Status of Women committee  That's why we have laws of general application. Forcing someone to have sex for money, or not money, is sexual assault—period. We need to enforce that, and then the list goes on. In order to commit a trafficking offence, you need to commit a lot of other offences. Those are sufficient in most cases.

Status of Women committee  Yes, absolutely. That's at the core of what we do, it's why we exist. We recognize that there is violence and we want to help women. There isn't necessarily a connection between how the person got into the sex trade and the violence they experience there. When a person is in an abusive situation, where someone is forcing them to do something or taking their money, they will usually come to us, and we will support them.

Status of Women committee  It's not necessarily growing. I would say, though, that since the legislative changes in 2014, we're finding that it's much more difficult for such individuals to get out of these situations. In Quebec, hundreds of millions of dollars are being invested in the fight against sexual exploitation.

Status of Women committee  It is the full removal of any mention of sex work from the Criminal Code, so full decriminalization—not legalization but full decriminalization—and the removal of the immigration policies. We have a few recommendations for other things, like unemployment and not forcing people to do sex work.

Status of Women committee  To be clear, we are not necessarily asking for specific standards. Decriminalization would provide us with access to the same standards as other workers. If you work in a community organization or for government, for example, and you don't get paid, you are protected by labour standards, you can file a complaint and there is a process.

Status of Women committee  Talking about eradicating violence in that environment is like talking about eradicating sexual or spousal violence. It's hard to believe something so extreme, because it has much deeper roots, and violence against women is everywhere in society. However, labour standards would completely alter the situation, in the same way that they have reduced the use of children in mining and all sorts of other abuses.

Status of Women committee  Obviously, we're not saying that there isn't abusive behaviour that falls under some of the much narrower definitions of human trafficking. There are situations of extreme abuse that meet those definitions. These situations are very marginal and much rarer than the numbers often show.

Status of Women committee  The reason it's possible for people to exploit other people in the sex industry is because the industry is criminalized. It has the same violent dynamics as many other types of violence, but it goes even further because the industry is criminalized. I often give the example of a nurse who works in a hospital.

Status of Women committee  At sexworklawreform.com, we have 80 pages of law reform recommendations about sex work that go into great detail. We are currently in a constitutional challenge against the Government of Canada. All of that is available, and also our arguments and the government's arguments, which I encourage you to read to understand the violence of what it is to defend sex work criminalization.

Status of Women committee  Thank you very much. The point I was trying to make earlier is that, while I'm sure a lot of other witnesses have told you about this conflation of sex work and trafficking, there's also a conflation of all kinds of violence against sex workers and trafficking. Trafficking should have a very narrow definition that involves forced labour and very specific things.

Status of Women committee  The first thing, obviously, would be to repeal immigration provisions that cause migrant sex workers, regardless of their type of work, to be deported. That's the very first and immediate thing that can be done. The other thing is really more than changing trafficking laws. It's removing sex work laws that are almost word for word the same laws that already position all sex work as de facto trafficking.

Status of Women committee  I can finish in 30 seconds, if you want.

Status of Women committee  As I was saying, we have been screaming for years that our employers can rob us with impunity, that our clients can assault and threaten us, and that our landlords can evict us. We are talking about absolutely horrific working conditions. Unless we're willing to phrase it as trafficking and agree that the solution is for us to lose our employment and do something else with our lives, no one actually cares.

Status of Women committee  Hi. I'm Sandra Wesley. I'm the executive director of Stella, l'amie de Maimie. We're an organization by and for sex workers based in Montreal. While we do advocacy, our primary mandate is to provide services to sex workers. We make on average 5,000 to 8,000 contacts with sex workers in every possible sphere of the sex industry in Montreal.

Justice committee  Yes, absolutely. I had a chance to review in great detail the report that we've been talking about, the statistics. It's very clear to me looking at those statistics that they reflect the reality of what we see, that there's actually a decrease in sex workers reporting violence, and also a decrease in how sex workers might be counted in statistics, because even those who report violence will go to great lengths to avoid being captured in those statistics.