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.
March 16, 2021 10:00 PMLegal
- By
LOS ANGELES The district attorney of Queens, New York the second-largest of New York City’s five boroughs asked a judge on Tuesday to throw out 700 cases of people arrested on charges of “loitering for the purpose of prostitution,” and other charges realted to sex work activities, according to an Associated Press report.
The request by D.A. Melinda Katz comes about a month after the state’s legislature repealed a 45-year-old law against loitering, which had been designed to make arrests for prostitution easier but ended up resulting in widespread racial and gender discrimination by law enforcement. The law became widely known as the “walking while trans” ban.
March 15, 2021 9:24 PMLegal
- By
LOS ANGELES The state of California may be taking a step toward decriminalization of sex work. Last week, San Francisco State Senator Scott Wiener introduced a bill that would repeal California laws against “loitering for the purposes of prostitution” laws which are often invoked to arrest sex workers and which have also, statistics show, been used to discriminate against trans and LGBTQ people, and other people of color. This is one of those laws based exclusively on stereotypes and profiling, Wiener said in an interview with CNN. You don t have to actually do anything to commit this crime. This is based on how you look and how you re acting.
Claire Doherty/In Pictures/Getty Images
Sex workers are scared to report violence for fear of criminalization for prostitution.
Between 45% and 75% of sex workers globally have experienced violence at work.
Until decriminalization of sex work occurs, the best way to protect sex workers from violence is to give them amnesty from criminalization when reporting violence.
Lauren Crosby Medlicott is a freelance journalist in the UK.
This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.
Generally, violence against another person is a breach of human rights and grounds for prosecution. However, when it comes to sex work, violence is often overlooked or worse, it is ignored and used to charge the victim with prostitution. Globally, between 45% and 75% of sex workers have experienced violence at work, and the issue is particularly bad for trans and migrant women.
Posted By Jerilyn Jordan on Mon, Jan 25, 2021 at 3:28 PM click to enlarge Shutterstock.com We didn t know it was possible to fall in love with a prosecutor, but here we are, crushing on Washtenaw County s Eli Savit and his flurry of aggressive and progressive directives to move the county forward. Most recently added to the list of policy changes he has enacted since taking office on Jan. 1 which includes no longer pursuing charges involving consensual sex work or relating to marijuana or magic mushrooms is a 10-page directive that states that Washtenaw County will “no longer criminally charge low-level juvenile offenses against children.”