I will say that indigenous women, Black and racialized women, transgender and migrant women and people living through poverty are overrepresented in street-based work.
At Maggie's we serve a lot of street-based workers. This means that sex workers who face some of the highest levels of marginalization with industry are unable to access the security that working in more private and secure settings would offer them. These workers are pushed into remote situations away from supports.
For indigenous workers, their self-determination and their self-identification are completely undermined by this act, because their experiences are pushed into the singular narrative of human trafficking victims. This completely dismisses the social conditions and the history of colonialism that make sex work the best choice for many of these individuals and that there are many reasons why these individuals come to sex work.
For racialized and indigenous sex workers, this bill increases contact with police, it increases surveillance and it increases targeting, while also discouraging marginalized communities from being able to approach police and other social services for support.