Thank you.
My name is Emily Symons. I'm the chair of POWER, which stands for Prostitutes of Ottawa-Gatineau Work Educate and Resist. We are a sex worker-led organization founded in 2008, and we advocate for sex workers' human rights and labour rights. We envision a world in which people can freely choose to do sex work or to not do sex work and in which those who choose to do sex work are able to do so in safety and in dignity. We are completely unfunded and entirely volunteer-based. Our membership includes people of all genders working as escorts, erotic massage providers, street-based workers, erotic dancers, and webcam performers.
I'm here today to present the expertise of our membership on how Bill C-36 will impact the safety of sex workers. I would like to say that I believe we are all here today with the safety and well-being of sex workers at heart. I will say that sex workers are the experts, and sex workers know better than anyone else how these laws will impact their work and their safety. Sex workers who are currently working are also the ones who will directly experience the impacts of any new laws that are put forward. For this reason, we must privilege their voices and experiences.
The Himel decision and the decision that came down from the Supreme Court of Canada explicitly outlined the dangers of criminalizing street-based sex work as well as third parties. For this reason, I'll focus on the two sections of Bill C-36 that criminalize the purchase of sex and criminalize advertising. I would like to show how these laws will contribute to violence against sex workers.
I will start by discussing the criminalization of purchase of sex on the streets. This law, if it's put forward and becomes law, will replicate the same harms that we see under the communicating provision. We know from sex workers in Ottawa currently working on the streets that criminalizing the purchase of sex puts them at increased risk of violence.
I will say that there is a common misconception that sex workers don't have a voice and therefore other people must speak for them. In fact, sex workers can speak for themselves. Sex workers do speak for themselves. The issue is that we aren't listening.
In March 2014, POWER facilitated the women of the Oasis drop-in in Ottawa to participate in the government's online consultation. This is just one drop-in centre that POWER collaborates with. Twelve women who are currently working on the streets as sex workers participated. Their unedited responses are available on our website at powerottawa.ca. Much of what I speak about will be drawn from their experiences.
Criminalizing clients is not something new. In fact, Ottawa police have been enforcing the communicating law against clients, and not sex workers, for the last few years. We therefore already know the impact it has on sex workers working on the streets.
What we know from street-based sex workers is that criminalizing their clients means rushed negotiations. It's very important for a sex worker working on the streets to take the time to evaluate a client before jumping in his vehicle. This may include smelling his breath to see if there's alcohol, doing a scan of the interior of the vehicle, and checking their bad date list to see if he's on it. When clients fear being criminalized or the police are around, it's very difficult for sex workers to screen their clients. When clients are criminalized on the streets, this means they don't go to well-lit and well-populated areas to pick up sex workers. So in order for sex workers to access their clients, they are pushed into the shadows, into unlit and unpopulated areas. This puts them at increased risk of violence.
Sex workers working on the streets work in groups or in pairs in order to protect themselves. They can watch out for each other and take down licence plates. When sex workers' clients fear being criminalized, they don't approach sex workers working in groups or in pairs. They approach sex workers working alone.
So when we criminalize clients, we're essentially replicating the same harms of the communicating law in which sex workers don't take the time to screen their clients, they can't work in well-lit and well-populated areas, and they must work alone.
We also see that when we criminalize clients, we end up taking away a lot of the sex workers' good clients. They may move to a different part of the city to pick up sex workers where there's less policing. They may move indoors. When there are fewer and fewer clients, it becomes harder and harder for sex workers to say no. It's very important for a sex worker to be able to say no to a client and to know that there will probably be another one coming up soon. When you decrease the pool of clients, it becomes more difficult for sex workers to say no when they have bills to pay.
Sex workers also generally stay out until they have made the money that they need. They will have a certain amount in mind that they need to pay their rent or to buy their groceries for that week, and when the police are out arresting clients this means that sex workers are out on the streets for much longer in order to make the money they need. This puts them at increased risk of encountering a predator, and it can also increase tension with community members who are offended by the presence of a prostitute.
I will now discuss criminalizing the purchase of sex indoors. This will continue to undermine sex workers' ability to protect themselves. The key way that both independent sex workers and agencies protect sex workers is by requiring personal information from a client generally in the form of a phone number. So, if you were to go online where sex workers advertise, you will frequently see “no pay phones” and “no blocked calls”. This is because sex workers require personal information about their clients so that if something would happen, she has information to give the police. Now, she may not feel comfortable calling the police but this serves as a deterrent to the client because the client knows that if he commits a criminal act then she has his phone number to give the police.
