase) 

http://www.aidslaw.ca/publications/interfaces/downloadFile.php?ref=2193

If a section 1 analysis in considering the constitutional validity of the Nordic model were required, it would not likely succeed. While Sweden’s purported legislative objective of promoting gender equality by eradicating sex work may be a “pressing and substantial” one, and perhaps even rationally connected to a regime that criminalizes both third parties involved in sex work (including purchasers) and sex workers who work indoors, this should not save such legislation. A fundamental principle of Charter interpretation is that both the purpose and effects of any legislative instrument be constitutional. As such, even if the legislative objectives are found to be constitutional — which is debatable, as outlined above— the effects of the legislation are unconstitutional and cannot be saved.

 

I posted about this story not long ago, about asian women being kicked out of a bar in Sweden when accused of being sex workers.  The bar owner is so paranoid about law enforcement, that he'd rather kick them out than run the risk of having them being suspected of working.

http://feministire.wordpress.com/2014/06/16/sex-workers-are-still-targeted-under-the-racist-swedish-model/

Sex workers are still targeted under the racist Swedish model

Last week, an appeals court in Sweden upheld a decision in favour of a tavern owner and security staff who had denied entry on three separate occasions to Asian-looking women. The tavern admitted judging these women by their appearance, but said they had barred them in order to prevent prostitution from taking place on their premises. Police had told the tavern owner that this was going on, and that Asian women were involved. These particular Asian women weren’t though, and they brought a discrimination claim.

The women lost in the lower court, and then lost again on appeal. According to my best Google Translate, the appellate court found that preventing prostitution is an “inherently legitimate reason” which justifies the means that was taken by the tavern, even though the effect was to bar women from their premises who had done nothing more than appear to be Asian. That’s not unlawful discrimination, according to the Swedish courts.

Here is yet another poll that shows an overwhelming majority of participants think that C-36 is a mess.   

http://www.640toronto.com/syn/123/308/canada-talks-national

The federal government is proposing a crackdown on prostitution with a new law that will make it illegal to buy or advertise a sexual service, but not illegal to sell it. DId the Government get it right?

•  Yes They Did (10%)
•  No they should go further and make the buying AND selling of sex illegal (12%)
•  No, they have gone too far and should stay out of the bedroom. (78%)

How Not To Talk About Human Trafficking  http://humantraffickingcenter.org/posts-by-htc-associates/how-not-to-talk-about-human-trafficking/

Human trafficking is the cause célèbre for sensationalist media. Celebrities Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore have started a campaign against the sex trafficking of minors. Videos about trafficking regularly go viral. High-profile human trafficking cases have seized the public’s attention.  As someone who works in the anti-trafficking field, you might think I would be thrilled about all this public attention. I’m not. A great deal of the existing human trafficking content is both inaccurate and irresponsible. This tripe is often excused because it is “raising awareness.” The assumption is that more awareness will lead to more anti-trafficking efforts. While this may be true, it is not always helpful. When misinformed people do make an effort to end human trafficking, they will often support policies and organizations that are ultimately counter-productive to the fight against human trafficking.

Human trafficking is an emerging and complicated problem that can be difficult to discuss appropriately and sensitively. What follows is a simple guide to avoiding some of the most common misunderstandings and misrepresentations:

Do not repeat “statistics” without investigating

All human trafficking statistics should be regarded with some skepticism. Human trafficking is an illicit and hidden activity and is therefore exceedingly difficult to study. Research is further hindered by misuse of terms, poor methodology and lack of adequate funding.  Unfortunately, in a vacuum of reliable data, people tend to unquestioningly cite or simply fabricate trafficking data. Statistics used by established organizations or “experts” are not above critical assessment. Even oft-repeated, canonical statistics have been shown to be based on outdated or nongeneralizable studies.

Not all prostitution is human trafficking.

