Superior Court of Ontario - Why Stella supports the constitutional challenge to the laws against sex work

This week, to our great excitement, three sex workers in Toronto launched a constitutional challenge to the laws against sex work in the Superior Court of Ontario.

We are a group by and for sex workers in Montreal that has worked for the past 15 years for the health and rights of our community. We offer services to sex workers on the street, in crack-houses, in prison, in escort agencies, massage parlours and strip bars on a daily basis. We have over 6000 contacts with sex workers a year and every day we are confronted with how the criminalization of the sex trade makes it impossible for sex workers to work in a safe environment, to avail ourselves of police protection, to have our rights protected.

It is egregious that some anti-prostitution proponents would use the high-rate of violence against us to argue for the criminalization of our clients. Such criminalization already exists in Canada and has done nothing but increase violence against us. It drives sex workers more under-ground and into more isolation. It drives away good, respectful and well-paying clients and sex workers are left to pick from clients who may be drunk or agressive, who we would normally refuse. All these factors lead to more incidents of violence against us. We documented this in 2001, when the City of Montreal, under pressure from conservative groups arrested clients on the street en masse during a 3 month period. During that same period, sex workers using our services reported 3 times the rate of violent attacks and 5 times the rate of attacks with a dangerous weapon.

Our work - the selling of sexual services - is not violent in and of itself. It is the policies that criminalize our lives and work that foster and create violence against us.

Decriminalizing the sex trade, as our fellow sex workers in Toronto are arguing before the courts, would allow sex workers the chance to work in safety and with dignity. Put simply, it would protect our lives.

Stella
www.chezstella.org

Related pages:
Selling your body' is just selling a service, Ariane Valmont, 18.10.2009
Bawdy blow, Antonia Zerbisias, The Star, 10.07.2009
Throw out 'bizarre' prostitution laws, court told, CBC, 10.06.2009
Bawdy of evidence, Antonia Zerbisias, The Star, 10.06.2009
Sex workers challenging Canada's prostitution laws, CTV, 10.06.2009
Sex workers set to launch landmark challenge, The Star, 10.05.2009