What we see when clients fear criminalization is that they don't want to provide this information for screening, which makes it very difficult for sex workers working indoors to be safe.
When clients are criminalized sex workers don't feel comfortable calling the police. Sex workers rely on sex work to provide their income and to support themselves. Sex workers don't want the police to come and arrest their good clients and take away their income. Therefore, sex workers don't feel comfortable calling the police when they've experienced an assault because that could have their location of work targeted as a hot spot.
Clients are often the first to know when exploitation is taking place. In fact, here in Ottawa there was a situation where there were underage girls who were being forced into the sex industry. It was actually a client who facilitated getting her back home to her parents and facilitated the situation being reported to law enforcement.
When clients fear being criminalized, they don't want to report this exploitation to the police because they fear being arrested themselves.
I will now move on to talk about the criminalization of advertising.
What this will mean for sex workers is that sex workers will begin to advertise in code, both because of the ban on advertising and the ban on the criminalization of clients. So what this means is that sex workers will start to say things like, “It's $100 for a happy ending” or “It's 200 roses for my companionship for one hour”, without explicitly mentioning sexual services. This means that sex workers cannot post their restrictions—sexual acts they are not comfortable performing—and their safer sex requirements. If you go online today and look at advertisements of sex workers working indoors, you will see a list of acronyms. These acronyms represent the sexual acts that the sex worker is comfortable performing, the acts she is not comfortable performing, as well as her safer sex requirements.
Now, when sex workers start to advertise in code and can't explicitly discuss safer sex practices or what they are not comfortable performing, then this can lead to misunderstanding where the client can show up expecting something that she is not offering, which can be a very scary experience.
We know that the safest way to work as a sex worker is to work indoors. There is much less violence indoors than on the streets. Criminalizing advertising poses a significant barrier to sex workers being able to work indoors.
Places of advertisement like cerb.ca are about more than just advertising. They provide a “sex worker only” space where sex workers have their own board and can talk to each other. They can provide references about who the good clients are and they can also post “bad date” lists. There is an extensive “bad date” list on cerb.ca, which is probably the primary place sex workers advertise currently in Ottawa. There has been a lot of talk recently among sex workers in Ottawa about what we will have to do when the five years of the “bad date” list is taken down.
There is also a lot of talk about how the advertising isn't going to target sex workers because it's not going to be a criminal law to advertise your own sexual labour, but in fact, this law will criminalize sex workers. It's very common for sex workers to advertise duos, to offer two women with one client. If you go to sex workers' personal websites, you will often see a links page where sex workers post their friends, and these are the people they share references with. So they will call up their friend and say, “Hey, did you see Bob? Was he a good client?”
Sex workers will also frequently perform administrative tasks for each other for a fee, which can include renting an in-call location to see clients, or hiring someone else to do your advertising for you.
My understanding is that this law will criminalize sex workers advertising duos, criminalize sex workers advertising their friends, and it will criminalize sex workers performing administrative tasks for each other. These acts facilitate working collaboratively. Working collaboratively is safer. Performing in duos is safer, being in a group of two sex workers. Sharing a workspace is safer. Sharing bad date information and providing references are safer. This law will chip away at a sex worker's ability to work collaboratively.
I will finish by briefly talking about funding. I'm very disturbed to learn that only exiting services will be funded. What this tells me is that women who choose to exit prostitution are worthy of human rights, and women who don't wish to exit prostitution are unworthy of human rights.
Some of the services that benefit the safety and health of sex workers include having someone compile bad date lists for street-based sex workers and distributing them to sex workers; health services for sex workers; Grandma's House, which is a location to bring clients where there is supervision, and if a sex worker screams there is someone to intervene; outreach workers; and safer sex supplies. These are services that help to keep sex workers safe and healthy, and it's a shame that they won't be funded.
I'll finish by saying that Bill C-36 is irredeemable, and in all its parts it will put sex workers at increased risk of violence. We need to start from scratch, and we need to take the lead from New Zealand. We need to meaningfully engage with sex workers to develop a legal regime that prioritizes their health, safety, and well-being.
Thank you.