Justice committee  If you criminalize clients, sex work is not going to stop. It's just going to be pushed further and further underground, and that's where the exploitation and coercion and abuse is more likely to thrive and nobody will know about it. That's my fear. It's not going to stop. I do

Justice committee  Plus, when customers do see abuse and exploitation, many are willing to report those things if they don't fear the law.

Justice committee  I think one of the very important things is to be able to communicate with customers what you will and will not do, and negotiate your terms—where you want to be taken, where you don't want to be taken—in a way that you can do it thoughtfully and you don't have to be rushed, and

Justice committee  I would actually think—but I don't have great statistics around this—that I am representative of about 80%. I think about 20% are exploited and used, and that's a very sad state of affairs. I don't want anybody to be exploited at all. But I want to make something very clear. The

Justice committee  No, this was someone who was just there to protect me, because after a huge, violent thing that happened to me in which a person was charged with attempted murder, I choose to set boundaries around my sex work and what I would and wouldn't do. I no longer would do car dates, and

Justice committee  It was a human being, but it was the way the laws are situated around me that made this human being not be a client but be a predator and have a plan and do that to me, knowing that I am marginalized and have no rights.

Justice committee  I'm at 12 minutes?

Justice committee  Okay, can you bear with me for about three short paragraphs? I'm not going to summarize Bill C-36. That's already been talked about quite a bit. It's long been recognized that criminalization is not an effective deterrent to prostitution. Laws trying to stop true slavery or tr

Justice committee  Thank you, Laura. I was involved in sex work for 30 years in many venues of the industry. I was not sexually abused as a child. I was not exploited. I was an adult who chose to enter the industry. The laws did not protect me when I reported numerous violent crimes, including att