Länderberichte KANADA:

[Marc of Frankfurt]

Kanada

Viele Deutsche wandern jährlich nach Kanada aus. Ist Sexwork da auch eine Triebkraft?





John Lowman's Prostitution Research Page

Mehr zur Lage in Kanada für Sexarbeiter...

Trade Secrets Guide





Sexwork Organisationen


Ottawa (Ontario)
POWER
Prostitutes of Ottawa/Gatineau Work Educate & Resist
www.powerOttawa.ca

Montréal (Québec)
Stella
www.chezStella.org
Stepping Stone
www.steppingStoneNS.ca

Toronto (Ontario)
Sex Professionals of Canada
www.spoc.ca
Maggie’s
www.maggiesToronto.ca

Vancouver (British Columbia)
FIRST
Feminists advocating for rights and equality for sex industry workers
www.firstadvocates.org
CUP
Committee to Unite Prostitutes!
www.walnet.org/cup/
Triple-X
Worker' Soliarity Association of B.C.
www.triple-x.org/
Sex Worker Toolkit
www.livinginCommunity.ca/toolkit/

Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network
www.aidsLaw.ca





2 Rechtsbroschüren von Maggies

Trick or Trap? Dick'ering in public is against the law:
www.walnet.org/csis/legal_tips/trials/trickortrap.pdf
(16 pages)

Bawdy House Business:
www.walnet.org/csis/legal_tips/trials/bawdybiz.pdf
(20 pages)





Zeittafel Prostitutions-Recht

2013: The Supreme Court throws out all three provisions as violating constitutional guarantees to life, liberty and security of the person. The justices give Parliament a year to craft a replacement law.
www.sexworker.at/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=137893#137893

2012: The Appeal Court upholds Himel on the bawdy house law, modified the living on the avails law to specifically preclude exploitation and reversed her on soliciting.

2011: Ontario Court of Appeal holds three-day hearing on government appeal of Himel decision.

2010: Judge Susan Himel strikes down the three key provisions of the laws, saying they were unconstitutional.
www.sexworker.at/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=88139#88139

2010: Polizeibericht zu den Pickton Serienmorden
www.sexworker.at/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=86237#86237

2009: An Ontario Superior Court hearing opens in a suit brought by 3 former and active sex-trade workers seeking to overturn the prostitution laws.

2007: Pickton convicted of six murders and sentenced to life. The trial focuses attention on the plight of street prostitutes.
www.sexworker.at/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=28739#28739

2002: Police arrest Robert Pickton in a case which would eventually involve the murders of 26 women, most of them prostitutes from Vancouver’s gritty downtown east side.

1990: The Supreme Court hands down a reference upholding the street soliciting law, saying eliminating prostitution is a valid social goal.

1985: Parliament passes a law barring communicating in public for the purposes of prostitution in an effort to combat streetwalking.

1982: Charter of Rights and Freedoms signed into law.

1867: Canada essentially inherits anti-prostitution laws from Britain at Confederation.











Studie über Sexarbeit in Vancouver: Gewalt und Sexarbeit bedingen sich nicht.

Most prostitutes don't work streets, says study

Linda Nguyen, Vancouver Sun

Published: Monday, June 18, 2007

Prostitution and violence do not always go hand in hand, according to a three-year academic study by Simon Fraser University.

In the first study of its kind in the country, criminology graduate student Tamara O'Doherty found that two-thirds of off-street prostitutes -- specifically high-end escorts -- have never experienced violence on the job.

The number of prostitutes in Vancouver is estimated to be in the thousands, but only 10 to 20 per cent are actually working on the street, O'Doherty said.

The study shows that 80 to 90 per cent work as off-street prostitutes running their own businesses through newspaper and online advertisements, bawdy houses and massage parlours.

She said her research shows people who support criminalizing prostitution because it's violent or not a choice are basing their opinions on the experiences of street prostitutes who "are pushed into isolated areas of the city" and work in fear of the police.

O'Doherty contacted Vancouver prostitutes by sending out mass e-mails to several escort services. The 49 women who responded were not what most people would stereotype as prostitutes.

"These women weren't blonde bombshells who were there for the 'porn star experience.' My biggest surprise in doing this research was how incredibly articulate these women in the industry were," O'Doherty said.

"People obviously assume women wouldn't make the choice to go into prostitution but I found these women are from every walk of life," she said.

Some women were sex workers only on weekends with regular out-of-town clients.

"They're moms, artists, lawyers, nurses, police officers and teachers. You would have no idea if you had one of them living next door to you," she said.

More than 90 per cent of the study participants were university-educated.

O'Doherty argues these women rarely or never experienced violence -- physical or sexual assault, threats, clients unwilling to pay or use a condom -- because they're allowed to negotiate terms of their transactions, unlike street sex workers.

Aurea Flynn of Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter said the study goes too far pushing for the legitimization of prostitution.

"What we know is that the average age of prostitutes when they begin the trade is 14 years old and that most women were molested or raped before they even begin," she said. "The fact that they're not reporting it in their current work situation doesn't exclude that they didn't experience violence from males in the past."

SFU professor John Lowman has been researching violence in prostitution since the '70s and said these results confirmed what he's suspected all along.

"The importance of this research is that it shows that the prohibitionist argument is ideological and political.

"It provides a huge stumbling block and strongly favours decriminalization," he said.

lnguyen (at) png.canwest.com


© The Vancouver Sun 2007
Quelle




.

