Justice committee  Because marginalized individuals are living their lives in a public space, they're constantly under police surveillance. This is a real issue for sex workers, who are trying to make a living working on the street. They are targeted for police harassment for a number of differen

Justice committee  We know that some sex workers act as third parties to other sex workers, so they may help them with advertising, or they might rent a place together to work together for safety, but these sorts of situations can make them vulnerable to material benefits, advertising laws, and oth

Justice committee  Yes. Canada's model would have to be a bit different because of the way they regulate the sex industry in New Zealand. It is more of a federal model than it is.... Ours would have to be a provincial or a municipal model. Decriminalization certainly doesn't mean a free-for-all, a

Justice committee  Basically, the difference between sex work and trafficking is that one implies consent and the other does not. Sex workers go to a great deal of care in negotiating with clients the terms of the transaction to reach consent. They negotiate over things like where they feel safe be

Justice committee  I think one of the most important things is the ability of migrant workers to be able to work in the sex industry. At present in Canada, any migrant is prohibited from working in the sex industry. This leaves them in the difficult situation of not being able to contact authoritie

Justice committee  In New Zealand, they removed all of the criminal penalties associated with adult sex work. The sex industry is still regulated by their public health. Public health is a federal department in New Zealand, so it has a bit of a different legislative model from what we have in Canad

Justice committee  They decriminalized it in 2003.

Justice committee  There have been very positive outcomes for sex workers. They report feeling safer in their work, having more control over their work and their work environments, being more able to insist on condom use with clients, and more positive outcomes like that.

Justice committee  I think it would have a positive impact on trafficking if police were less concerned with enforcement against consensual sex workers. If they stopped searching for trafficking where it didn't exist and sex workers had access to labour protection, employment rights and occupationa

Justice committee  Peer-reviewed evidence about the New Zealand model of decriminalization shows that it's been incredibly positive for sex workers there. We hear there's been an increase in trafficking in New Zealand since decriminalization was enacted. One of the problems with New Zealand's mode

Justice committee  When we're constantly conflating sex work and trafficking—I can say that many of the witnesses who have appeared before the committee have definitely been doing that—we miss out on actual violence and exploitation that happens in the sex industry but that does not rise to the lev

Justice committee  Sure. If you think about it, the prohibitions on communication and advertising make it very difficult for sex workers to properly communicate the terms of transactions and consent with their clients. For sex workers working on the street, their clients are wanting them to get i

Justice committee  There are a couple of things. There are the provincial sex work enforcement guidelines that were adopted in 2017, I think, by the B.C. Association of Chiefs of Police. Basically, those are guidelines for police interactions with sex workers that prioritize sex workers' safety, d

Justice committee  Good afternoon, and thank you for having us here today. Pivot Legal Society works in partnership with communities affected by poverty and social exclusion across Vancouver, B.C. and Canada to identify priorities and develop solutions to complex human rights issues. Our work en