The term “prostitution” refers to any exchange of sex for material benefit and exists on a spectrum of exploitation. At one end are women, men and transgender individuals who freely choose to engage in sex work. At the other end of the spectrum are victims and survivors of sex trafficking. These women, men, transgender individuals and children are prostituted against their will through force, fraud or coercion. Conflation of sex work and sex trafficking often leads to policies that criminalize prostitution, making sex workers more vulnerable to violence and exploitation and denying their basic human capacity to freely choose how they use their bodies. Meanwhile, the distinct needs of trafficking survivors are ignored in favor of “demand reduction” programs that have not had any discernible effect on sex trafficking.

Do not sensationalize or sexualize human trafficking victims and survivors.     

Reveling in graphic details does not help victims and survivors, nor does it contribute in any meaningful way to the fight to end human trafficking. Rather, it tokenizes the experiences of victims and can trigger trauma for human trafficking survivors.

Before portraying a trafficking victim or survivor, ensure that it is necessary. Does this particular portrayal contain important information that could not otherwise be effectively conveyed?  Is the victim/survivor’s experience being used to promote an organizationby inciting feelings of shock, horror or disgust in the viewer?

When portraying, publishing or publicly identifying a human trafficking survivor or her/his story, the interests and needs of the survivor should be of primary importance. After ensuring the survivor has given fully informed consent (confidentiality, scope, framing, support, etc.), it is critical to question how the portrayal might affect other survivors and whether the portrayal may create a skewed public perception.

Do not ignore forced labour.

The International Labour Organization estimates that of the 20.9 million people in human trafficking, 14.2 million are victims of forced labour, as compared to 4.5 million in sex trafficking. Yet sex trafficking captures a hugely disproportionate amount of public focus.  This skewed representation of human trafficking leads to imbalanced responses to human trafficking. Sex trafficking is an important issue that warrants special attention, but not to the exclusion of the plight of the estimated 14.2 million people in forced labour.

Human trafficking is not something that only happens “over there.”

The United States is a significant destination, origin and transit country for human trafficking. As such, Americans have an obligation to confront and be accountable for the human trafficking occurring within their borders. The myopic focus on sex trafficking of girls in Southeast Asia or Eastern Europe draws attention away from the fact that the tomatoes we eat may be the product of forced labor in Florida or that the person selling magazines at our door may be a homeless youth being trafficked state to state.

Do not ignore men and boys.

According to the ILO’s 2012 estimates, 60 percent of the 14.2 million people in forced labour are male. Yet male victims of human trafficking are rarely discussed. The lack of public attention on the trafficking of men and boys is reflected in the absence of services for male survivors of human trafficking. According to a 2012 study conducted by the Polaris Project, there are 529 shelter beds available specifically for trafficking survivors in the United States. Of those 529 shelter beds, 125 are available to men, and a mere two are reserved for men only.

The problems identified here are not merely semantic. The discourse of human trafficking has real impacts on anti-trafficking efforts and on trafficking victims and survivors. While awareness-raising is critical, it should not be used to justify or excuse misleading or inaccurate information. We will not see true progress until the passion of the anti-trafficking movement is matched with intellectual rigor and is freed from narrow and paternalistic tendencies.

 

Interview with a Swedish sex worker    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D7nOh57-I8

"The more stereotyped you are, the more dehumanized you are.....so of course you become more vulnerable."

https://theconversation.com/campaigners-for-sex-workers-face-bullying-and-bad-data-21549

......

 I found what remains to this day my favourite example of trumped-up evidence: a Home Office Report on organised crime, one chapter of which (chapter 3) had been used to form the basis for the then government’s approach to anti-trafficking efforts.

That chapter relies on just three sources of empirical information about the UK sex industry: an article from The Times, which was misquoted; a McCoys British Massage Parlour Guide; and the notorious Eaves/Poppy Project report, “Sex in the City”. This widely cited (and now thoroughly debunked) project used hoax calls to London brothels to establish how many sex workers at each one were “foreign”. With this deeply inept methodology, it found that 80% of sex workers in London were not from the UK, and assumed that all these women had been “trafficked”.

The Home Office report collates the wildly different figures from its paltry sources and battles to reconcile them, “multiplying up” numbers for the rest of UK by a factor of 4.5 so that they match the Poppy Project’s findings. It even states: “Where reliable reporting was not available it was necessary to use best judgement to form assumptions”. Had one of my students handed in this report, I would have thought it was a spoof. Carry on Criminology, anyone?

