Sex work laws struck down by Canadian Court
An Ontario court has thrown out key provisions of Canada’s anti-prostitution laws in response to a constitutional challenge by a Toronto dominatrix and two prostitutes in 2009. Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice ruled Tuesday the Criminal Code provisions relating to prostitution contribute to the danger faced by sex-trade workers.
In her ruling, Justice Susan Himel said it now falls to Parliament to “fashion corrective action.” “It is my view that in the meantime these unconstitutional provisions should be of no force and effect, particularly given the seriousness of the charter violations,” Himel wrote.”However, I also recognize that a consequence of this decision may be that unlicensed brothels may be operated, and in a way that may not be in the public interest.”
‘This decision means that sex workers can now pick up the phone, and call the police and report a bad client.’— Valerie Scott
The judge suspended the effect of the decision for 30 days. It does not affect provisions dealing with people under 18. Rona Ambrose, minister for the status of women, said the government is concerned about the decision and is “seriously considering appealing it.”
Terri-Jean Bedford and Valerie Scott and Amy Lebovitch had argued that prohibitions on keeping a common bawdy house, communicating for the purposes of prostitution and living on the avails of the trade force them from the safety of their homes to face violence on the streets. The women asked the court to declare legal restrictions on their activities a violation of charter rights of security of the person and freedom of expression.
The women and their lawyer, Alan Young, held a news conference Tuesday afternoon and expressed elation. “It’s like emancipation day for sex-trade workers,” said Bedford, adding the ball is now in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s court. “The federal government must now take a stand and clarify what is legal and not legal between consenting adults in private.” Scott called it an amazing victory, saying the decision lessens the risk of violence for sex workers.
Michael Turschic/CBC
VAMP’s response to “Prostitutes of God”
by Kate Hawkins
Last Monday, the UK Independent newspaper published a story about a new film called “Prostitutes of God” as one of its main online news stories. Made by a former Independent journalist, the film for VBS TV, is a sensationalist view through very western eyes of the devadasi system – which is equated with pimping, trafficking and abuse.
Within hours, sex workers in Sangli had begun watching the film, which was serialised in parts on the Internet over the course of the week. They were furious at the way they were portrayed, at the ethics of the film-maker, and of the misrepresentation of their lives and their religion. Their collective, VAMP, sent their community media unit out to film responses to the film.
This brief (3.5) minute clip is VAMP’s response to “Prostitutes of God”.
http://www.youtube.com/v/16OGyssJTvo?fs=1&hl=el_GR
VAMP present their incisive views about sex work; religion and faith; livelihoods; issues of consent; ethics and cross-cultural sensitivities while making documentary films.
In the age of the Internet, people who used to be the objects of white people’s gaze with no right of reply now have access to the representations that are made of them, and the technological means to answer back. A westerner may seize the headlines, but there’s now scope for there to be a debate and to bring those who in the past would have remained voiceless victims into that debate to represent themselves. It is a great opportunity to put the record straight.
This clip has been produced by Sangli Talkies, the newly-launched video unit of SANGRAM / VAMP. Watch it on you tube!
Willing Brides and Consenting Homosexuals ? : why we must unite against the trafficking paradigm.
by Cheryl Overs.
Over the last few months I have been reading and writing about sex work and law. I have had the chance to comment on several excellent papers as they are being written and had some wonderful opportunities to work with skilled and knowledgeable activists in human rights, the women’s movement, HIV and sexual and reproductive health. I have also had some great opportunities to learn from sex workers and hear the conversations that are taking place within the movement.
Of course there is plenty to say about so many aspects of sex work and law globally. Much of it is being said by far more articulate people than me andthe PLRI website is dedicated to making that information accessible. www.plri.org. Here I want to mention two issues that strike me as high priorities.
1. A BIG MESS : Sex workers have almost no say in research and it is a mess of competing agendas and assumptions.
Research standards are appalling and we don’t even know what laws affect sex workers in various jurisdictions or have common definitions of decriminalisation, regulation, legalisation, semi decriminalisation etc . Every day a new conceptual framework for sex work law appears in my inbox. The only thing they seem to have in common is they are all written by non sex workers ( see http://www.plri.org/resource/17-different-frameworks-sex-work-law-and-still-counting)
This, combined with ideologically driven faux-research, distorts the information base and renders sex work virtually a fact free area. This is illustrated by the incomprehensible mix of law reform that is taking place around the world.
2. A BIG MISTAKE : the Trafficking Paradigm.
My second issue is about the polarised battle that is seeing sex work sredefined as ‘trafficking and sexual explotati0n’. Sex workers are frustrated by the ideologies that have driven destructive and abusive attacks on sex industries disguised as raids and rescues of exploittion victims. Recently this has gone to a new and more dangerous level. In the course of exchanging ‘track-changed’ documents with colleagues and fellow activists from different disciplines and backgrounds I have noticed emergence of a new term “willing sex workers.
