Belgium has recently made headlines for new laws surrounding sex work, and some advocates want similar legislation introduced in Canada.
Earlier this month, Belgian officials introduced laws that allow sex workers to work under employment contracts, providing them with benefits like health insurance, paid maternity leave, and unemployment insurance. The legislation also introduced freedoms and protections for workers, and regulations for employers.
On its website, the Belgian Union of Sex Workers Organized for Independence (UTSOPI) says that while other countries like New Zealand and Germany decriminalized sex work before Belgium did in 2022, they did not create a legal framework for employees in the industry.
“This is necessary for a good balance and a respectful, fair relationship between sex worker[s] and employer[s]. This is exactly what this law does,” the UTSOPI website reads.
Some organizations dedicated to supporting sex workers would like to see similar laws introduced in Canada.
Maggie’s Toronto Sex Workers Action Project is a Toronto-based social services organization caring for current and former sex workers and their communities. Executive Director Chandra Ewing told Queer & Now that one of the biggest challenges sex workers face is a lack of understanding surrounding the current laws in Canada.
“No one actually knows what the law is. So, you have people that are implicated because systemically, we still think of sex work as being illegal,” she shared. “The real-time effect of the law is that sex workers cannot just exist as they are.”
“They have no agency as being a sex worker. They have no empowerment. They have no rights,” Ewing said. “The law in Canada is really poorly written. So it forces sex workers to be marginalized no matter what.”
In 2013, the Canadian Supreme Court struck down three sex work-related offences in the Bedford decision. They then introduced the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA).
This new act created “sex trade” related offences that criminalize purchasing sexual services, receiving a material benefit from others’ sexual services, procuring others to provide sexual services and advertising others’ sexual services, Senior Advisor of Media Relations at the Department of Justice Canada Ian McLeod told Queer & Now in an email.
“Sexual service providers are not held criminally liable for the role they play in any of these offences with respect to the sale of their own sexual services,” McLeod said.
McLeod says that the Department of Justice is monitoring the impacts of the PCEPA, “including through relevant case law and research, as well as international developments, including research concerning the impact of different legislative regimes governing the sex trade in other countries.”
“The Government acknowledges that these issues engender strongly held views. It continues to monitor and study the current legal framework and its impact for all involved, including sexual service providers,” McLeod said.
McLeod explained that currently, the constitutionality of the Criminal Code’s sex trade offences is before the courts.
Ewing said something similar to the new legislation introduced in Belgium would be ideal in Canada.
“It looks like they’re regulating employers, which is something that we don’t necessarily want, but it being based in providing sex workers equal rights is absolutely what we want,” she explained. “Things like contracts, benefits, pensions, is something that would help sex workers reduce or not be impacted so profoundly by the power imbalance that they face, and would have a lot more agency and autonomy over their own lives.”
“Whenever you like, regulate anything, you’re still exposing yourself to some kind of like surveillance and systemic violence based in like the carceral system,” Ewing explained, adding that they would like to avoid sex workers being regulated or policed.
On its website, UTSOPI outlined that there are risks associated with the new Belgian regulations.
“The new rules are aimed at giving sex workers full social protection and eliminating rogue employers or exploiters. But the clarity of the new regulations can also be instrumentalized to reduce or eliminate sex work,” the website reads.
“We already see certain municipalities hiding behind the words ‘safety’ and ‘hygiene’ to promulgate very strict local regulations that make sex work almost impossible on their territory,” the site continues, adding that other issues concern how sex workers without work or resident status will be treated.
“This is not clear at this time, because it has not yet been decided how the new law will be applied,” UTSOPI shares, saying that the union is already in dialogue with experts, the social inspection council and city councils to weigh in on the new policy.
Sex worker rights are an important topic for 2SLGBTQ+ communities. A 2014 study funded by the Canadian Institute of Health Research, which interviewed 218 sex workers and 55 managers in the industry, found that only 45 per cent of workers identify as straight, while 38 per cent identify as bisexual or bi-curious, six per cent as gay or lesbian, and 11 per cent reported other sexual orientations.