But farcical as this report might be, it is truly tragic that the government’s sex work policy for the 2000s was based on such incompetent work.

 

 

The whole article is informative, but i wanted to include this below:

Another part of the above link is a real answer to that question, Do you want to leave sex work include?    

Dr Mai’s team spoke to 100 migrant sex workers, many of them undocumented (and hence really really really vulnerable), some of them having suffered exploitation. He asked them if they wanted to leave the sex industry, and sure enough, around 75% said yes. But what were the reasons they gave? It’s boring. It’s repetitive. It isn’t a viable long-term career option. These are not exactly factors unique to sex work. Furthermore, the research makes clear that “wanting to leave the sex industry” does not necessarily translate to being unhappy with one’s experiences in the sex industry.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/j-baglow/2014/06/sexwork

New blog regarding choice to work and what should be important to everyone regarding sex work, including occupational health and safety issues. :)

 But all labour, whatever it might be, is a commodity. We (the "99%," if you like) literally sell ourselves for money by entering the job market. And we are all, more or less, deformed, oppressed and exploited by it.

In the case of women, pay equity is still a dream for far too many. Sexual harassment in the workplace is hardly rare. Women are still ghettoized, and the work that many of them do remains undervalued. It's no surprise that an active minority choose the more lucrative sex trade. Porn actresses make much more money than the men they engage on camera. Strippers pull in more in one night than secretaries do in a week. High-priced call-girls can do far better than that. It's the market, meaning that there's a demand, and, under the twin yokes of patriarchy and capitalism, many women freely choose to satisfy it—within, of course, the limited frame permitted by the system to any of us.

 

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/prostitution-bill-has-the-makings-of-another-moral-panic/article19256534/

The prostitution bill is a bizarre work of moral panic

Perhaps the most alarming thing about Bill C-36 is its potential to reunite the coalition of radical feminists, social conservatives, and law-enforcement authorities that gave us the triple moral panic of the 1980s over imaginary sexual abuse of children: satanic abuse in child-care centres, repressed-memory syndrome, and pedophile rings. Families were shattered and people were sent to jail, mainly in the U.S. but also in Canada, for having committed implausible or even impossible sexual offences. Radical feminists wanted to strike at male domination of women and children, social conservatives were worried about sexual permissiveness, and law-enforcement authorities were pioneering new methods of investigation and interrogation. It was a potent combination.

I hope we’re not seeing a new moral panic over prostitution, but the signs are worrisome. Conservative MPs are talking darkly about pimps in schoolyards. The Minister of Justice has started to create a new class of folk devils by calling the customers of prostitutes “perverts.” Think about that. For decades medical and social researchers have tried to expunge unscientific words such as “deviant” and “pervert” from scientific and popular discourse, seemingly with success. Now the highest law officer of the Crown casually labels a large number of people as “perverts” because they have paid for sex.

Not sure if i put this anywhere yet:   Sex work 101 rabble article

http://rabble.ca/news/2014/06/sex-work-101-making-sense-out-canadas-nonsensical-sex-work-legislation

What were the previous laws around sex work?

It was legal in Canada for adults to buy and sell sex because there were no laws prohibiting the exchange of sex for money.

The following activities were illegal:

• Operating a brothel

• For third parties to take earnings from sex workers in exchange for a service related to sex work; this criminalized pimps, but also made it illegal for sex workers to employ bodyguards and drivers

• Communicating for the purpose of selling sex in public, including a private vehicle

These laws framed prostitution as a public nuisance to be controlled.

 

...

 

Under Bill C-36 selling sex is legal, but buying it is not. Advertising another's sexual services is illegal, as is keeping a brothel.

The new law makes it illegal to communicate for purposes of selling sex in a public area were people under the age of 18 could reasonably be present.

Sex workers can employ bodyguards and drivers. Pimping is illegal.

This legislation's underlying principle is that sex work is violent and harmful. The goal is to reduce demand for sexual services.

