The Conservative government’s moral views have been unjustly translated into law. As of Dec. 6, it is illegal to purchase sex work in Canada, essentially making sex work itself illegal, if not in fact, then in practice.
By offering careful and inflated statistics, emotional anecdotes from victims of human trafficking, and by propagating the message that they are “protecting women and children,” the Conservatives have managed to further deny sex workers basic working rights while simultaneously contributing to their further stigmatization.
There is no room for personal moral judgment when it comes to effecting law. It is about time for the deeply-rooted stigmatization surrounding the sex trade to cease.
Sex work is simply a job. There are a variety of reasons why individuals choose to engage in sex work. Reasons can range from flexibility of schedules, to meeting a variety of people, or being comfortable with one’s sexuality. While these are common motivations to engage in sex work, it is still often assumed that sex workers are all trafficked. That being said, the oldest profession in the world remains a topic of contention and a question of morality instead of legality.
It is not crucial for everyone to be in full agreement with individuals who choose sex work as a profession. But it is essential to acknowledge and fight for the importance of basic rights for all citizens. Not everyone may agree that working as a dentist is a desirable occupation. Some may believe it is unsanitary to touch teeth all day, yet few would deny these individuals’ rights simply because it is not their personal preference.
Sex workers have agency. Sex workers need and deserve equal labour rights.
Underlying these harmful views and the denial of sex worker rights is stigma. Stigma discredits sex workers as human beings, to the point that they become something “other,” something that is “not like us,” something that is immoral and undeserving of basic human rights.
The stigmatization that sex workers face does not stop when they are done working for the day, the stigma of being a sex worker seeps into the personal dimensions of the individual’s life as well.
For example, many sex workers have “red zones” which are essentially areas of the city they are not allowed in. Many of these areas include health care facilities, education services, and food banks; sex workers are basically denied access to many services we take for granted, simply due to this overwhelming stigma around sex work.
Using someone’s occupational identity as a basis for judgment of character is wrong. Sex work is real and legitimate work. This stigmatization has many negative personal implications for the overall well-being of individuals who choose to work in the sex industry.
We need to start a conversation on the issues surrounding sex work in order to break this.
—Katie Ahee, Chantal Allore, Kaitlin MacKenzie, Kristin Powers, Saman Tabasi Nejad, Gavin Ward, and Amanda K. Williams