[Marc of Frankfurt]

[flash width=347 height=450]http://www.steppingstonens.ca/flash/Dec_2010.swf[/flash]


Neue Hilfsorganisation für Sexworker an der Atlantikküste Kanadas: The Maritimes

www.stepping-stone.ca


Prostitution is a way of life for many girls and women, boys and men in the Maritimes. The reasons for getting involved in prostitution vary. Many feel they have few options when they first begin and find it very difficult to go straight once they have worked the streets. Some come from abusive homes, some are runaways, all need money.

We don't preach and we don't try to save anyone. We do try to be there to offer friendship and support, to help make the streets a safer place, and to help those who decide to leave the streets do so.

We're Stepping Stone.





Mission Statement

Stepping Stone Association is a user directed non-profit organization that supports individuals involved in the sex trade by contributing to their health, safety and well-being.

Our program user are women or men, currently or formerly in the sex trade, and youth at risk of becoming involved in the sex trade.





Stepping Stone Philosophy

The Stepping Stone Association holds the philosophy that all individuals have the right to self-determination; that those who work as sex trade workers have the basic rights to safety and access to services regardless of their occupation; and that these individuals are entitled to social alternatives to the sex trade.

The Stepping Stone Program incorporates into its service delivery the knowledge that individuals who work as sex trade workers may chose to continue this occupation. Therefore, Stepping Stone does not interfere with or attempt to stop their work but rather assists in making their choices in life as safe as possible.

The Association and its programs are user directed. The goal is to empower individuals who use Stepping Stone to play an integral part in directing the activities of the Association and in determining the content, priorities and structure of the program through defining their own needs.





Our Guiding Principles:

• To actively employ harm reduction strategies
• To establish and maintain close contact with this program users
• To offer immediate response to the needs of program users
• To encourage program users to access existing services
• To provide long term support to those formerly involved in the sex trade
• To educate youth regarding issues surrounding the sex trade
• To establish a self-help program, managed and operated by program users
• T o improve public awareness of the health and safety issues of program users

www.stepping-stone.ca





SEXWORKER.AT interner Querverweis:
Buchveröffentlichung





.

[JayR]

Prostitution laws face challenge

They are unconstitutional, Vancouver lawyers claim

Jonathan Fowlie, Vancouver Sun
Published: Friday, August 03, 2007

Two Vancouver lawyers will launch a constitutional challenge today of Canada's prostitution laws, arguing they force sex workers into unsafe conditions and infringe a sex worker's right to freedom of expression.

"The prostitution laws . . . subject sex workers to increased risk of physical and sexual violence, psychological injury, kidnapping and death," says a statement of claim to be filed in B.C. Supreme Court.

"The prostitution laws deprive sex workers of the ability to lawfully conduct their work safely because they are prevented from taking steps to establish health and safety conditions in their work," it adds.

On Thursday, lawyers Katrina Pacey of Pivot Legal LLP and Joseph Arvay planned to file the statement of claim on behalf of the Downtown Eastside Sex Workers United Against Violence Society, a group of mostly aboriginal women, some of whom have experienced physical or sexual violence because of their work in the sex trade.

The statement of claim says the constitutional rights of the group's members are being violated by the prostitution laws.
"The basis of this whole case is that we have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms and that that Charter protects all of us equally," Pacey said in an interview this week. "Regardless of the type of work we are in, or how we live our lives, we should all have equal access to those fundamental protections."

Canadian law does not explicitly prohibit the exchange of sex for money. Instead, there are sections in the Criminal Code that prohibit activities surrounding prostitution, such as: keeping a "bawdy-house;" procuring another person to have illicit sex; and communicating in a public place for the purposes of engaging in prostitution.

In today's challenge, Pacey said she is relying on sections of the Charter - including those dealing with equality, freedom of expression and the right to life, liberty and security of the person - to challenge the communication law, the brothel laws and significant portions of the procurement law.

A similar challenge was launched in Ontario earlier this year, and Pacey said though the two involve slightly different arguments it is possible they could be combined if they eventually reach the Supreme Court of Canada.

In an interview Thursday, John Lowman, a criminologist at Simon Fraser University who has been researching violence in prostitution since the 1970s, said he thinks Canada's prostitution laws have forced sex workers into extremely dangerous working situations, and applauded any challenge brought to the courts.
"We treat street prostitutes as disposable women," he said, explaining that sex workers move to dangerous areas of the city, and generally work outside and alone, to avoid arrest.
"Approaching 300 women [across Canada] have died, murdered, since 1985 when the communicating law was enacted," he said. "I say there is a direct correlation between our prohibitionist approach to street prostitution and the slaughter that we've seen."

Vancouver East MP Libby Davies said she, too, feels the prostitution laws need to be contested.
"The status quo is completely unacceptable, in fact it is harmful," said the NDP MP, who was part of a parliamentary committee which, despite her protests, concluded its investigation of prostitution laws in 2006 without recommending decriminalization.

While today's challenge represents a significant legal move, it is not the first time the prostitution laws have been challenged.
In 1990, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled the communication law violates the constitutional right to freedom of expression, but refused to strike it down because it found such a violation to be justified.

Despite that, Pacey said she feels the time has come for the court system take another look.
"The evidence has significantly changed," she said.
"Since 1990, we've seen this explosion of missing women," she added. "We have so much more information and understanding about the violence sex workers face and the conditions of their work."

