Evidence of meeting #98 for Justice and Human Rights in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was prostitution.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
4:35 p.m.
Co-Founder and Director, Sextrade101
Yes, they called them youth sex workers.
4:35 p.m.
Co-Founder and First Nations Educator, Sextrade101
They just said it. They just said it earlier. They did.
4:35 p.m.
Co-Founder and Director, Sextrade101
Yes, they called them youth sex workers.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
Okay. This is not a debate between you and another group that is testifying.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
I'd like to come back to the questions, please.
Anyway, I thank you for your input, but I am going to ask Ms. Gillies to respond as well.
4:35 p.m.
Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform
I think it's quite clear that we take very divergent, even opposing positions on this issue. We all have very different lived experiences, and even when we have some shared or similar experiences, we interpret those very differently.
It is indeed the case that the trading and selling of sex exists along a whole spectrum of experiences and contexts, with trafficking being at one end and people more freely selecting sex work at the other. Most of us are somewhere in the middle, where we make decisions that seem best for us, often within a series of very constrained circumstances.
That said, there is definitely exploitation and abuse within the sex trade outside of actual trafficking, and that's very similar to the exploitation and abuse that we see in other informal and precarious labour sectors. For example, there is a big difference between working in a sweatshop, where there are no labour protections, and working in a well-established, labour-oriented industry. However, it doesn't mean that if, for example, the industry is the garment industry, we'll say we are going to eliminate the whole garment industry because there are areas of abuse within it.
I have to say that I feel truly bad for my colleagues at the end of the table. I can hear that they have suffered extreme trauma and are still suffering that trauma, and I really wish that collectively we could move forward with a solution. I do, however, believe that the solution is differentiating between types of abuse and allowing people who continue—like me—to work in the sex trade to do so with safety and dignity, which is currently being denied.
I do not want me or somebody close to me to end up in a horrific situation, and I think that the laws, as they are currently positioned, put us at risk in exactly that manner.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Could I get a response from Ms. Thomas, as well? I believe that your position is more aligned with the Alliance.
4:40 p.m.
Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers
I think it is.
As I said, there are definitely people who are absolute victims, and that can't be lost. Certainly the criminal justice system needs to intervene when that comes into play.
My concern is when it overreaches and takes people who are victims, who then seem to be assisting the real true human trafficking offenders. When you have that, you have women who have now been exploited, as Ms. Perrier has said. You don't necessarily realize the control that you're under at the time, so you may be participating unwillingly in trafficking other human beings. That's my concern when the criminal justice system intervenes.
I will say that is similar to my client, who actually tried many times throughout the last year and a half of her proceedings to speak to the police and said, “I will assist you if you will ask the prosecution to end.” She was out of the sex work. She still offered an open invitation to the police to speak to them and let them know who she felt were people who were trafficking other human beings, and that offer was never taken. In fact, instead, she was questioned on the stand whether she was of lesser value because she was a woman of colour compared to the actual considered victim, who was white.
That is my concern, that you have someone who I have to explain to that the criminal justice system doesn't always seem just. She was very lucky. She was acquitted, but she still had to endure with paying, at times, for her own defence, dealing with bail conditions, and dealing with the stigma. I will say that she almost committed suicide while waiting for her criminal charges to come to an end, and this was after she was out of this industry.
My concern is going to be for the people who are truly vulnerable and for who the criminal justice system doesn't see as vulnerable, until they take time to actually investigate what is actually going on with those people.
4:40 p.m.
NDP
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
I would like to thank all the witnesses for their really compelling testimony. I would like to particularly thank Ms. Perrier and Ms. Falle for being so open in sharing really horrific stories with the committee.
As Mr. McKinnon demonstrated through his questions, we have a diversity of opinion on a very difficult topic. This committee is studying human trafficking, but inevitably, as you've indicated, we're having to delve into the line between human trafficking on the one hand, and perhaps there is no line...but a perception that sex work has been with us for a long time. Whether we choose to call it that or not, it's certainly been a fact of life for generations and generations.
Sextrade101 does some valuable work, and you've told us a bit about it with your survivor statements in particular.
Do you not think that there may well be...or can you conceive of people in the industry who are empowered and not necessarily in need of your services? Ms. Perrin has told us about people who have gone into this because it's a better alternative for them than perhaps the kind of life they would otherwise have to live in poverty. Can you not conceive of that? Are there not people who may well be satisfied with their work?
