Policy Briefs
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women represents the leading independent body coordinating the global response on gender-based violence and discrimination, and its recommendations inform policies which impact the lives of millions of self-identified women. The existence of guidelines to uphold women’s human rights, including the rights of all groups of marginalized cis and trans women, is paramount. Our submission focuses on human trafficking in the context of women’s migration to Canada for the purpose of, or leading to, work in the sex industry.
Canada has joined an increasing number of countries globally, including Norway, Sweden and France, in adopting end-demand sex work laws (also referred to as the Nordic model). This legal approach criminalizes the purchase of sex (buyers/clients) and third parties2 who receive material benefits from sex work, while leaving selling of sex legal.
Given growing concern of end-demand laws and the unanimous decision by the Supreme Court of Canada in December 2013 that Canada’s previous laws violated sex workers’ security of the person, we aimed to use 9 years of rigorous community-based research to understand how and whether the new laws replicated the same harms as previous criminal laws in Canada.
Expert Evidence
This brief draws from the 15-page report, Harms of End-Demand Criminalization: Impact of Canada’s PCEPA Laws on Sex Workers’ Safety, Health & Human Rights, published by the AESHA Project in 2019.
Submission on Bill S-224, An Act to Amend the Criminal Code (trafficking in persons)
The political and ideological conflation of sex work (defined as the consensual exchange of sex services) and human trafficking have shaped repressive laws and policies that have consistently violated sex workers’ human rights. Despite the harms of such laws and policies, most jurisdictions continue to uphold punitive measures targeting the sex industry. Laws and policies that directly impact sex workers’ rights, safety and autonomy are routinely developed without any or adequate consultation with sex workers themselves.
Bill S-224 is another in a long line of laws that adversely impact sex workers, particularly Indigenous, racialized, and migrant sex workers by adding to existing barriers to safe work and further isolating and disenfranchising sex workers from accessing health and legal supports. We urge the Committee to reject Bill S-224 and adopt a human rights-based approach to human trafficking that addresses the underlying structural social realities (such as poverty, precarity in immigration status, lack of access to affordable housing, health, and social services) that contribute to the risk of exploitation and abuse.
The Digital Citizen Initiative highlights the impact of harmful content online, including the sharing of non-consensual sexual content. However, further punitive regulation and the introduction of new regulations and enforcement mechanisms to govern user activity online will have broad negative consequences for communities already heavily regulated and surveilled in the online sphere, including sex workers. Sex workers are experts in the negotiation of consent and in safely navigating sexually explicit materials online, therefore sex workers and considerations about their occupational health and safety must be included in deliberations about policy responses to harmful content online.
This submission urges the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security to reject Bill S-210 in favour of a careful and considered approach to young peoples’ sexual health that incorporates sexual health education, engages with international standards and observations about age-verification, and importantly consults meaningfully with online sex workers who are directly impacted by the proposed legislation.
Submission to the Special Committee on Reforming the BC Police Act
Based on over a decade of rigorous academic peer-reviewed community-based research, This submission outlines four central evidence-based policy recommendations for the reform of the BC Police Act.
Regulatory models based on prohibition and criminalization have previously been shown as ineffective in curbing trafficking and sexual violence, and are instead shown to undermine sex workers’ ability to access vital occupational health and safety protections. Digital environments have been identified as critical to sex workers’ safety and autonomy.
Deliberations about online pornography policy that fail to include or address sex workers’ realities have the potential to create serious harms to sex workers’ occupational health and safety and at the same time, are unlikely to reach the stated goals of protecting women and survivors of sexual violence. Through West Coast LEAF’s ongoing monitoring of the gender-based impact of COVID- 19, the importance of digital environments for sex workers has only increased as many sex workers have had to pivot to or continue working online to support their economic and health and safety needs in the face of financial devastation unrecognized by the financial supports rolled out by federal or provincial governments
Healthcare Provider Training Resources
Sex Work and Health: Strategies and Tools for Inclusive Practices
In partnership with the Vancouver Sex Work Community Alliance, we have recently launched a 4-part training course targeted to care providers and their workplaces, on how to provide better care to sex workers.
This course is based on peer-reviewed evidence from the AESHA project on sex workers’ barriers to healthcare, as well as in-depth consultation with diverse sex workers. The goal is to increase care providers’ knowledge of the systemic barriers faced by sex workers, debunk myths about sex work, and provide best practices for offering sex workers safe and stigma-free care.