Carleton hosted a special panel discussion about the decriminalization of prostitution Nov. 29, an issue that has received widespread media attention since the Ontario Superior Court ruling Sept. 28.
“This is literally unfolding today, tomorrow, next week,” said Pamela Walker, the incumbent joint chair in women’s studies for Carleton and the University of Ottawa, and host of the event.
The panel featured five different speakers, all of whom specialize in a different area surrounding this issue.
The first speaker was Valerie Scott, an experienced sex worker and executive director of Sex Professionals of Canada, a lobby group. Scott was also one of the three women to originally bring forward the legal challenge.
Scott spoke from firsthand knowledge about the issues that laws prohibiting communication, living off the avails of prostitution and keeping common bawdy houses pose to sex workers.
“These laws are directly causing our rapes, robberies and sometimes even murders. It’s unconscionable for the Crown to seek that this continue,” Scott said. “People say that’s part of your job, it’s not.”
Scott explained that this case was important to provide sex workers with the same kinds of rights any other worker would receive on the job.
“Sex workers are people like anyone else and deserve the same rights as anyone else,” Scott said.
Émilie Laliberté, the general co-ordinator of Stella, an organization that provides support to sex workers in Montreal, emphasized the stigma attached to prostitution and the need to recognize sex workers’ rights to dignity, security and health.
Laliberté explained that decriminalizing the sex industry would save lives, combat violence and ensure that every Canadian, no matter their occupation, has a voice.
Another panelist, Alan Young, the lawyer who argued the Superior Court case and a professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, spoke about the legal side of the case and explained that the decriminalization of prostitution is a human rights issue.
“Just because they’re outcasts doesn’t mean they don’t deserve protection,” Young said.
Lastly, Chris Bruckert, a U of O professor and member of Prostitutes of Ottawa-Gatineau Work, Education, and Resist, presented her thoughts on the subject after having conducted a great deal of research on sex workers.
“Stigma tramples human rights,” Bruckert said.
Bruckert said sex workers need to be given the opportunity to be heard and the knowledge they are safe in what they do.