The danger here is that this term signifies that even those who support decriminalisation of sex work are now accepting the trafficking paradigm by repositing willing sex workers as a subset of this broader category ‘sex worker/victim of trafficking or sexaul explotation. Male and transgender sex workers are invisibilised in this discourse , perhaps because they are not so easily labelled as exploited/trafficked. (Although why leave a lucrative market untapped? Proposals to end an imaginary scourge of trafficking of men are no doubt being written as we speak.)
The implications of this slow but clear shift are enormous. Health and human rights promoting programmes f – in other words successful sex worker interventions – can now be seen as applicable only to ‘willing sex workers’ while ‘unwilling’ sex workers deemed to be trafficked or sexually exploited need raids, rehabilitation and anti-trafficking programmes.
Perhaps the most depressing thing about this is that sex workers themselves and other well meaning folks are buying into the trafficking paradigm. People are rightly concerned about slavery, child sexual abuse and people smuggling. I am not going to argue about how many people are forced into sex work, but even in that overstudied ‘hotbed of sex trafficking’ Cambodia, the only credible study, less than 2% of sex workers say they had been sold or co-oerced. ( CACHA 2008) How might this compare to the percentage of married women who were forced into marriage – even in the ‘hotbeds’ of forced marriage ? What percentage of gay men have been forced into sodomy ? We don’t know, but clearly both happen. But it would be absurd to preface the words ‘bride’ and ‘gay man’ with ‘willing’ or ‘consenting’. Can you imagine reports that say that condoms should be distributed to ‘consenting homosexuals’ ? Can you think of anything more absurd, more homophobic or more stigmatising ? Can you think of anything more absurd than describing Kate Middleton as a ‘willing bride’ ?
Positioning ‘willing’ and ‘unwilling’ doesn’t contribute to justice for people who have been raped, beaten imprisoned in the course of either marriage, homosexuality and no-one would suggest that. Nor would anyone suggest that rejecting the terms ‘willing brides’ and ‘consenting homosexuals’ amounts to a denial that those things happen. Yet this is exactly what the trafficking paradigm sets out for sex workers.
I was very surprised recently to see a US sex worker group congratulating a state government in the US for wiping the prostitution convictions of ‘trafficking victims’. This confirms to the government that ‘innocent victims’ deserve kinder treatement than the ‘willing sex workers’ whose convictions will stand. To me this was a very disappointing piece of advocacy.
Labour rights are the main demand that flows from the idea that sex work is work. These demands for human and labor rights apply equally to the willing and the unwilling – and everyone in between, which is most sex workers.
Perhaps the highest priority for the sex workers rights movement should be to unite to reject the entire paradigm of trafficking and sexual exploitation. Only by doing this can we focus on convincing the public and policy makers that public health, human rights and social development outcomes for sex workers depend on justice for all. The duped innocent, for the incorrigible slut, for the happy hooker; for the screaming queen and for the ‘sex slave’ – and for the other 99% of adult sex workers who dont fit these sterotypes – all need the same thing and our slogan says it perfectly – ‘only rights can stop the wrongs’
Human Rights : part of the problem ?
by Cheryl Overs
The Prague City Council will consider a bill to legalize prostitution today. As in most other countries prostitution in Czech Republic exists in a legal gray area. Changes proposed by Deputy Mayor Rudolf Blažek will seek, among other things, to legalize sex work in brothels and private homes. Mr Blažek sensibly commented to the The Prague Post.”It’s a possibility to step out of the black market and to include [sex workers] in the standard business regime,” Blažek told “Regulating prostitution and embedding it in the legal system would give more effective tools so the scene would not be as uncontrolled as it is now.”
However Mr Blažek has a problem, and not for the first time. His government has considered similar steps in the past. In fact, Blažek himself proposed comparable changes as early as 2001. In 2003, City Hall and the Interior Ministry again sought such changes, the deal-breaker was that for the reform to go through the Czech Republic must withdraw from the 1950 UN Convention for the Suppression in the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others. Such a move requires parliamentary approval, which was not forthcoming. The City Council will again formally request that Parliament take such a step now.
This is a fine state of affairs isn’t it? An enlightened local government in a Member State that wants to stop abuse of sex workers and reduce the public health risks posed by illegal commercial sex is prevented from doing so by a human rights convention.
This is not just an aberration of one of the conventions. The notion that prostitution is an affront to human dignity is enshrined rights across international human rights law. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women */Article 6/* says States Parties shall take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to suppress all forms of traffic in women and exploitation of prostitution of women. The Convention of the Rights of the Child places similar barriers on effective law and policy to deal with adolescents who are selling sex by dictating they be treated as children until they reach 18 years of age.
