Ontario Set to Decriminalize Sex Worker Activities

A recent ruling in Ontario recognizes the dangers to sex workers of criminalization, a victorious step for Canadian sex workers that changes the context for sex workers' rights across the world.

On September 28th, 2010, in an unprecedented judicial move, an Ontario court struck down three provisions that criminalize activities related to prostitution. Prostitution itself is not illegal in Canada but ancillary activities like advertising (communicating) and management (“living off the earnings”) are criminalized. Ontario Supreme Court Judge Susan Himel cited evidence that these laws contribute to a climate in which sex workers are unsafe because they are forced to operate in secrecy. She referred to a great deal of research on violence against sex workers that supported her ruling in the name of safety, not morality.

“By increasing the risk of harm to street prostitutes, the communicating law is simply too high a price to pay for the alleviation of social nuisance,” Judge Himel said in her lengthy ruling. Sex workers were dancing in the streets in Montreal and Toronto.

What does this ruling mean for sex workers in Ontario?

If the ruling goes into effect in 30 days, the effects will be significant. The removal of parts of the “bawdy house laws” means that sex workers would be able to work together and indoors. The absence of laws that criminalize “living off the earnings” of prostitution, would ensure that family members are no longer vulnerable to arrest if they receive financial support from sex workers, and that other personnel affiliated with sex work such as drivers, receptionists and managers, would no longer be charged with crimes. The “communications” statute, previously prohibiting advertising and soliciting in public, would be permitted.

Rene Ross, director of Stepping Stone, an organization offering services to sex workers in Halifax, Nova Scotia said, “Sex workers say, ‘when I try to negotiate a price, that’s illegal. When I go to a hotel, or I go to an apartment, that’s illegal. So what that’s forcing me to do is hop into a car with some guy I don’t know, be driven off to God knows where.’ There’s no way for the community to even try to protect itself.”  The ruling would permit sex workers to work together instead of in isolation and in solitude, without fear. Kara Gillies, sex worker and activist, said, “After all these years, it will be a relief to know that I will be able to go to work without fearing arrest and incarceration.”

Judge Himel has not simply changed the working context for sex workers in Ontario but also the social landscape. Recognition of the violence that sex workers experience is vital. Sex workers across Canada and elsewhere experience high rates of violence: over 60 sex workers have been murdered or are missing in Vancouver and over 16 sex workers in Edmonton. Judge Himel’s decision has moved larger communities toward acknowledging this violence and taking action against it.

This judicial recognition for sex workers’ safety is unprecedented. The effects of prostitution laws ensure that sex workers are unlikely to report or in some cases even be able to report violence to the police because they are seen as criminals in the eyes of the law. As a result, sex workers are targeted by perpetrators of robbery and violence. Ross said:

“We have heard of incidents where sex workers will call law enforcement on a prostitution-related offence, i.e. if they get attacked by [a] john, only for them to be arrested themselves. We have had increasing reports of violence and even murders here in Eastern Canada. The laws have created a de facto death sentence for sex workers in this country.”

This is not unique to Eastern Canada: Sex workers in New York and elsewhere have described this difficulty in reporting violent crimes to the police because they do not receive the same treatment and protection as other people. “It is the laws that surround the legal exchange of sexual services for money that endanger the lives of sex workers,” said Keisha Scott, coordinator at Maggie’s, an organization for sex workers in Toronto. Judge Himel referred to research documenting that sex workers have the highest mortality rate of any occupation.

Himel’s ruling recognizes the experiences of sex workers living with the dangers of criminalization. This victorious step for Canadian sex workers has changed the context for the recognition of sex workers’ rights across the world.