Ambiguous laws on prostitution often leave sex workers in a Catch-22 situation, according to a panel at U of T’s law faculty held on Monday. Two women—Marcia McFarlane and Donna Bascom—told personal stories about the dangers of the sex trade. The panel also featured Alan Young, a professor at Osgoode Law School and a criminal lawyer.
Speakers said that criminalization endangers sex-trade workers by increasing health and safety risks and decreasing opportunities to leave prostitution. Sex workers are more vulnerable to attack when they work in dark, abandoned areas to avoid detection. They also have limited options when dealing with potential customers, and have to quickly assess risks and decide whether to accept a client.
“I was beaten, raped, and left for dead,” recalled Boscom. A truck driver found her naked in a ditch. McFarlane told the audience about severe abuse she experienced from her clients.
“I don’t care what you think about the sale of sex,” Young said. “But the one thing everyone seems to agree with […] is that the laws we currently have are irrational, inconsistent, hypocritical, and self-defeating.”
In theory, prostitution is not illegal in Canada. But the Criminal Code enforces laws that criminalize everything associated with it—occupying or running a “bawdy house,” procuring or living on the avails of prostitution, and public communication intended for prostitution. The ostensible benefit is to protect the public from negative consequences of prostitution.
“There has been a 200 per cent increase in the number of women in prison in the last decade. Women who act out in self-defence, women who live in violence: these are the women we send to jail,” said Zahra Dhanani, legal director of the Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence Against Women, which hosted the event. “They are experiencing being criminalized and re-traumatized and imprisoned from the violence they experienced.”
Young spoke of Gary Ridgeway, the “Green River serial killer” who murdered 48 sex workers because he knew they would not be reported as missing. “We’re walking a tightrope where we act very liberal and allow the sale of sex, but every avenue that a sex worker can take to protect herself is foreclosed by law,” said Young. He concluded, “You tell me what the benefit is of trying to eradicate a trade that will never go away.”