© Vancouver Sun
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news ... 98&k=61450

[Marc of Frankfurt]

Ist ja interessant [Teil-Übersetzungen von oben]:

Dem Prostitutionsgesetz soll der Prozess gemacht werden


Eine Verfassungsbeschwerde gegen die Prostitutionsgesetze, weil sie Sexarbeiter zu unsicheren Arbeitsbedinungen zwingen und das juristische Einspuchsrecht bzw. die politische Meinungsfreiheit (beides: freedom of expression) von Sexarbeitern beschneiden.

...


"Die Prostitutionsgesetze ... unterwerfen die Sexarbeiter einem erhöhten Risiko körperlicher und sexueller gewalt, psychologischer Verletzungen, Entführung und Tod."

...

"Die Prostitutionsgesetze berauben die Sexarbeiter der Fähigkeit ihre Arbeit legal sicher auszuüben, weil verhindert wird, daß sie Maßnahmen zur Gesundheit und Sicherheit ergreifen."

...


Kriminologe John Lowman: "Die Gesellschaft behandelt Straßenprostituierte wie wegwerfbare Frauen".

...


Fast 300 Prostituierte sind ermordet worden in Kanada, seit 1985 wo das Communikationsgesetz verabschiedet wurde[, nachdem Kobern auf der Straße verboten ist].

...


"Ich [J.L.] behaupte da gibt es einen direkten Zusammenhang zwischen dem Prohibitionistischen Modell für Straßenprostitution und den Abschlachtungen die passiert sind."

...




Mehr zur Sex Work in Kanada:
http://myweb.dal.ca/mgoodyea/canadasex.htm





.

[Marc of Frankfurt]

Kritischer Report über die gesetzliche Lage und ihre Auswirkungen für Sexworker in Kanada


geschrieben von SW-Organisationen Stella und Maggie's und Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network
für Abgeordnete
als Antwort auf den Bericht der parlamentarischen Kommission
über das Solicitation Law (SW-Geschäftsanbahnungsgesetz)
pdf, 8 Seiten


Canada's criminal laws related to prostitution fail to protect sex workers' health, safety and human rights. In fact, these laws are part of the problem. Law reform related to sex work is urgently needed, but the Subcommittee's report is no guide. Instead, Parliament must enact the following legislative reforms:

• Protect sex workers' rights under the Canadian
  Charter of Rights and Freedoms and international
  human rights law by repealing the four Criminal
  Code sections that make "communicating," "bawdyhouses"
  and "living on the avails" illegal; and
• Include sex workers in the policy and law reform
  process. Sex workers must have a say in
  modernizing the laws and policies that affect them.

Homepage des Dokuments:
http://aidslaw.ca/publications/publicat ... hp?ref=665





.

[JayR]

Sex Workers Plan Brothel in 2010 Olympics City

By Wency Leung
WeNews correspondent

Sex workers in Vancouver--the scene of Canada's worst suspected serial murder case--are planning a cooperative brothel, which they say will give them a safe place to work as officials polish the city's image for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

VANCOUVER, Canada (WOMENSENEWS)--Susan Davis considers herself one of the lucky ones.

In her 21 years as a sex worker, Davis, 39, has known countless peers who have died of suicide, murder, AIDS or drug overdose in Vancouver's gritty Downtown Eastside.

She herself has experienced four heart attacks from smoking crack cocaine and survived several assaults by violent clients while working on the streets.

"I'm a one-percenter," Davis said, referring to the notion that the other 99 percent fail to survive this impoverished, drug-infested neighborhood. "It's nuts down here."

Now, Davis and other local sex workers have banded together to establish Canada's first cooperative brothel in an attempt to offer women a safe place to work.

The group, formed by a sex workers' alliance based here, called the British Columbia Coalition of Experiential Women, will incorporate next month and is already setting the groundwork to open the co-op brothel.

Members have begun scouting for a location and are enlisting the backing of local businesses, police and labor organizations.

Faced with the task of cleaning up the city to host the 2010 Winter Olympics, Vancouver authorities said they are open to the idea.

"We would be willing to explore anything that . . . would be helping the situation of sex trade workers, and make it safer for them and make it better for the community," said Vancouver police spokesperson Howard Chow. He noted one requirement: "It has to be something that is lawful."

Aiming for Official Exemption

Prostitution itself is legal in Canada. However, since most activities associated with it are not--such as soliciting sexual services in a public place, operating a bawdy house and living off the avails of prostitution--the group is planning to appeal to the federal government for an exemption.

The government has already allowed the operation of a safe, supervised injection site in the city, where authorities give amnesty to intravenous drug users.

"Vancouver truly is the testing ground for new ideas," Davis said, citing the site as well as other initiatives, such as free needle exchange programs and the testing of prescription heroin on addicts.

"We can't do anything that would put police in a position to arrest us," she said. "So, what we're saying is, 'This is such a little place. Let us try and demonstrate to you what we think will happen, which is it will greatly diminish the complaints from the neighborhood and will greatly increase the safety of the sex workers of the Downtown Eastside.'"

The Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter objects to the idea of a co-op brothel, as it views prostitution as a means of perpetuating violence against women.

An overwhelming majority of prostitutes would leave the sex trade if given a choice, said shelter spokesperson Daisy Kler.

"The idea that there are women who, given an autonomous decision, given all other options, would stay is a fantasy," she said.

