New report from Pivot Legal Society finds that legislation introduced two years ago threatens the physical and economic security of sex workers, fails to protect women from violence

It is time for Parliament to reform Canada’s laws on sex work.

The Criminal Code provisions introduced by the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA) are unconstitutional and should be repealed.

This report, "Evaluating Canada's Sex Work Laws: The Case for Repeal," provides a history of the litigation that struck down previous laws and the approach taken in drafting the PCEPA. It gives an overview of the impacts that the PCEPA is having on sex workers across Canada and why the law is unconstitutional. Finally, it draws from advocacy by sex workers to make key recommendations for creating laws that respect and promote the human rights of sex workers.

This week, Canada is presenting its eighth and ninth periodic reports to the United Nations' Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

Yesterday, Amnesty International published its policy supporting decriminalization of sex work to protect sex workers from human rights violations and abuses. The policy sends a clear message to the Canadian government: change this country’s sex work laws to abide by the state obligations Amnesty’s policy lays out.

Pivot Legal Society and the Coalition on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women have made submissions on the design on the national inquiry.

Pivot's Brenda Belak with members of Sex Workers United Against Violence at the Women's Memorial March.

I’ve walked in the Women’s Memorial March most years since I moved back to Vancouver in 2003. 

I’ve learned to anticipate a number of things: the drums and voices joined in the Woman Warrior Song as the crowd gathers at the intersection of Main and Hastings Streets; the smell of burning sage wafting from the medicine ceremonies at the sites where women were last seen; the cold that seeps through your clothes by mid-afternoon; the moment when someone spots the eagles soaring high overhead; the sombre determination in the voices and faces of the women activists who have been demanding justice for missing and murdered women in Vancouver for close to three decades.

This year — the 26^th march — was different.

For the first time, a national inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women is becoming a reality. Not only that, the federal government is actively soliciting input from women’s and community organizations, as well as loved ones of the missing and murdered, about how to make this inquiry work.

Pivot’s work is grounded in the belief that poverty and social exclusion are not inevitable. Through our campaigns, our team focuses on making the possibility of a more just and compassionate society a reality. Our projects evolve from year to year, but our central mandate, to use legal tools and political advocacy to challenge laws and policies that intensify poverty and social exclusion, remains the same.

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The federal government introduced Bill C-36 in early June 2014 in response to the 2013 Supreme Court of Canada unanimous decision that several parts of Canada’s Criminal Code dealing with prostitution are unconstitutional because they violate the rights of sex workers by undermining their health and safety.

In 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada held that three criminal laws that prohibit various aspects of adult prostitution create unacceptable harms for sex workers.

Canada now has a unique opportunity to envision a legal framework that reflects expert evidence, global best practices, human rights and the expertise of sex workers themselves. In order to ensure that our laws support the safety and well-being of sex workers and address the concerns of Canadians as a whole, Canada must reform our approach to sex work. It is time to recognize the decades worth of evidence and experience from Canada and throughout the world that has made one thing clear: Criminalization of sex work has failed to achieve its goals, and has instead created egregious violence against sex workers throughout the country.

Download the full report