And, as Mercedes Allen stated, "Apparently [MacKay] decided Canadians wanted sex work criminalized in such a way that sex workers wouldn't always be technically charged, but it would be otherwise made totally impossible to work legally and safely."

....

 

Pivot will then issue another charter challenge, arguing the bill violates Section Seven of the Charter (as the previous legislation did), and possibly Section Two (on freedom of speech). The case will go to the BC Supreme Court, and then the Supreme Court of Canada.

While Proth does not expect the bill to pass constitutional muster, she notes that the process will take three to five years. She says, "The sad reality is that in the meantime circumstances on the ground for sex workers are not going to change. These laws go further than the previous laws did in terms of creating an environment where sex workers are far more vulnerable to exploitation and violence."

 

 

 

http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/pivotlegal/pages/615/attachments/original/1401811234/My_Work_Should_Not_Cost_Me_My_Life.pdf?1401811234

The Case Against Criminalizing the Purchase of Sex in Canada

For this report, Pivot Legal Society collaborated with Sex Workers United Against Violence (“SWUAV”)to produce a report which draws on a newly published peer reviewed report in British Medical Journal Open by Krusi et al.,entitled “Criminalisation of Clients: Reproducing Vulnerabilitiesfor Violence and Poor Health among Street-Based Sex Workers in Canada. A Qualitative Study.” (“Krusi et al. report”).2

The research for the Krusi et al. report was conducted by theGender and Sexual Health Initiative (GSHI) of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and the University of British Columbia(“GSHI/UBC research”) as part a larger ongoing research study on the health and safety of street and off-street sex workers throughout Metro Vancouver.

The Krusi et al. report is available at www.gshi.cfenet.ubc.ca.Pivot Legal Society, in partnership with SWUAV, drew on the findings of the Krusi et al. report as the evidentiary basis for an analysis of the constitutionality of a prohibition on the purchase of sexual services. Pivot and SWUAV, as community partnersand co-authors in the GSHI/UBC research, provided legal/policy input on the Krusi et al. report and, as such, had advance access to the research.

This research was used to prepare this constitutional analysis.

Related to this:   http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/06/03/laws_targeting_johns_only_increase_dangers_to_prostitutes_report_warns.html

A new report by a coalition of Canadian prostitutes warns the Conservative government that proposals to target “johns” — the clients who buy sexual services — will only increase danger to prostitutes and eventually be found unconstitutional.
The Vancouver-based Pivot Legal Society, along with a group from downtown eastside Vancouver called Sex Workers United Against Violence issued the report Tuesday.
It draws on a newly published peer reviewed report in British Medical Journal Open, and cites research by the Gender and Sexual Health Initiative (GSHI) of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and the University of British Columbia.

The British journal study said its findings “suggest that criminalization and policing strategies that target clients reproduce the harms created by the criminalization of sex work, in particular, vulnerability to violence and HIV/STIs (sexually-transmitted infections).” Its study supports “decriminalization of sex work to ensure work conditions that support the health and safety of sex workers in Canada and globally.”
The Pivot Legal Society report, released to the Star, points to the Vancouver Police Department which has gradually, over the past five years, shifted away from arresting street-based sex workers while targeting the arrests of “clients” or “johns.”

More from Redlight blog, because it is important to note that many abolitionists refer to this stuff as 'evidence' that legalization is to blame for all the ills of legal sex work, in terms of human trafficking.  As tho legalization main goal is to stop trafficking, or that if it happens, that is the for sure sign that it 'failed."    

http://behindtheredlightdistrict.blogspot.ca/2014/06/results-of-human-trafficking-campaign.html

Results of human trafficking campaign:

The last campaign which ran from 2012 until this year got 392 anonymous tips on possible human trafficking, so called reports of human trafficking. These could involve forced prostitution, extortion but also illegal prostitution. The reports came from a campaign which was based on signs of human trafficking, like I wrote about in this blog here. According to minister Opstelten this was a great success, since they got 93% more reports then the years before.

