Thank you.
I am Jenn Clamen. I'm the national coordinator of the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform. We are an alliance of 25 sex worker rights groups across the country, the majority of which are led by sex workers working in the sex industry. The alliance was created in 2012 as the means of getting sex workers' voices to people like you, to Parliament, as a means of building respect and legitimacy for the voices and the experiences of sex workers where we are otherwise ignored and not taken seriously.
Also, the alliance was really created as a mechanism for sex workers to get involved in the policies and practices that affect their everyday lives, and that's the work we do together.
That's where I want to focus my intervention today, on the ways and the duty of parliamentarians to take direction and leadership from sex workers who are really best placed to speak to any policy or practice that may regulate online sex work or online porn.
I'll start by saying that it's important—obviously we all feel that it's really important—to remain really critical of abusive and exploitive practices on the Internet, and more so for people who are targeted for violence. Sex workers understand this. We have been organizing for over 50 years against violence and abuse in the industry. It's why we started organizing. We didn't start organizing for the right to work in the industry. We started organizing against abuse and violence. For this reason, sex workers are the best placed to be at the centre of this discussion. Sex workers are mitigating violence all of the time in the context of criminalization and stigma that is perpetuated against the industry.
I want to talk about meaningful consultation and why it's so important, and also how to do it. We've been involved in so many of these parliamentary discussions, and people talk about consultation, and we get invited at the last minute, on a Friday evening to a meeting on Monday morning. Some people might not know how to do consultation, and that's okay, but we're here to explain how to do that as well. We want to teach you how to do that and hope that you're open to those learnings.
So far, your committee hearings have really promoted a set of values that have been extremely damaging for sex workers to watch across the country and across North America. Our alliance member groups, as well as individual sex workers across Canada and the States, have been pressuring for a seat at this table since day one of these hearings. On day one of these hearings, you all heard from Rape Relief as a means of framing the discussion. They framed it, not surprisingly, as one of exploitation; and that has been really clear to sex workers and really harmful to sex workers across the country.
It is made clear that sex workers are not welcome at this table and are not considered valued participants. We were told outright that this committee didn't concern us, and it hasn't been safe for sex workers to come and publicly testify as a result in this what we consider a hostile setting.
I want to talk about meaningful consultation, and what it means, what you need to do, and I'm happy to send this all in written form. Meaningful consultation is something we consulted our members on years ago, and we wrote it down for exact moments like this. Meaningful consultation means treating sex workers like experts on the impacts of laws related to sex work. Often the only people who are treated as experts in conversations like the ones happening in this committee are lawyers, academics, politicians, social workers and, in the case of this committee, people who don't work in the sex industry. So, sex workers are most affected by any regulation, and sex workers' perspectives need to be at the centre of your discussion.
Meaningful consultation also means proportionately weighing the consultation based on who is affected by the laws. Sex workers currently working in the sex industry are most affected and live the experience of criminalization and regulation every day, so their perspectives should hold more weight for all of you who are considering regulation.
Meaningful consultation also means scrutinizing who is considered an expert on sex work issues. Exodus Cry, Rape Relief, RCMP—it's a hard no on all of that from our end. How can any of these people explain to you how exploitation or violence happens in the industry when they don't work in it? They're merely providing an ideological perspective.
Meaningful consultation also means gathering experts by asking sex workers who their allied organizations and community groups are, where they access services. We've been trying to send you lists and lists of people you can speak to from day one, and unfortunately that's gone ignored—and I'm not just chastising you. Please see this as more than chastising you for what this committee hasn't done. It's really an invitation to open and change the way things are moving forward, so that any regulation or any policy moving forward is actually centring sex workers at its base.
Meaningful consultation also means accounting for structural barriers in consultations. This means considering anonymity for sex workers, who have the right to remain anonymous and have to remain anonymous; considering pseudonyms; or allowing them not to show their face. It means offering in camera or private face-to-face dialogues with sex workers and chosen supporters. It means ensuring that there's sufficient time in the lead-up to the conversations to allow sex workers to prepare for these moments of intervention. It means providing information in advance on the kinds of questions you're asking and the kinds of interrogations you're doing. It means making particular efforts to contact communities of more marginalized sex workers, such as racialized sex workers, indigenous sex workers, Black sex workers and trans sex workers. It means holding informal meetings in these kinds of conversations for sex workers who are marginalized, particularly by poverty, immigration status or indigeneity.
This committee has received briefs and written testimony from sex workers who have experienced violence in the industry, and this testimony outlines how violence happens and makes suggestions for ways to mitigate that violence. Every industry has violations. Industries that are criminalized and stigmatized have more, and we need to work to address them. The most basic premise here would be the inclusion, centring and leadership of people who are experiencing those violations. No other industry would create regulation without the input of workers.
This committee has the challenge of addressing exploitation that some people experience, without infringing on the rights of sex workers. The people on the front lines of this industry—sex workers—are best placed to help shape any existing or proposed regulation. Any approach that fails to consider their needs will harm sex workers. I promise you this. Sex workers are systematically ignored in policy that impacts our lives.
Consultation isn't an easy process. In 2007, the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform held a consultation, over a year and a half, with our member groups and sex workers in our member groups to create a series of 54 recommendations for law and policy reform. It was a collective process to write those recommendations, and they are a clear rejection of criminal sanctions and other repressive measures of the industry, not based on ideology but based on the impacts of regulation.
Those recommendations are underscored by a series of principles that I want to share with you, because I think the committee could benefit from this set of principles. Based on the hearings so far and the ways that these conversations have been going—and we've been listening very closely—this committee really needs a dose of neutrality rather than ideology, and a dose of evidence. We want to share with you some of the principles that underscored our recommendations.
Selling or trading sexual services is not inherently immoral, harmful or a public nuisance.
Sex work does not inherently damage the physical or mental health of those who do it, and sex workers do not become unfit employees, parents, tenants, customers, clients or people who can testify at committees.
Stigma towards sex work and against sex workers is real and pervasive, and it's deeply ingrained in Canadian society and around the world. It contributes to harassment, discrimination, violence and abuse. It also contributes to bad policy, as we've been seeing in the discussions at this committee. Laws and policies and their enforcement often reflect and reinforce the stigma, or encourage or tolerate the abuses that flow from it.
Eliminating stigma against sex workers needs to—