She added that a co-op would not protect Vancouver's most vulnerable women, as those who work the streets solely to survive would not likely have the money to join.

Cracking down on pimps and johns would more effectively improve the safety of sex workers than offering a place where men could continue to exploit women, Kler said. "We don't think men should be entitled to buy and sell women to satiate themselves."

Not Alone in Choosing Sex Work

Davis acknowledged that, ideally, those women who wanted to leave the sex trade could do so. But she maintained that she entered the trade on her own accord and she is not alone in choosing sex work.

"This is hard for feminists to swallow," Davis said. "Having your own destiny is really appealing to everyone. There's a lot of people with no lived experience trying to impose what they think is right on us."

The proposed brothel is welcomed by some frontline workers in the area, where more than 60 women, many of them sex workers, disappeared between the late 1980s and 2001. Those disappearances led to an investigation into Canada's worst suspected serial murder case.

The suspect, Robert William Pickton, a local pig farmer, was arrested in 2002 and was charged with 26 counts of murder. He is being tried for the deaths of six women. A second trial is expected to follow.

Kerry Porth and Sheri Kiselbach, coordinators of the Vancouver-based nonprofit Prostitution Alternatives Counselling and Education Society, said little has been done to ensure the safety of sex workers since the high-profile investigation.

Prostitutes who work out in the open continue to be preyed upon by violent clients, they said. And while opponents of the co-op brothel plan disagree, Porth and Kiselbach said that the incidence of violence is greatly reduced--though not eliminated--when sex workers work indoors, such as in massage parlors or through escort services.

"Every time you go out there, you don't know what's going to happen," Porth said. "You don't know if it's your last night out there and that's a ridiculous amount of stress for any individual to live with."

The society has for years been fighting to decriminalize the sex trade, which has been pushed underground and forced women to work in isolation and in dangerous conditions, Porth said.

Davis, who is spearheading the co-op brothel, said she envisions a space that would bring back the "golden age of sex work," when bawdy houses freely operated.

Showgirls, Dinner and a Room

The incorporated group would operate a museum and gallery to showcase the artwork and history of showgirls and prostitutes, she said. It would also run a dinner club with burlesque performances under the same roof as the brothel.

Any sex worker could join for a nominal fee and be able to rent clean rooms cheaply, she said. Although they would share expenses, members would set their own fees and keep their profits. The co-op would also enforce labor standards.

So far, some of the strongest opposition has come from escort agencies threatened by the prospect of organized competition, Davis said. Politicians and local businesses have largely been supportive. Davis said the sex workers' group aims to have the co-op brothel and museum fully operating in time for the influx of tourists expected during the Olympics.

Since part of the Olympic organizing committee's mandate is to support local economic development, she said, the cooperative could fit that description, providing a thriving business while keeping the sex trade in check.

Porth and Kiselbach noted that international sporting events, such as the Olympics, customarily attract a massive inrush of sex workers.

Ahead of this year's World Cup soccer matches in Germany, for instance, politicians and women's rights groups there had predicted the trafficking of up to 40,000 women into the country to serve in the sex trade.

Regardless of the debate on the rights and wrongs of the sex trade, a proactive approach to sex workers' safety is desperately needed, Davis said.

"We can continue the debate about morality. I don't think that should stop . . . but we can't deny it exists," Davis said. "I mean how moral is it to let people die?"

Wency Leung is a freelance journalist based in Vancouver, Canada.

Women's eNews welcomes your comments. E-mail us at editors@womensenews.org.

Women's eNews
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/ ... xt/archive
____________________

For more information:

British Columbia Coalition of Experiential Women:
http://bccewc.ca

Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter:
http://rapereliefshelter.bc.ca

"Serial Murders Tied to Canada's Prostitution Law":
http://womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1687/

[Marc of Frankfurt]

Internationales Sexworker Meeting:

10 Jähriges Jubiläum von Stella

www.chezstella.org Montréal 1995


[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=akKzsWyjL5w[/youtube]


[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=2hHYzTZJZlU[/youtube]





Network of Sex Work Projekts (NSWP)





.

[Marc of Frankfurt]

Anwältin in Vancouver kämpft für Menschenrechte von SexarbeiterInnen.

Q&A: "Sex Work Is Work"
Interview with Katrina Pacey, social justice attorney



Katrina Pacey

VANCOUVER, Canada, Dec 18 (IPS) - Katrina Pacey is a lawyer with the Pivot Legal Society in Vancouver. Pivot is engaged in social justice work through legal reform in the inner city of Vancouver. Pacey is currently taking a case to the British Columbia Supreme Court, and eventually, the Supreme Court of Canada, arguing that the country's prostitution laws violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Pacey recently spoke to Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS) correspondent Am Johal.



IPS: How did this case originate and can you give some historical context behind it?

KP: As far as Pivot's involvement with sex work and law reform, we were inspired to delve in to it when we starting meeting with women in the downtown eastside of Vancouver to discuss the human rights issues they face. Criminalisation in relation to their addiction and their involvement in sex work and the lack of safety in sex work became prevalent.

We were motivated by the fact the federal government was interested in looking at these matters. We carried out research and wrote a report. We were quite hopeful. We felt a Charter challenge would be worthwhile, and we might need to do that. We were approached by Vancouver Downtown Eastside Sex Workers United Against Violence Society. They are a group of current and former sex workers in the Downtown Eastside, they have come into sex work through difficult circumstances. These are very marginalised women. They were interested in being the plaintiff in this case. They came forward to Pivot and we were formally retained. We filed in August of this year.