But now let's look at some details about those results. Because to begin with, 392 reports out of 20.000 estimated legal working prostitutes in Holland isn't very much. In fact, it's only about 2% of the legal prostitutes in total, while the police themselves reported in their own 'report' Schone Schijn (read my post here for more about that) that it was somewhere between 50 and 90%.
So what is the success minister Opstelten is talking about? Is it the success of not being able to find those victims they claimed that are victims? Or is the success the fact that they apparently can hardly find any real cases of human trafficking, and that thereby apparently the problems of human trafficking for 90% has been solved?

But it get's even funnier if you read through the rest of the presentation of their results. Because of those 392 reports that they got, the police only decided to investigate 250 of them, which is about 64%. So apparently about 36% of the reports where already considered to be false alarm to begin with. But wait, it get's better!
Because from the 250 investigations, a whopping 28 arrests where made, which comes down to about 7% of the total amount of reports that they got.  This means that only 7% of the reports leads to an actual arrest, and apparently 93% of the cases are false alarm.

......

The only success the last campaign seemed to have had, was the fact that apparently a lot of more people started reporting human trafficking, because they worry about it, a proof of the fact that prostitutes are being stigmatized as victims, because the same amount of reports also turn out to be false alarm. So we're just making a lot more people worried over something that isn't really as big as a lot of people claim.

....

 

Fact is, that again results show that they could hardly find any real cases of girls being forced or exploited in prostitution. The estimations the police made themselves of 50 to 90% in their reports show to be very far away from the truth, which doesn't even come close to 1%. The new campaign has only stigmatized prostitutes into victims, with people seeing everywhere signs of human trafficking on many prostitutes, while facts show that 93% where false alarm. The police has been busy with a lot of false alarms, keeping them from fighting real crimes, and focusing on the hype that this campaign has created. Keeping cops from doing their work with false alarms, stigmatizing prostitutes as victims, and making a lot of people worried over very little, I can hardly call a success. I wonder if the new campaign is going to change anything about that.

http://libcom.org/library/sex-work-solidarity-not-salvation

Abolitionists have often complained of rights activists using language to legitimize the industry by using terms like “client” instead of “john” and “worker” instead of “prostitute.” Sex workers and rights activists have moved away from the old terms as they are terms that have often been used to disempower and discriminate against workers, whereas “client” and “sex worker” are much more value neutral. Abolitionists are not innocent of using language to further their agenda. Often the term “prostitute” is used to describe sex workers. This positions the worker as an agency-less victim. Once you have positioned someone as being without agency it becomes easier to ignore their voice, to believe that you know what is in their best interest and that you are doing, or advocating, for them.

Another accusation made against rights activists is that they put the client’s wants before the needs and safety of the worker, or that they attempt to legitimize commercial sexual exchanges (something that is not considered a legitimate service by abolitionists). I have not found this to be the case—the majority of rights activists are or have been sex workers, or have close ties to sex workers, and their primary focus is on the rights, needs and safety of sex workers. For instance, Scarlet Alliance, the national sex worker advocacy body, is made up of current and former sex workers. People who would have an interest in worker exploitation, such as employers, are not eligible to join.

That they do not focus on labeling clients (the clientele are too diverse to paint with the one label anyway) is no reflection on how important the needs and safety of sex workers are. In fact it is because they are paramount to the rights movement that the focus is not on making moral judgments on the clients and is instead on labor organizing and worker advocacy. To ignore the vast amounts of change that can be made by workers organizing and advocating together in favor of moralizing over the reasons why the industry exists and whether it is an essential service is to sacrifice the rights and well-being of workers for theoretical gains.

At the end of the day the abolitionist is using their power and social privilege to take advantage of sex workers’ marginalized position, something that they accuse clients of doing. The difference is that they are not seeking sexual but moral gratification. The abolitionist approach does not help sex workers, nor does it empower them. Rather, this approach gives them a role, and penalizes them if they refuse to play it. The sex worker rights approach works in the same way that all workers rights and anti-discrimination movements have worked by empowerment, support and solidarity.

 

http://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/op-ed/comment-bill-c-36-fails-sex-workers-and-canadians-1.1156580

People who are familiar with the sex industry in Canada are profoundly disappointed in the introduction of Bill C-36 this month.

