Clamen and Chu: Sex workers rights aren t yet protected under law saultstar.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from saultstar.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Clamen and Chu: Sex workersâ rights aren t yet protected under law Current legislation undermines the Charter right to life, liberty, security, equality, freedom of expression and freedom of association. We re challenging it in court.
Author of the article: Jenn Clamen, Sandra Ka Hon Chu
Publishing date: Apr 08, 2021  â¢Â 2 hours ago  â¢Â 3 minute read  â¢Â Sex workers and their supporters gathered on the front steps of the Supreme Court of Canada building in Ottawa in January, 2012 as they challenged criminal laws regarding adult prostitution. They won their case, but subsequent legislation has still made this work difficult. Photo by Chris Mikula /The Ottawa Citizen
By Vasilios Bellos
Cred: Safe Space Website
SafeSpace London is a local organization that supports sex workers, women, and gender non-conforming individuals in crises. Currently, the group along with 24 other members make up the The Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform. The alliance is currently launching a constitutional challenge against several amendments that came to life after the enactment of Bill C-36. Board member with SafeSpace London, Melissa Lukings, describes what Bill C-36 is.
“So in 2013, the Bedford case happened and the Supreme Court decided the current laws of sex work infringed upon the constitutional provisions under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and Bill C-36 was a response to that. Unfortunately, it ended up criminalizing for the first time ever sex work and related activities, so transactions, things like that. Third party material benefits, advertising, purchasing, and selling, so these are things it criminalized for the first t
While the new law was supposed to be reviewed five years after it was put in place, that still has not happened.
And the Trudeau Liberals, despite promising to repeal the law during the 2015 election campaign, have left the Harper-era law in place.
The constitutional challenge announced this week calls for the court to strike down sex work law prohibitions against impeding traffic, public communication, purchasing, materially benefiting, recruiting and advertising sexual services.
The alliance is arguing those Criminal Code prohibitions “violate sex workers’ constitutional rights to security, autonomy, life, liberty, free expression, free association and equality.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted how sex workers are shut out of many parts of society. Sex workers have seen their incomes drop but haven’t been able to collect income replacement benefits like the Canada Emergency Response Benefit because their work is illegal.