In the face of this, arguing for human rights as athe tool for ending the oppression of sex workers is a lost cause. Arguing for example that laws against soliciting violate sex workers right to ‘freedom of movement ‘ are risible.
We can’t seem to rely on human rights or women’s organisations to either understand or challenge the threat to sex workers posed by human rights law. Quite the opposite. Human Rights Watch just conducted what they call research (questioning a few sex workers) in Cambodia. Their ‘results’ repeated what the APNSW and WNU had already published with the crucial difference that HRW did not recommend repeal of the anti-sexual exploitation law that is driving the abuse. If only those pesky violent Cambodian police would stop bashing and raping people the law would be fine with HRW. CHANGE and other women’s rights organisations supported the closing of Craigslist ads for commercial sex to protect victims of trafficking.
So while it’s very nice for sex workers to march about chanting ‘sex workers rights are human rights’ the reality is that at best human rights offers sex workers very little, and at worst they form a potent barrier to sex workers realising their labour and civil rights. This was what I had in mind when I surprised my colleagues in the sex workers rights movement by saying I would definitely not attend the Human Rights March in Vienna to listen to the Annie Lennox talking about human rights. I won’t be blowing the vuvuzela of human rights or until I hear some recognition from powerful human rights and womens organisations that the current formulation makes human rights a part of the problem not the solution. To do that they will need to listen to sex workers and support our demands – demands that a mayor in the Czech Republic seems to understand better than human rights. ( but maybe not – he wants mandatory testing but that’s another story !)
Why Pimping Must Be Legal Too. by Cheryl Overs with special thanks to Marc of Frankfurt for giving this article a much better name.
Sex workers rights activists are living in exciting times. We now have a formal mechanism for inputting into UN policy, the NSWP UNAIDS Advisory Group on HIV and Sex Work and the Commission on HIV and Law convened by UNDP is a golden opportunity for an authoritative recommendation that sex work be decriminalised. Substantial support for such a recommendation has already come from senior UN officials including the Secretary General and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health.
When sex work began to be decriminalised in Australia more than 20 years ago I thought we were the first in a domino effect of collapsing sex work laws globally . I knew hardly anything of the outside world then. I now understand much better why the opposite has happened and why, with a couple of exceptions, laws against sex work have worsened for sex workers globally. Although those reasons are obviously varied and complex, I think the issue of removing laws against living off immoral earnings, brothel keeping etc has functioned as a ‘deal breaker’ that has impeded us forming the alliances we need to move the decriminalisation agenda forward globally.
Most of the agencies who support removing the offences that are used against women who sell sex ( and less often against men and transgenders) at the same time support retention of the offenses that are used against people that operate or service the sex industry. (pimps)
Why is this ? It’s the fashion in literature on sex work and law to follow any mention of sex business operators with (pimps) in brackets. At first I just thought the use of bracketed American slang to clarify who is being discussed was just another amusing folly fromAmerican friends. But perhaps by invoking this stigmatising term authors are providing a clue to better understanding the disconnect between sex workers and the allies we need to support our demands if we are to be successful. That we don’t have that support is clear. Of all the agencies and individuals calling for ‘removal of punitive laws against sex workers’ almost none are expressing support for removal of the laws against operating or servicing sex businesses ( pimping) . The ‘best’ we get is a call for better enforcement to ensure that innocent family members are not ‘wrongly’ charged with living off immoral earnings ( pimping ) .
Like all movements the sex workers rights movement is diverse so there are few policy positions that everyone in the global sex workers rights movementfully agrees on beyond the basic principles of the Network of Sex Work Projects. ( www.NSWP.org). However there is one proposition that stands out as universal – sex work is work. It’s written on our placards, chanted at our demonstrations quoted on our websites and publications. What this slogan means is that sex workers demand that labour law not criminal law is used to govern the sex industry and protect the conditions of the workers in that industry. For this to happen sex businesses and brokering commercial sex must be legal. To benefit from labour rights sex workers who are employees must have legal employers. To benefit from health and safety regulations self employed sex workers must have access to legal workplaces and the same legal structure around their work as other self employed workers. There is no point the sex workers role in commercial sex being legal while her employers or people from whom she rents space or advertises are criminalised. In fact in many countries where sex work highly criminalised in reality, the law on the books only contains brothel keeping, recruiting ( pimping) type offenses.( See http://prostitution.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000772)
It’s not surprising that sex workers look to labour law. Labour law and regulations and their important corollary, trade unions, are the mechanisms that have actually delivered improved working conditions to hundreds of millions of workers as they have been introduced over the last two centuries. Labour law is not a magic bullet, especially in poor countries, and sex workers know that. I remember I was fascinated when I first heard Cambodian sex workers passionately demanding ‘we must come under labour law’. They had learned a lot about workers rights issues from garment workers. ( in one of the most inspiring ‘civil society’ alliances I have ever seen) They knew that Cambodian garment factories haven’t transformed into perfect workplaces but equally they understood the role of labour law in garment workers’ journey from near slavery in dangerous sweatshops via the contemporary garment factory to their vision of the factory of the future. In this context the sex workers could very easily locate two primary differences between their struggle and that of the garment workers – the stigma and the law that criminalises ‘sexual expolitation and trafficking’ .