Many persons who work in the sex industry, as well as advocates, community agencies and sex-work researchers had hoped for complete decriminalization, which has been successfully in place in New Zealand for a decade. As others have noted, C-36 dismisses the concerns of people in the sex industry, ignores three decades of Canadian research and, in a surprisingly arrogant manner, dismisses the spirit of the 2013 Supreme Court of Canada ruling.

Legal experts are rightly predicting that the bill will result in further costly constitutional challenges and uneven enforcement if it becomes law. Enforcement will be disproportionately felt by the most marginalized people in the industry — a lesson already learned from previous attempts to address adult prostitution through criminalization.

 

Flawed Theory and Method in Studies of Prostitution    http://vaw.sagepub.com/content/11/7/934.full.pdf+html?ijkey=92c80d2893f9a3cafedc163b93a8c173a83c1858&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha

In no area of the social sciences has ideology contaminated knowledge more pervasively than in writings on the sex industry. Too often in this area, the canons of scientific inquiry are suspended and research deliberately skewed to serve a particular political agenda. Much of this work has been done by writers who regard the sex industry as a despicable institution and who are active in campaigns to abolish it.In this commentary, I examine several theoretical and methodological flaws in this literature, both generally and with regard to three recent articles in Violence Against Women. The articles in question are by Jody Raphael and Deborah Shapiro (2004),Melissa Farley (2004), and Janice Raymond (2004). At least two of the authors (Farley and Raymond) are activists involved in the antiprostitution campaign.1

IDEOLOGICAL BLINDERS

The three articles are only the most recent examples in a longline of writings on the sex industry by authors who adopt an extreme version of radical feminist theory—extreme in the sense that it is absolutist, doctrinaire, and unscientific. Exemplifying this approach are the works of Andrea Dworkin (1981, 1997),Catherine MacKinnon (1987, 1989), Kathleen Barry (1995), andSheila Jeffreys (1997). 

http://rabble.ca/columnists/2014/07/prostitution-bill-poisoned-sexist-ideology

Prostitution bill poisoned by sexist ideology

The new prostitution bill introduced in June by Injustice Minister Peter MacKay is blatantly unconstitutional and will result in more dead women. Bill C-36 will harm sex workers in even worse ways than the previous criminal provisions that were struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada in December.

Those laws prohibited various activities related to sex work, including communicating in public, operating or working in a brothel, and living off the income of a sex worker.

Bill C-36 brings back all of the previous criminal laws in somewhat different forms, and adds new offences. One is a sweeping ban on advertising of sex work that will make it almost impossible to work indoors where it’s safer, while another will criminalize the purchase but not the sale of sex, in a nod to Sweden’s law. But sex workers will still be criminalized in other ways.

............

On behalf of FIRST Decriminalize Sex Work, a feminist group that advocates for the rights of sex workers, I recently submitted a brief to the Committee critiquing the Preamble to the bill. Following are some of the criticisms from the FIRST brief, which exposes the ideological bias, false assumptions, and sexist paternalism that underlie the bill:

Whereas the Parliament of Canada has grave concerns about the exploitation that is inherent in prostitution and the risks of violence posed to those who engage in it;

The idea that exploitation is “inherent” to sex work is an ideological belief derived from right-wing religious groups and “radical feminist” activists who morally disapprove of prostitution and want to abolish it. Sex work is a job, and like any job, people often take it to earn money, not necessarily because it’s something they want to do. But it’s still a choice for most sex workers and many do value their work. It’s often overlooked that sex work is about much more than sexual services, and also commonly involves counselling, therapeutic healing, massage, intimacy, socializing, companionship, and other aspects that occur normally in human relationships.

Many sex workers work independently and are skilled entrepreneurs, while others prefer to be employed by or have a contract with an agency, which frees them from managing the administrative and business side. This should be their choice, but Bill C-36 will force all sex workers to work independently, on the assumption they are “exploited” by the job and by employers. We know from the media around the bill that the government’s biggest concern is around “protecting women.” This reveals the paternalistic and anti-sex basis of Bill C-36, since no other profession is criminalized in this way, and significant numbers of sex workers are male or transgender.