IPS: In terms of how the law works now, if someone is found engaging in prostitution or activities surround it, what is the typical judgment, the most commonly charged section?

KP: The communication for the purpose of prostitution in a public place section of the Criminal Code is the most common type of charge, targeted through undercover operations. It is not viewed by the courts as a very serious offence, but a nuisance -- it's unlikely that it would lead to jail in any significant way. It is more likely to lead to probation or a fine. For a sex worker, it could be a night in jail.

IPS: The current public policy framework is enough of an impediment that it drives a certain kind of prostitution underground. Is this one of the impetuses behind the attempt to strike down the laws?

KP: The impact of having a conviction for a prostitution-related offence is significant. And regardless of the punishment, the implications of being involved in the criminal justice system can be difficult for people. That mere fact that it is criminalised impacts the conditions for sex work. They can't organise their work in a way that doesn't undermine their safety because of the laws that are currently in place.

For example, you can't work indoors, say in an single-room occupancy hotel room in the downtown eastside. It is against the law. It is a tangible example of why many sex workers have to work at street level. And they have to work in industrial areas where they are less likely to be detected.

IPS: There are certain women's groups and aboriginal groups who are opposed to decriminalisation or legalisation, especially related to coercion involved in being in the sex trade in the first place. There are historic reasons for this. There is a split amongst civil society around this issue. Can you speak to that?

KP: Those who are not supportive of total decriminalisation express concerns based on their perspective that prostitution is an inherently exploitive activity. They see it as always non-consensual, they see it as an act of violence. It is within that framework that they say that by decriminalising it, we're accepting, allowing it to happen and perpetuating it. It is the argument we hear most often.

The flip side of that, those who argue in favour of decriminalisation, argue it from a spectrum of perspectives. Some advocates of decriminalisation don't like it and don't believe anyone would choose this type of work if they had a range of options in life. But they still believe that sex workers should be safe and support harm reduction. The more "sex-work is work" perspective says that people engaging in this are consenting adults, we should be allowed to make their own decisions about their own bodies.

The commonality, the thing that is the agreement amongst all groups, is that nobody wants anyone to have to do this work out of sheer desperation. The common thread is that we need to pursue and support and strengthen social services and social supports that will truly assist someone, provide them with the options that they don't have to do this work if they don't want to. Assist people to get out of the poverty, addiction, housing and homelessness that can lead them into sex work.

IPS: With decriminalization, there ends up being a gaudy tourism industry that develops around these issues, specific neighbourhoods become zoned in a particular way. It creates a kind of economy which can be detrimental to particular areas, even though it already exists in an underground way now. What are public policy frameworks that could work in this particular context?

KP: It's a big question mark. I think the question is what would Vancouver look like given the specific culture of our community, what would the industry look like? For example, there is a cooperatively run brothel proposal, a sex-worker driven proposal, a safe working space for sex workers.

What if a bawdy house opens up next door to someone's house? The reality is that there will be some diversity on how to deal with these issues. In talking to sex workers, they say that they work in business that needs to operate discreetly, in order for clients to want to go there.

New Zealand, which may have a similar cultural context, similar social structure in some respects, has not seen an explosion of neon signs with naked, painted women in windows. The industry has remained discreet, but has become safer.

IPS: Can you speak specifically to the Charter Challenge?

KP: We are at the British Columbia (BC) Supreme Court level right now. That is the first level of court for the case that we are pursuing. We are seeking a declaration, asking the court to assess the constitutionality of three laws -- the communicating law, the procuring law and bawdy house law. We refer to section 7 of the Charter: life, liberty and security of the person.

Security of the person relates to issues of safety, we will argue these laws place people in conditions of violence that is unacceptable to our society and our principles of justice.

Liberty -- we say sex workers face liberty constraints that are not justifiable.

For life, we say that these laws factor in to the deaths of sex workers.

We are also making an equality argument. We say that these law perpetuate the existing inequality that sex workers already suffer, that these laws make their situation worse.

There will be intervenors. There will be appeals and then Supreme Court of Canada.

(END/2007)

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40521

[Marc of Frankfurt]

Suburban sex-trade workers more vulnerable than those in city: former prostitute



VANCOUVER - Suburban prostitutes are more vulnerable to attack or even murder because of a lack of support services compared with their big-city counterparts, says a former sex-trade worker who once strolled the streets of small-town British Columbia.

Ceejai Julian, a support worker with the Prostitutes Empowerment Education and Resource Society, says she fears for the safety of women in the suburbs after the arrest of a man police allege is an accused serial killer.

Dave Butorac, 29, a resident of suburban Aldergrove, just east of Vancouver, is charged in the second-degree murder last year of two drug-addicted prostitutes - one in Abbotsford and the other in Langley, B.C.

The body of a third woman was found near his home two years ago but Butorac has not been charged with her death.

Julian says there's been a lot of attention focused on the services available to prostitutes in the Downtown Eastside after serial-killer Robert Pickton was convicted last month of second-degree murder in the deaths of six women. But the needs of vulnerable women in other areas can't be ignored.

"Willy Pickton is gone but there's so many other women who are continuing on in the lifestyle of sex-trade work that's really risky that there's not enough support for them," she says.