So why can’t our allies among academics, feminists and human rights agencies accept this ? Why do we so so many advocates argue for repeal of laws against soliciting and selling sex but not laws against brothel keeping and profiting from, organising or brokering commercial sex ? ( pimping) . Why do they make an argument for ‘decriminalisation’ of sex workers and suport laws that prevent ‘economic exploitation of sex workers’ (pimping) ? ( eg Canadian HIV/Aids Legal Networkhttp://www.aidslaw.ca/publications/publicationsdocEN.php?ref=199)
I have been surprised to see human rights abuses associated with anti-trafficking/sexual exploitation law attributed to poor enforcement of otherwise sound laws against people that operate sex businesses ( pimps) ( e.g. Off the Streets by Human Rights Watchhttp://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2010/07/20/streets-0) Why do human rights advocates dismiss sex workers view that the trafficking paradigm itself is flawed and the demands to repeal laws that prohibit sex buinsiness (pimps) ? I can’t understand support for banning sex work advertisements because the advertisers ( pimps) have failed to prevent the abuse of women. ( see about 2 million internet posts about Craigslist )
What do people want for sex workers ? A cosy cottage industry of all female sex worker collectives in which no sex worker facilitates or profits from the prostitution of another ? ‘ (pimps) ( or ‘pimps herself’ – I have actually read people talking about women trafficking themselves !) Although some sex workers might agree that a cottage industry of worker collectives would be nice, there is no sex worker in the world who doesn’t know that if you work in a criminalised environment you are affected by that criminalisation even if there is no specific law against what you are doing.
Of course I understand that people feel sorry for sex workers who work in horrible conditions and feel angry about the people that exploit them. We all do. I am sure the same well intentioned people feel sorry for garment workers too but the difference is they recognise their right to be employees and they don’t advocate criminalising the people that run garment factories . It doesn’t help sex workers struggle for rights to work these sentiments into professional policy advocacy. After all, sex workers know (pimps) best and they are demanding a fully legalised sex industry. The DMSC in India, the well known sex worker rights group, challenged (pimping) laws in court.
So here is an open message to all those who are advocating around sex work law reform. Please use precious advocacy opportunities to support sex workers position that sex work is work. This means that sex workers, like all other workers, need labour rights to reduce their vulnerability including to unscrupulous and abusive service providers and employers. To reach our agreed goal of being governed by labour law not criminal law, organising sex work and employing sex workers must be legal. Please don’t give expression to understandable disdain for the stereotypical violent male pimp by supporting laws against organising commercial sex or providing services and workplaces to sex workers.
There are excellent laws against kidnapping, assault, robbery and rape. Please use precious advocacy opportunities to press States to use them properly to address criminal abuse of sex workers, including by police who are the main perpetrators.
And please, please stop using the term (pimp).
Three New Papers About Sex work
Sexual and Reproductive Health http://bit.ly/dDwzyM
Migration, Mobility http://bit.ly/c3oosI
Creating an Enabling Legal and Policy Environment http://bit.ly/b8Nzxx
Michael Kirby Centre for Public Health and Human Rights Launch
The Michael Kirby Centre for Public Health and Human Rights was launched last week. It is a collaboration of interdisciplinary scholars in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University. The Centre is named for Australia’s longest serving Justice of the High Court who is a renowned human rights expert, advocate and defender. He will maintain an active involvement in the Centre’s work and future direction. One of the first projects of the centre is research on the impact of law and regulation on female sex workers in 20 countries.
Pepfar Anti Prostitution Pledge
No NGO or sex worker organisation in the history of the universe has ever conducted actions in support of sex trafficking.
The Global Village of AIDS 2010 Cheryl Overs
I was co-chair of the Global Village which was a great privilege and pleasure. Everyone was so committed and keen to make the best of the opportunities the Global Village presents. The global Village sessions were amongst the best at the conference. Many of the networking zones were set up as seminar spaces in which very rich discussions were held independently of the conference system for choosing topics and speakers.
The opening ceremony was the highlight of the whole conference for me. We had an ambitious idea to present communities and their messages and it worked as perfectly as chaos can. That no-one expected anything expect chaos was key to its success. This picture of the opening is one of my favourite of the conference, partly because of the faith message at the front. At each conference I meet wonderful people from faith based organisations that make a point of telling us that they oppose the stigma and anti-sex policies that threaten the lives of so many people. (more…)
