In recognition of the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers (December 17), Queer Ontario has released the following policy statement:

Queer Ontario

Policy Statement on Sex Work

December 16, 2011

Preamble

On September 28, 2010, Ontario Superior Court Justice Himel struck down three important sections in Canada’s Criminal Code regulating prostitution. This decision effectively decriminalizes consensual adult sex work in Ontario. These sections include prohibitions against keeping a common bawdy house, living on the avails of prostitution, and communicating for the purposes of engaging in prostitution. However, in a December 12, 2010 decision, Justice Rosenberg of the Ontario Court of Appeal stayed Justice Himel’s decision, thus continuing the legal enforcement anti-sex work laws. The stay will remain in place until the Ontario Court of Appeal renders its decision sometime in 2012.

A note about terminology: Queer Ontario follows the sex worker activist communities’ usage in denoting the exchange of erotic services for money as ‘sex work’ highlighting its description as a form of labour. ‘Sex work’ commonly denotes a wide range of sexual labour that may or may not include prostitution, such as stripping, phone sex, porn modeling, Internet sex and live-stream nude modeling/acting. The use of the term ‘prostitution’, generally deemed pejorative today, refers largely to legal definitions of the exchange of sexual acts for money.

Why Does Queer Ontario Support Sex Worker Rights?

We would like the public to consider sex workers’ rights and social, legal, political and economic justice for sex workers, as follows:

1.   Queer Ontario supports Justice Himel’s legal decision and the perspectives put forward by sex worker rights’ advocates. They argued that the laws regulating aspects of sex work are contrary to fundamental principles of liberty and security of the person, producing unsafe working conditions for sex workers.

2.   Queer Ontario advocates for the decriminalization of sex work, and for the right for sex workers to organize and conduct their business under the legal rights and obligations of any other legitimate business enterprise. Calls to “legalize” sex work or prostitution often place sex workers under onerous regulations by government authorities, raising questions about whose interests are being prioritized.

3.  Queer Ontario accords dignity and respect to sex workers and their clients and opposes the considerable stigma and sex-negativity that surrounds sex work.

4.  Queer Ontario opposes attempts to demonize and criminalize the consumers of sex work services and supports safe, consensual and autonomous conditions for sex workers to conduct their business.

5.   Queer Ontario calls for an end to all forms of gender-based discrimination that affect people working in the sex trade.

6.   Queer Ontario supports policies, community-based efforts and social justice movements that work to alleviate and eliminate all forms of systemic oppression including class, racial, colonial, age, gender, sexuality and ableist forms of discrimination.

7.   Queer Ontario stands with the 20 organizations who have pulled out of the British Columbia’s Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, complaining of  inadequate levels of funding available for the victims’ side. We urge the B.C. Attorney General to heed these complaints and to ensure appropriate funding, representation and equitable access to the Commission’s legal process for the victims’ families.

8.   All labour, including the sex trade, should be free from coercion and violence. Queer Ontario supports sex workers efforts to work autonomously, and to implement greater health and safety provisions for their work.

9.   Queer Ontario opposes any form of sex work that is the result of direct coercion or manipulation and for distinctions to be made between migrant sex work and the notion of “trafficking” in individuals for the sex trade. The use of “trafficking” prioritizes an overarching criminalization approach and serves to obscure how sex workers encounter labour conditions, poverty, and immigration/citizenship issues as the major barriers to their work and livelihood. Queer Ontario supports an expanded critical dialogue on legal and immigration issues that affect the lives of migrant and undocumented sex workers in Canada.

10. Queer Ontario advocates for greater social and economic justice for youth working in the sex trade, and recognizes that they must become an active part of the decision- and policy-making process that affects their lives.

11.  Queer Ontario calls for the participation of sex workers in the development of public policies, community-based research initiatives and public education at all levels of government.

12.  Queer Ontario supports publicly funded services for sex workers whose marginalization is compounded by violence, poverty and addiction. Such programs, preferably staffed by sex workers themselves, should be guided by a philosophy of care that places the needs, voices and experiences of sex workers first and which encourages them to take control of their own lives as they see fit.

Prepared by: Robert Teixeira and members of Queer Ontario’s Research & Education Committee

Recommended Links: Organizations and Research

Maggies’

An organization in Toronto run for and by sex workers. Their mission is to assist sex workers in their efforts to live and work with safety and dignity. They are founded on the belief that in order to improve their circumstances, sex workers must control their lives and destinies.

http://maggiestoronto.ca/

SPOC: Sex Professionals of Canada

SPOC is a political and social group whose main objective is to work towards the decriminalization of sex work through political activism, community building, and public awareness.

http://www.spoc.ca/

Prostitutes of Ottawa-Gatineau Work, Educate and Resist (POWER)

POWER is a non-profit, voluntary organization founded in 2008. Membership is open to individuals of all genders who self-identify as former or current sex workers.