Julian, 39, knows the violence prostitutes face on the streets from pimps and drug dealers because she was one of them until she succeeded in her third attempt in a decade to leave behind a life that included drug addiction.

"I still have scars on my body from those experiences," she says, adding she suffered severe beatings from "bad dates" and a left hip broken by a pimp.

After finally turning her life around six years ago, Julian says she now worries about others who work in isolated and industrial areas where no one can help them.

Pamela Willis, executive director of the Women's Resource Society of the Fraser Valley, says there's an increasing number of street prostitutes in the region, a network of smaller towns and cities within 80 kilometres of Vancouver.

"The women on the streets say the streets are getting worse, that it's more dangerous out there," Willis says.

Sex-trade workers don't feel any safer after Butorac's arrest because they're easy prey for other men bent on taking advantage of their vulnerability, she says, especially if they're homeless and addicted to drugs.

Compared with the Downtown Eastside, where Pickton was known to pick up prostitutes and where federal funding at PEERS was cut last June, women who work the streets in some suburbs have virtually no support, Willis says.

"The Downtown Eastside has had a significant infusion of resources and I think that's excellent, and I wouldn't take a penny of that away," she says. "But it hasn't helped us out here at all and there's very, very little out here."

Just over a year ago, Willis says her agency started providing hot meals, clothes and personal care items to women on the streets of Abbotsford and Mission after asking them what they needed.

"We have a couple of transition houses and a couple of outreach offices as well but no services that are geared specifically toward the complicated needs of sex-trade workers," she says.

Some of the women have sought counselling and have forged enough trust to start coming to a drop-in time, Willis says.

"They're used to being seen as freaks and as disposable human beings and often people don't look beyond that presentation of prostitute," she says.

The lack of provincial funding to provide services for sex-trade workers means the agency has had to rely on $3,200 in funding from the Abbotsford police board and the John Howard Society, Willis said.

John Lowman, a criminologist at Simon Fraser University in suburban Burnaby, says the difference in resources between urban and suburban areas is not the main problem when it comes to the safety of sex-trade workers who are victimized because of Canada's laws.

Prostitution is legal in Canada but it's illegal to solicit someone in a public place for the purpose of prostitution.

A police crackdown on some show lounges in Toronto and Vancouver in the 1970s put sex-trade workers on the street, leaving women in potentially dangerous situations, says Lowman, one of Canada's leading experts on prostitution.

But many women who face violence fear contacting police, he says.

"What we've done for the last 30 years is talk about the need to dispose of street prostitution and in the minds of certain predatory, misogynistic men that translates into disposing of prostitutes," Lowman says.

Prostitutes on the strolls face more dangers than those who work in massage parlours or for escort services, often because they've been junkies for so long that such establishments don't want them, Lowman says.

"There's nothing any social-service provider can do when a woman is out on the street, being picked up where nobody can see her," he says.

"A serial killer isn't going to go to an escort service where he leaves a trace or more particularly a massage parlour or some other kind of indoor venue where he's going to be seen."

Canada's laws must be changed to decriminalize prostitution altogether or women on the streets will continue to suffer, Lowman says.

An all-party subcommittee examining Canada's laws toured the country for three years in a bid to make recommendations for changes but a final report produced in December 2006 did no such thing, he says.

http://canadianpress.google.com/article ... HCutyD1M7g

Siehe auch die Kanada-Links und Rechts-Lage am Ende dieses Artikels:
viewtopic.php?p=29638#29638





.

[Marc of Frankfurt]

Interview mit Jenn Clamen

Sexworker Aktivistin aus Kanada

http://www.artsandopinion.com/2005_v4_n1/clamen.htm

[Marc of Frankfurt]

Vancouver:

Feminists advocating for rights and equality for sex industry workers.

FIRST Invites You to Join Us

FIRST invites all interested parties who support our position to join us. Please read through our position statement. If you support it, click here to join us. You will receive notification of our meetings, an opportunity to join our committees, and more.
Position Statement

FIRST is a coalition of feminists who have come together to support the rights of sex industry workers and advocate for the decriminalization of adult sex work.[1] We are guided by the fundamental principle that sex industry workers should have equal benefit of the human rights protections that are available to all members of Canadian society. To be a society that is truly committed to equality, freedom and human dignity, we must recognize the rights of sex industry workers to:

* Live and work in conditions that are free from hate, violence and exploitation;

* Have their dignity, autonomy and liberty respected, including the right to engage in consensual sex with other adults without being criminalized; and

* Be treated as equal members of society, have equal protection and benefit of the law and not be subject to stigma, discrimination and social alienation.

We further recognize that discrimination against sex industry workers often intersects with prejudice and discrimination on the basis of gender, race, poverty, sexuality, ability and age. As a case in point, the oppression experienced by Indigenous women is intricately connected to Canada's history of colonialism and the failure to recognize the inherent right to indigenous self-determination.
It must be recognized that the decriminalization of sex work will not on its own stop the injustices experienced by sex industry workers. However, it is an important first step to improve the health and safety of sex industry workers, and communities overall.
WE DEMAND THAT:

* Adult consensual sex industry work be completely decriminalized in Canada. The term "decriminalization" refers to the repeal or removal of all criminal laws relating to adult prostitution. In the Canadian context, decriminalization means the repeal of the following sections of the Criminal Code of Canada: s. 210 (bawdy house law), s. 211 (transporting a person to a bawdy house) s. 212 (1), (3) (procuring sections relating to adults), and s. 213 (communicating law).

