Yesterday was Prisoners Justice Day, (which has been going on for 32 years every August 10^th, as a day prisoners have set aside to fast and refuse to work in a show of solidarity to remember those who have died behind bars. It is also a day to talk about the disproportionate numbers of marginalized people that are being incarcerated) and so in commemoration of this day, I want to take this blog post and use it to remember not only the thousands of sex workers languishing behind bars but, also the 171 sex workers who have died over the past 12 years in Canada due to the criminal laws surrounding their work.

Although being a prostitute is legal in Canada there were still 5,701 prostitution convictions last year. That’s because while being a prostitute is legal, the activities surrounding prostitution are not.  There are 3 main laws in Canada that are used to punish sex workers, the first is the Bawdy House laws which prevent sex workers from working out of their own environment (apartment, house, brothel, commercial unit, etc), forcing them to have to go to their client’s – usually a stranger’s – place (where they don’t know if there is anyone else hiding in the place, or if weapons are around, or even an escape route if an emergency arises).  The maximum penalty under the Bawdy House laws is a 2 year jail term, a $2,000 fine, seizure of bank accounts and assets, and even an eviction order (the landlord or property owner has 30 days to evict the sex worker or he can risk being charge with this offense).

The second set of laws surrounding prostitution is the Procuring law (a.k.a. the pimping laws) which, among other things, makes it illegal for sex workers to work together, hire security personnel (like drivers, receptionists, and body guards), and even makes it illegal for sex workers to work together as article 3 of section 212 of the Criminal Code states that:

             "Any person who lives with or is habitually in the company of a prostitute or lives in a common bawdy-house is, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, proof that the person lives on the avails of prostitution."

The maximum penalty for living with a prostitute is imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years!

The third and most common law, used in 93% of prostitution convictions, is the Communicating for the Purpose of Prostitution law.  This law mainly targets our most vulnerable sex workers – street based sex workers – by making it illegal for them to negotiate services in the safety of the public (the public includes parking lots, vehicles, bars, cell phones, pay phones, and even private residences if they have a window or door open), forcing them to work in dangerous and remote locations without any time to make an assessment of whether the guy their going with is a gentleman or a predator.  The maximum sentence for this offense is 6 months in jail and/or a $2,000.00 fine. Even though this law is designed to charge sex workers and clients equally (as the client the sex worker is talking to is also Communicating for the Purpose of Prostitution), it’s usually the sex workers – mostly women—who receive jail and probation sentences, and not the client. According to Statistic’s Canada 61% of sex workers receive jail or probation, only 16% of clients receive the same punishment. And when clients do get sentenced to either jail or probation, they usually have to serve a sentence that is half of what sex workers must serve.

So while prostitution is legal, any effort to work safely is criminalized. Essentially these laws weren’t constructed to protect society; they were constructed to harm sex workers. And when harm does come to sex workers they can be arrested if they report it to the police as it is not unheard of for the police to arrest victims once they’ve disclosed that the assault took place while engaging in prostitution (I have known many women that this has happened too).

There is absolutely nothing more abhorrent than jailing rape victims, but that’s what these laws do, which is why the Toronto Police state that only 2% of assaults against sex workers ever make it to their attention, and why serial killers (like Michael Durant, Robert Pickton, and whoever is responsible for the over 80 missing sex workers in Edmonton) can be rest assured that they can keep killing without anyone bothering to look for them – at least for 10 -15 years before the media finally takes a stance.   

With the laws against prostitution how the hell can we protect ourselves from rapists and predators if we are to busy protecting ourselves from the police?

And it’s not just the laws used against prostitution that sex workers are charged with – sex workers can even be charged with self defense, as research has shown that the majority of theft convictions for sex workers arise for their demand to be paid for services performed. Corrections Canada also states that approximately 9% of women servicing prison sentences for homicide are sex workers who were defending themselves against violent clients.

THERE ARE MORE SEX WORKERS BEHIND BARS FOR SELF DEFENSE AND/OR PROSTITUTION RELATED OFFENSES THEN THERE ARE PEOPLE BEHIND BARS WHO ATTACK US!

As a society we are judged by how we treat the most vulnerable citizens, and the amount of violence that sex workers face as a result of these laws which restrict any safety precautions should be cause for alarm and action from our elected government officials. What this government needs to do is remove these laws—thereby decriminalizing prostitution—and only then will we ever begin to bring justice to sex workers.