http://www.powerottawa.ca/

Big Susie’s

Big Susie’s is a working group by and for sex workers in Hamilton and the surrounding areas.

http://www.bigsusies.com/articles.html

Stella

A Montreal-based organization run for and by sex workers that links to community partners and public health researchers to promote health, safety and legal advocacy for sex workers.

http://www.chezstella.org/

John Lowman’s Research Page

John Lowman is a professor in the Simon Fraser University School of Criminology and is a recognized Canadian authority on prostitution.

http://users.uniserve.com/~lowman/

Sex Trade Advocacy and Research (STAR)

Connecting community partners, researchers and students together to promote the health, safety and well-being of sex workers.

http://web2.uwindsor.ca/courses/sociology/maticka/star/index.html

Commercial Sex Information Service (CSIS)

A clearinghouse of information related to laws, sexual health, commercial sex and culture.

http://www.walnet.org/csis/

Queer Ontario Awards 2011 John Damien Award to Queer Youth in

Catholic School System

Award recipients reiterate importance of naming GSAs

TORONTO:  On Sunday, December 4, 2011 during the Queer Ontario hosted 25th Anniversary celebrations of Sexual Orientation’s Inclusion in the Ontario Human Rights Code, the host group presented the 2011 John Damien Award to St. Joseph’s GSA and Catholic Students for GSAs.  The recognition was cited for the courageous work of these youth advocating for the right to form and participate in GSAs in the Catholic School System.

During the acceptance speech, the youth reiterated the importance of having the agency to name the group as they choose, using the term ‘gay’ without shame, regardless of being in a Catholic school system.

Queer Ontario revived the award which had been established by its predecessor, the Coalition for Gay Rights in Ontario (CGRO) which went on to become the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Ontario (CLGRO).  Awarded 13 times between 1979 and 2004, the award recognizes individuals, groups or organizations that promote liberation for gender and sexually diverse people.  The award’s namesake is that of the late John Damien, who had been fired in the mid ‘70s from his job as a racing steward for being a ‘homosexual’.  The high profile case played a major role over a ten plus year campaign to have the Ontario Human Rights Code amended to include ‘sexual orientation’ as a ground for protection from discrimination, which was passed on December 2, 1986.

The celebration at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre included reminiscences, vigilance (ongoing campaign to have trans people recognized in human rights legislation), history and ongoing struggle for social rights beyond legal rights.

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Tory’s Tough on Crime Bill may be Tough on Consensual Sex, says Queer Ontario
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The Harper government’s harsh and ideologically motivated “tough on crime” omnibus legislation, Bill C-10 (The Safe Streets and Communities Act), contains a new provision that may be tough on consensual sex if the police and the courts decide to use it to keep sex strictly confined to the bedrooms of the nation.  An amendment to s. 173.(1) of the Criminal Code (indecent acts) will make it possible for anyone who “willfully does an indecent act in a public place in the presence of one or more persons” to be found guilty of an indictable offence and be sentenced to imprisonment for a term of not more than two years.  This marks a significant change from the current s. 173.(1) which designates “indecent act” as a summary conviction offence for which the maximum penalty is imprisonment for not more than six months.  The amendment will give a Crown prosecutor the discretion to determine whether to proceed with a case against someone charged with the offence as a summary conviction offence or an indictable offence.
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“The problem with the ‘indecent act’ section of the Criminal Code, all along, has been its vagueness as to just what constitutes an ‘indecent act’ because that term is not defined in the Criminal Code,” says Richard Hudler, of Queer Ontario. “It is left completely to the police, in terms of laying charges, and to the courts, in terms of a finding of guilt, to determine whether a place is ‘public’ and whether an act committed in that place is ‘indecent’”.
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What constitutes a “public place” is equally vague.  S. 150 of the Criminal Code defines it as including “any place to which the public have access as of right or by invitation, express or implied.”  People of any gender could be charged and convicted of an “indecent act” for engaging in consenting sexual acts on a beach, in a park, in a parked car, at a sex party or in a bathhouse. Historically, police have laid indecent act charges during raids on bathhouses and sex clubs and against people having sex in secluded places in parks late at night.  Even a sex party with invitations and advertising could be argued to be a public place and could be raided by the police, with indecent act charges being laid against the participants they find having sex. Queer liberation groups have long called for the abolition of the “indecent act” offence because of the way in which it has been used to target and repress consensual sex and to enforce morality.
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“Now, the Harper government, in a gesture clearly aimed at catering to its social conservative constituency and their anti-sex morality agenda, is about to make a vague and odious law even more severe,” Richard Hudler states.  “It is appalling and deplorable that adults engaging in consensual sex could potentially be sent to prison for up to two years. This amendment to s.173.(1) must be defeated.”
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Contact:
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Richard Hudler
info@queerontario.org
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Download: Queer Ontario Omnibus Crime Bill Statement
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