While purporting to discourage prostitution and help exploited sex workers, the bill actually reinforces the same social structures that support and stigmatize prostitution in the first place – the division of women into “good girls” and “bad girls”, the taboo against sexual promiscuity or even sexual pleasure for women, and the demonization of men and their sexuality.

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-sex-workers-make-their-cases-in-prostitution-bill-debate-1.2698425

Comments section is, as usual, entertaining.  As is Mckay's claim that prostitution will be decriminalized without C36, which is a flat out lie, since there are still many laws on the books when the 3 minor laws overturned by the SCC extension date expires.    He wants uneducated people to think chaos and lawlessness will ensue, and that is simply not the case.     

Another witness, however, contradicted MacKay and Nagy, and said the vast majority of women in the sex trade are not trafficked.

"Most women are not trafficked. That's what the research literature says," said John Lowman, a criminology professor from Simon Fraser University​.

Lowman also took issue with Nagy's assertion that the average entry age into prostitution is 14.

"That is a preposterous claim. There is only one piece of research that supports it. It is a study of juveniles that excluded adults. If you look at research which includes both juveniles and adults, the average age is generally 18 or well above that," he said.

Jean McDonald, executive director of Maggie's, which represents Toronto sex-trade workers, said the bill won't make such work less dangerous.

"This legislation will only further marginalize, further victimize and push sex workers into dangerous and potentially violent situations. This bill does nothing to protect the rights of sex workers in this country. What we will see with this legislation is the same kind of harms as under the same laws that were struck down by the Supreme Court. We will see more murdered and missing women as a result of this legislation," McDonald said following MacKay's committee appearance.

Leonardo Russomanno, who represents the Criminal Lawyers' Association, told MPs the legislation wouldn't withstand a charter challenge because the provisions are overly broad, disproportionate and arbitrary and won't achieve their goals.

"In our view, Bill C-36 is bad policy and bad law," he said. 

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/why-the-prostitution-bill-will-increase-violence-against-sex-workers/article19704999/

Why the prostitution bill will increase violence against sex workers

Jane Doe is an author, lecturer and feminist activist.

Among other things, I am the woman in the civil case Jane Doe v the Toronto Police Force. In 1998, after an 11-year court battle, I successfully sued them for negligence and gender discrimination in their investigation of my rape, and of sexual assault generally.

When Bedford v Canada entered the legal system I convened the Feminist Coalition to ensure that all feminist voices were part of the legal and social dialogue on sex work. Our membership is national and consists of 23 sexual assault/rape crisis centres, women's shelters and other anti-violence organizations. Our affidavit and leave to intervene inBedford at the Supreme Court are public documents which contain a full list of our membership.

It is our opinion, as reflected in those documents, that former and proposed prostitution legislation does not work in women’s equality interests and promotes –even causes – violence against sex workers. We are concerned that Bill C-36 does not reflect the policies and opinions of the majority of front line anti-violence agencies. Instead, Justice Minister Peter MacKay relies solely on opinions of the umbrella group members of the abolitionist Women’s Coalition, which purports to represent all of us.

Bill C-36 supports the spurious concept that prostitution causes sexual assault and other violence against women. Sexual Assault is about power and dominance and is not caused by sex work. Certainly mine was not. Nor is there any qualified thought, research or lived experience to say otherwise. Most grievously, the bill ignores the systemic nature of violence against all women. Feminist battles against systemic discrimination resulted in the right to equal wages, fair labour practices, and protection from gendered violence against all women. Except, according to the bill, for women who are sex workers.