Of the 258 clients who participated in the study, 19 per cent identify as bisexual, gay or questioning their sexuality.
The same study found that 77 per cent of sex workers identify as female, while 17 per cent identify as male, and six per cent of sex workers surveyed identified as transgender, gender-fluid, or another gender.
Jenn Clamen is the National Coordinator of the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform (CASWLR), a collective of 23 organizations serving sex workers across Canada, including Maggie’s. Clamen emphasized to Queer & Now that sex work regulation is a queer issue.
“Because our communities have always faced stigma and discrimination and targeted hate and violence, and so when that is exacerbated in the sex industry, it is a 2SLGBTQ+ issue,” she explained.
Clamen shared that there are a variety of reasons why people in the queer community are highly represented in the sex work industry, including the barriers many 2SLGBTQ+ people face to employment, such as discrimination and stigma.
“It’s really hard for some people to get jobs, particularly trans women, and so sex work is a very viable and valuable option for people also because of the stigma that a lot of communities, community members face,” she explained.
“We know trans women in our community are targeted for violence, also targeted for violence and sex work. But obviously, decriminalization would be really important, or recognition of sex workers’ rights would be really important for that as well,” Clamen explained.
Ewing echoes this, saying that as a racialized person herself, she sees the industry as a very cisgender, caucasian, feminine and heteronormative space. This can pose additional threats for marginalized people in the sex work industry, especially those who live at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities.
“So, yeah of course, if you’re queer, or if you’re anything outside of those typical ideal prototypes, then of course you’re going to face marginalization. And the more outside of that heteronormative structure you are the more marginalized you’re going to be,” she explained.
“That intersects with other factors like substance use status, HIV status or migrant status. Yeah, being racialized, being trans, sex work is still possible, but you’re going to be working in the furthest margins of the sex work industry, which reduces your access to things that could otherwise protect you.”
Kitoko Mai, who is Black and nonbinary, is a former sex worker. They understand the implications of this marginalization, explaining that the current laws only further exclude and endanger sex workers.
“I think it just empowers bad clients and predatory agency owners, because it effectively, kind of puts us in the position where good clients are very cautious about wanting to participate and wanting to provide screening,” Mai told Queer & Now, saying that while the laws are meant to protect sex workers, they feel it treats them like victims.
“It forces us into isolation over like, breaking any laws or rules,” they explained, “It’s hard to call the police officer when they’re also people that could also harm you, and you can’t really ask for help.”
A 2020 study by researchers at the University of British Columbia and The University of Ottawa that spoke with 200 sex workers found that 31 per cent said that if they or another sex worker were in an emergency they would not be able to call 911 due to concerns that they, their colleagues, or their managers would be arrested. Meanwhile, a 2014 global review found that in their lifetime between 45 and 75 per cent of women sex workers experienced violence while working.
Mai says they want to see sex workers in Canada have access to benefits like maternity leave, unemployment insurance, and other protections now provided to sex workers in Belgium.
“[To be] able to like, refuse, like bad clients, or just even clients that make you uncomfortable without it threatening your job. I would love for agency owners to be vetted for like, whether they have any history of human trafficking or sexual assault or anything like that,” they shared.
“I would love it if working in a collective and working with community didn’t necessarily put you in a bad place with the law because I think a lot of workers want to work with people that they know for safety,” Mai explained. “I think it would be amazing if we were just considered labourers like everyone else.”
Ewing explained that Maggie’s hopes for a future where sex work is fully decriminalized.
“We would love to work towards a model where sex workers receive equal rights and protection. Worker’s rights, human rights under the law. So, things like pension, maternity leave, access to justice, access to legal resources so that they can, like, draft contracts appropriately,” she explained.
“When we get up in the morning and go to work, we want sex workers to not have to face the profound stigmatization and marginalization that they face in this country. We want sex workers to feel proud of themselves. We want them to flourish. We want them to have wonderful, safe lives,” Ewing shared.