* Canadian law not prohibit sexual activities between consenting adults whether or not payment is involved.

* Sex industry workers have full legal rights and equal access to the protection and benefit of the law, including labour and employment law.

* Sex industry workers and their organizations must be primary stakeholders in any process related to their legal, economic and/or social status. Governments must:

* Provide financial support to sex industry worker organizations to ensure their full and equal participation in any process related to the sex industry in Canada;

* Grant funding to support, expand and create community-based services dedicated to addressing sex industry workers' economic, social and health needs; and

* Support the creation of organizational and business structures that empower and protect sex industry workers including, for example, the sex industry worker's cooperative proposed by the B.C. Coalition of Experiential Communities.

* The sexual exploitation of children and youth must not be tolerated. Further, children and youth should not be criminalized because of their involvement in the sex industry.

* Mobility rights for sex industry workers within Canada must be fully supported. We demand that a non-discriminatory and humanitarian approach be taken towards migrant sex industry workers wishing to enter Canada. We support the existing provisions of the Criminal Code which prohibit trafficking in persons for the purpose of any form of labour or service (ss.279.01 – 279.03). However, protections must be improved so that victims of trafficking do not face criminalization or removal from Canada.

* The appropriate levels of government immediately support sex industry worker organizations to develop and implement training that educates and sensitizes the justice system and health and social services providers to the needs of sex industry workers.

* The appropriate levels of government immediately support sex industry worker organizations to develop and implement public awareness campaigns aimed at educating society on the lived experience of sex industry workers.

FIRST holds that Canada's continuing failure to decriminalize sex work means the federal government implicitly sanctions violence against sex industry workers. We believe that sex industry workers will never truly gain equality, freedom and dignity until the illegal and stigmatised status of their work is addressed. Decriminalization is an essential step: the time for legislative change is now.

[1] The term, "sex industry worker" refers to all women, men and trans-gendered adults who exchange sexual services for remuneration where parties consent and negotiate the details of the transaction. (http://bccewc.ca/)

http://first.vcn.bc.ca/





.

[Marc of Frankfurt]

Noch lange nicht volljährig:

Stella feiert den 13. Geburtstag




Stella in Montreal

www.chezStella.org





.

[Marc of Frankfurt]

Sex workers seek decriminalization pledge

Lobby group to rally on Hill Thursday night to demand protection for prostitutes

Jessey Bird, Ottawa Citizen
Published: Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Ottawa's first sex workers lobby group intends to call for the decriminalization of prostitution at a demonstration tonight, and although police are skeptical, drop-in centres and Rideau-Vanier Councillor Georges Bédard are supportive.

POWER (Prostitutes of Ottawa/Gatineau Work Educate and Resist) formed in February, and this will be its first event. It will demand that the next federal government take steps to protect sex workers' rights.

"Canadian laws increase their vulnerability to violence, they lead to a denial of human rights, and they lead to exclusion of sex workers from the social realm," said Chris Bruckert, a former sex worker, University of Ottawa criminology professor and the driving force behind POWER.

While the Criminal Code doesn't specifically outlaw trading sex for money, there are several sections prohibiting almost all aspects of the transaction.

In her 2006 study of street prostitutes, Ms. Bruckert found that most of the 19 women she interviewed had been robbed, beaten or sexually assaulted, but didn't report the attacks to the police because they were afraid of being arrested.

"They talked about being raped, they talked about having their throat slit, being physically assaulted and not having community members come to their aid ... they also talk about police harassing them," said Ms. Bruckert, adding that sex workers are between 60 and 112 times more likely to be victims of homicide than any other population.

Mr. Bédard said he is happy to hear the group has formed, adding that in his area, there is a "huge problem."

"Because solicitation is illegal, they have to hide and do all kinds of things in order to protect themselves from the police," said Mr. Bédard. "When in actuality what happens is they put themselves in harm's way.

Mr. Bédard said he doesn't condone prostitution, but "it should be decriminalized because putting these people in jail really doesn't solve the problem."

Sgt. Dana Reynolds is based in Vanier, and said prostitution is one of the top three complaints her division receives.

"The workers that we deal with are drug-addicted and are generally acting out verbally and aggressively. ... There are needles and condoms being left behind, screaming, yelling, fighting ...," said Sgt. Reynolds.

Richard Elliott, executive director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, said the situation in Vanier is a perfect example of why sex work should be decriminalized.

He said better access to addiction treatment and allowing sex workers to run their own indoor establishments would be a better solution.

"I think this is a great initiative," said Melanie Leduc, executive director of Centre Espoir Sophie, a drop-in centre in the ByWard Market for marginalized women.

The POWER rally runs from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday on Parliament Hill.


© Ottawa Citizen 2008
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/new ... 70f1103d9b





Buch von Professorin und Sexarbeiterin Chris Bruckert:

Taking It Off, Putting It On: Women in the Strip Trade
Chris Bruckert (Women's Press, 2002)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0889614059

The experiences and lived realities of sex workers have been marginalized, silenced and objectified in popular texts and, until recently, in much feminist work on pornography. Chris Bruckert worked as a stripper for a time to support herself and her family before she went to university. Unable to reconcile her experiences as a stripper with what academia said (and didn't say) about sex work, Bruckert set out to document the stories of the women who work as strippers. Taking It Off is a feminist ethnography that tackles the strip trade's regulations and organization, power relations, stigmas and labour processes. Bruckert uses the words of the strippers that she interviewed as a point of departure to explore this industry. Taking It Off is richly textured because Bruckert also worked in a strip club as a bartender and waitress as part of her research process. Her work as this “outsider within” adds layers of insight into the complex dynamics between strippers, club staff and the patrons.