 

The following article is because i think people should know about the person that was allowed to speak at the justice committee on C36, taking space for someone else who would have been more worthy.

http://www.lauraagustin.com/satanic-sex-on-sunday-gunilla-ekberg-sex-war-and-extremist-feminism

Satanic Sex on Sunday: Gunilla Ekberg, Sex War and Extremist Feminism

Feminist Satanism. No, that’s not right. Satanic Feminists. To be fair, no, it should be Feminists Who Believe Men are Pedophilic Satanists (or Satanist Pedophiles). No matter how you look at it, these words don’t immediately make sense together. This is the Rescue Industry with a vengeance – and Extremist Feminism indeed.*

Gunilla Ekberg has not appeared in public in Sweden in quite a while, I believe, but she has been giving anti-prostitution talks in Canada in support of a campaign to defeat Judge Himel’s decision to decriminalise many aspects of sex work in Ontario (Ekberg is apparently a citizen of Canada now). Admirers in Canada are billing her as a famous international lawyer, but she was publicly criticised in Sweden for calling herself a lawyer – does anyone know about Canada?  Her notoriety derives from her unyielding attitude as a campaigner, so authoritarian even some Swedes with similar ideas stopped wanting to be associated with her.

In 2005 she worked for Sweden’s Ministry of Industry as an expert on prostitution and was closely allied with ROKS, an organisation that runs shelters for women in trouble. At the time, ROKS’s management claimed Swedish patriarchy could usefully be compared to Afghanistan’s and advocatedseparatism: women living apart from men. As if this were not enough, ROKS management came to believe that pedophilic satanism was a real threat to girls and women in Sweden. Phew.

Other European countries have suffered mad bouts of belief in satanic cults in history, and the US is famous for its Satanic Panic all through the 1980s, but the oddity with Sweden is how such extremism can dwell so very close to mainstream government: get funding, have prestige, function as if ordinary and unremarkable.

The story of Ekberg’s embarrassing moment and public disgrace occurred in 2005, when journalist Evin Rubar (a woman) was making a programme about ROKS for Swedish Television, Könskriget (Sex War – link to first part),  in which the story of the satanic pedophiles is told, including the testimony of a young woman supposedly saved by ROKS who complains about her treatment by the rescuers. You will see in the clip below that Rubar, assuming Ekberg to have been closely involved, asks questions Ekberg refuses to answer. Leaving the room, Ekberg, assuming the microphone is off, threatens Rubar: Don’t count on any help from the shelters. The whole Sex War programme is two hours long;r:

Ekberg did not lose her job over this, but she did eventually leave it. The affair generated much criticism of her behaviour and that of the ROKS people, who come across as maniacs (at least one writer calling their thought patternsfeminist fundamentalism, with which I concur, here on the blog and in Sex at the Margins). Numerous Swedish bloggers followed the disgraceful affair, reported here in the newspaper Aftonbladet. The ROKS manager was replaced.

Here is Part One of Sex War in Swedish, and here is a website that does a summary in English. After which, you will need a laugh.

 

 

http://rabble.ca/news/2014/07/sex-work-rights-and-health-bill-c-36s-glaring-omission#.U9aQ-ZJusPc.twitter

Sex work, rights and health: Bill C-36's glaring omission

BY SANDRA KA HON CHU | JULY 28, 2014

.....

In 2012, for example, an analysis of data from 21 Asian countries revealed that in places where laws exist to prevent discrimination against sex workers, sex workers have greater knowledge and use of HIV-related services and lower rates of HIV. Researchers concluded that legally punitive working environments threaten the rights and health of sex workers and may further exacerbate HIV epidemics.

Similarly, a UN review of sex work in New Zealand and the Australian state of New South Wales concluded that decriminalizing sex work has empowered sex workers to demand safer sex and to refuse particular clients and practices. This, in turn, has increased their access to HIV and sexual health services and is associated with very high condom use rates and very low rates of sexually transmitted infection. HIV transmission within the context of sex work is virtually non-existent, which is good for the health of entire communities. 

On the other hand, research from Sweden, Norway and municipalities in Canada, which pursue clients, rather than sex workers themselves (i.e., the "Nordic Model"), paints a grim picture. This legal framework impedes sex workers' ability to screen and identify clients and negotiate the terms of a transaction, including respecting safer sex, and displaces sex workers to isolated spaces to avoid police detection, where they have little ability to insist on condom use.

These laws erode sex workers' bargaining power and ability to demand safer sex, and discourage venue managers and others from promoting sexual health because condoms may continue to be seized as evidence of illegal activity. Sex workers are also restricted from working indoors and with others, which both significantly enhance their ability to control their working conditions, including the ability to negotiate safer sex.