4:40 p.m.
Co-Founder and Director, Sextrade101
I'm going to speak to my personal experience, and then I'll answer a little bit more.
Had you asked me in that 12-year stint if it was a choice, I would have told you yes. It was the only choice that I felt I had. I didn't have another option of equal or greater value. I did not go into this with an informed choice, nor do most of us. An informed choice would have meant we would know there would be violence; we would be aware of the violence we'd experience on a daily basis.
I have met a very few women who have sold sex and found pleasure while servicing their johns, and we could look at maybe some sex addiction there. Where does that come from? It's usually issues from childhood, issues that have not been resolved. How much of a choice is it in that case?
I don't think our laws should reflect or revolve around the small percentage who say this is what they want to do, this is where they want to be, when we know first-hand that this industry harms a mass number of women and children. I don't believe that any child under any circumstances goes into this by choice.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
All right, I understand that. I appreciate what you're saying, and your desire to cut the demand, as you put it, from the buyers, to discourage men from buying sex. Whether that's realistic or not is for others to decide.
I want now to talk to you, Ms. Gillies and Ms. Perrin, because you came at this from a very different place.
I gather from your materials that you are against the Nordic model, if I can call it that. You're in favour of decriminalization. You want to remove the sex-work specific criminalization. You want to enforce the laws that exist to address violence, exploitation, and trafficking, because those laws are already in place.
As I heard you say earlier in your analogy to sweatshops, you want to apply a labour framework to legislation and use health and safety laws to deal with this issue. It sounds like Ms. Thomas is somewhere with you on that to some degree as well.
I'm only trying to summarize. I think you would say that sex work can be voluntary, can be a profession, and you're concerned, if I can summarize, about conflating human trafficking with legitimate sex work.
Do I have your position?
4:45 p.m.
NDP
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
All right.
Do you think that criminalizing buyers of sex will help victims of trafficking?
4:45 p.m.
NDP
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
Our current laws allow us to criminalize the buyers of sex, although some have testified—I think it was you, Ms. Thomas—that there are very few convictions, and few convictions of human trafficking; they plead down to Criminal Code convictions like procuring or living off the avails and the like. That's the reality, and that's why we never get any convictions because of that.
Is that fair?
May 22nd, 2018 / 4:45 p.m.
Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers
That's fair.
Again, the human trafficking can be used for a plea bargain tool on behalf of the crown. In terms of people purchasing sex, I can't think of any cases. I mean, I just can't, so—
4:45 p.m.
NDP
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
The possibility of that drives women to fear for their safety, because the fact that you can charge them means they're reluctant to go forward to the police and talk about it.
4:45 p.m.
Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform
If I can draw a parallel to the old bawdy house laws, we know that in Canada there were relatively few bawdy house convictions, but in Bedford, the Supreme Court found the fact that the law prevented us from having safe, stable places to work was a violation of our right to security of person. Sometimes simply the fear of the law is just as powerful as the actual enforcement of that law.
I can tell you that since the criminalization of purchase came into play, clients are much less likely to communicate with us. We have a harder time negotiating what we're going to do, how we're going to do it, safe sex practices, and what sexual services we will or won't provide. Clients are no longer willing to give their real names or any identifying information. It makes screening for our safety much harder, but what I was really referring to in relation to this consultation around human trafficking is that I have worked for almost 30 years, not just as a sex worker, but doing advocacy, and I can tell you there was a time when I could pick up the phone at an organization like Maggie's and speak to a fellow who would say, “I just wanted to let you know I was down at such and such parlour. I'm really concerned that something bad is happening with those girls, because I saw and heard this or that.” There's now radio silence, because these men know that if they step forward, they themselves could be facing prosecution. I'm concerned that we are missing a significant tool in our battle.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
The model you would prefer, then, the decriminalization model, would be like the New Zealand model, I presume.
4:45 p.m.
Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform
That would be an excellent parallel, yes.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
Thank you very much. Mr. Rankin.
We're going to go to Mr. Fraser.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Colin Fraser Liberal West Nova, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you all for being here today.
I want to pick up on that last point by Mr. Rankin. He mentioned the Nordic model and the New Zealand model.
We heard some testimony previously about the German model and some of the problems associated with their laws and with what's going on in Germany right now. There seems to have been an influx, or surge, of people being trafficked as a result of that type of model in Germany.
I'm wondering if you could speak to that, Ms. Gillies, and any concern you would have about following that type of model.