What Does The Supreme Court Decision Mean For Sex Workers and People in the Sex Trade?
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Dec 13, 2013 – On December 20, 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada will release its decision on “the Bedford case”. The Bedford case is being fought by three Ontario sex workers to demand that the laws prohibiting sex work be struck down. We stand behind sex workers in their demand for the full decriminalization of our work. (See here for details about the release of the decision: http://scc-csc.lexum.com/decisia-scc-csc/scc-csc/news/en/item/4470/index.do)
What does this decision mean for sex workers and people in the sex trade/sex industry?
The three laws being challenged at the Supreme Court are:
a. Communicating For The Purposes of Prostitution in a public place (section 213)
b. Living off the avails of prostitution (section 212)
c. Keeping a common bawdy house (section 210)
Since the introduction of the anti-sex work laws in 1985, there has been a 500% increase in mortality amongst our sisters and brothers in the sex industry. Sex workers and people in the sex trade are our family members, our friends, children, colleagues, partners, leaders and part of our communities. Over our 26 year history, we have seen how criminalizing any aspect of the sex industry hurts all of us. Decriminalization is only one step in the process of achieving our goals of living and working in safety and dignity.
How repealing these laws will increase protection for the most marginalized sex workers
1. Repealing the law prohibiting “keeping a common bawdy house”
In the midst of the slaughter of sex workers in the downtown eastside of Vancouver, an Indigenous street-based sex worker—Jamie-Lee Hamilton—opened her own house up so that other sisters in the trade could work indoors rather than disappearing into cars with clients. Women were disappearing, the police were doing nothing and something urgent had to be done. This effort to save lives was shut down by the Vancouver police force using the Bawdy House law—and the massacre of women continued. If the law were struck down, workers could create our own collective workplaces run by and for other sex workers, where we are in charge and protected, where safer sex and services are openly negotiated.
2. Repealing the law prohibiting “Communicating for the purposes of prostitution in a public place”
Upwards of 95% of all prostitution related charges are through this law which primarily impacts street-based (outdoor) sex workers. This law makes being homeless and a sex worker illegal and dangerous. A criminal record has a dramatic impact on someone’s life. Criminal records marginalize those doing sex work due to poverty, can lead to the apprehension of their children and limits other economic options. For the most part, street based sex workers experience the criminal legal system as a source of danger and harassment, not protection. Indigenous sex workers are vastly more likely to experience violence by police and over-incarceration. Repealing this law would be one step to reducing contact between the criminal legal system and sex workers.
Removing this law would remove a significant barrier that sex workers face when attempting to negotiate services, safer sex and assess risk. This is a critical interaction between sex workers and prospective clients that saves lives. Removing this law means that sex workers no longer have to work in areas that are isolated and under-protected, another source of danger.
3. Repealing the law prohibiting “Living off the avails of prostitution”
This laws is purportedly for the protection of sex workers from exploitative pimps and organized crime. In its impact however, it criminalizes all relationships between sex workers and their community, leaving workers without access to colleagues, security, receptionists, community and support. We have reports that boyfriends, managers and friends are often charged under this law based on racial profiling, where men of colour are more likely to be perceived as “pimps” or “traffickers” due to racist stereotyping.
Repealing this law will allow sex workers to make decisions about who they want to work with and will remove one tool of racial profiling used by police.
No More Colonial Laws
The first anti-sex work laws in Canada were in the Indian Act. At the root, all laws in the Criminal Code of Canada were introduced by colonial governments, imposed and are still enforced without the free, prior and informed consent from the care-takers of these lands—the First Nations. There was no assessment nor concern for the impacts these laws have on Indigenous people and nations. As a result, we see that our criminal legal system is bursting with Indigenous people and people of colour who are vastly over-represented. It is the nature of the system to over-police but under-protect certain communities and criminalizing any aspect of the sex industry will put more poor and working-class racialized people behind bars–sex workers, clients and third parties such as management and security. More colonial laws will not rescue us from bad colonial laws. Criminalizing any of us tears communities apart.
Sex workers have the solutions to the problems we face. Among these are honouring treaty rights, affordable housing, respectful healthcare and substance treatment, an end to poverty and an overhaul of the child welfare system. Another is to pull the anti-prostitution laws off the backs of the sex workers who are harmed–not helped—by them. For this decision to truly make a difference in our lives, sex workers must be in leadership roles for all decision making about regulations that impact our safety and livelihood including: zoning and licensing, control over the conditions and locations of our work, human rights and labour rights protections, the right to organize as workers.
Sex work is real work and we demand fair and safe working conditions for all of us including those without status. We stand against the exploitation of all workers and legislation that advances the precarity of labour and creates vulnerability to exploitation. The disregard by the state for the lives of Indigenous people involved in sex work and the over-representation of Indigenous people in the most precarious and vulnerable forms of sex work cannot be separated from the ongoing economic exploitation of Indigenous people, the extraction of resources from Indigenous lands, the ongoing pursuit of profit at the expense of Indigenous communities and environmental protections, and the displacement of Indigenous peoples from land and labour. Our call for labour rights for all sex workers supports the right to self-determination for Indigenous peoples. Sex worker rights are labour rights. Health and Safety for Sex workers is a labour rights issue.
Endorsed by the Native Youth Sexual Health Network
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Maggie’s: The Toronto Sex Workers Action Project is an organization run for and by local sex workers. Our mission is to assist sex workers in our efforts to live and work with safety and dignity. We are founded on the belief that in order to improve our circumstances, sex workers must control our own lives and destinies.
Contact: Chanelle Gallant, Communications Coordinator communications@maggiestoronto.ca, 416 964-0150