Taking It Off begins with descriptions of the inner workings and atmosphere of a strip club, its “Champagne Rooms” and the working routines of club staff. It documents the strategies strippers use to “work the club.” These descriptions and the interviews reveal that strip club labour is much like any other non-unionized working-class employment. Through these stories, Bruckert explores the politics of an industry that sells sexuality embroiled in exploitation and oppression [verwickelt in Ausbeutung und Unterdrückung]. She explores the ways strippers resist and challenge power relations and stereotypes, and the ways that they define and negotiate their identity.





.

[Marc of Frankfurt]

Advocate fights brothel raids

Crackdowns force prostitutes onto streets, Stepping Stone director says

By SHERRI BORDEN COLLEY Staff Reporter
Fri. Sep 19 - 10:01 AM


Rene Ross is executive director of Stepping Stone.
(DARREN PITTMAN / Staff)


Police raids on escort services do not stop the sex trade and may make the work more dangerous, says the head of a Halifax agency that helps sex workers.

"Cracking down on brothels . . . not permitting sex workers to work indoors pushes them out on the street, where they are more vulnerable to violence and to stigmatization," said Rene Ross, executive director of Stepping Stone.

www.steppingStoneNS.ca

The organization provides support, crisis counselling, advocacy and court support for sex workers.

"We’re certainly not saying that we should be turned into the Las Vegas of Canada," Ms. Ross said. "We’re not saying that at all, and we’re not saying that we want legalization because legalization and decriminalization are two different things.

"What we’re saying is needed is decriminalization of the existing solicitation laws, of the bawdy house laws, and again for the health and safety of sex workers."

Legalization, on the other hand, could lead to prostitutes being taxed on their income.

Canada, Ms. Ross said, needs to look at a New Zealand model that has decriminalized the operation of bawdy houses and street-based sex work.

"They’ve toughened up other laws," she said, referring to New Zealand.

"They’ve toughened up nuisance and noise laws around communities, signage around escorts, and what has been happening.

"We’ve been getting reports back here in Canada that it has also enhanced communication between sex workers, their allies and law enforcement."

A recent bust of an alleged bawdy house on Queen Street in Dartmouth happened in late January after a woman who had been working at the escort agency tipped off police.

In that case, Patricia Mary Dumaresq, who is listed as the sole partner of Park Avenue Escort Service, has pleaded not guilty to keeping a common bawdy house, exercising control over the movements of a person to compel the person to engage in prostitution and procuring a person to become a prostitute.

Ms. Dumaresq is scheduled to go to trial in June.

Ms. Ross said Stepping Stone advocates decriminalization, which would help ensure that police resources get directed toward violent crimes, "where it’s needed."

"It will increase co-operation, so more crimes will be reported to police. We really want to see an end to the violence that is going on. We want workers to be able to have access to the support and to the services that will be able to assist them to have a good quality of life."

Going into its 20th year of operations, Stepping Stone will soon release its first brochure on the myths and realities of sex workers. It will be distributed throughout the community.

• SEX WORKERS: MYTH VS REALITY
  
  Myth: Arresting sex workers prevents sex work from occurring in our community.
  
  Reality: Arresting sex workers usually only keeps them from working temporarily.
  
  
  Myth: Sex workers were abused or assaulted as children.
  
  Reality: While some sex workers may have been victims of sexual assault during childhood, this is not the case for all.
  
  
  Myth: Most sex workers are forced or coerced into sex work.
  
  Reality: Individuals enter into sex work for a variety of reasons.
  
  
  Myth: Sexual assault is just part of the job.
  
  Reality: No one deserves to be sexually assaulted. Regardless of whether there is payment, any sex act performed without consent is an act of violence.
  
  
  Myth: All sex workers are drug addicts.
  
  Reality: Because of considerable stigmatization, many believe it is difficult or even impossible to perform sex work without using drugs. Some never use them at all.
  
  
  Source: Sex Work: The Myths. The Realities,
  http://www.steppingstonens.ca/pdf/brochure.pdf
  (2 Seiten)

Deputy Chief Chris McNeil of Halifax Regional Police said no matter how you look at it, there’s no way to romanticize prostitution.

"I would defy anybody to tell me that young girls and young boys grow up to say I want to be a prostitute," Deputy Chief McNeil said.

"It’s circumstances in life that forces them into that and we shouldn’t continue to victimize them by this misguided romantic notion that somehow this all can be done and it’s all choice.

"It is a dangerous, dangerous (job). There is no safe way to prostitute yourself."

Like any other social problem, addressing prostitution requires a multi-faceted approach, and law enforcement only plays one role, he said.

The deputy chief agrees that one of the ways to get people out of prostitution is to give them better opportunities.

"But it’s been my experience that it’s not a choice that people work the street. It is usually driven by circumstance. Either they’re being forced by a human pimp or they’re being forced by other circumstances like poverty or drug addiction."

Under Canada’s Criminal Code, communicating for the purpose of prostitution, keeping a common bawdy house and pimping are all offences. And as long as these remain crimes, officers will continue to enforce the law, Deputy Chief McNeil said.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Metro/1079849.html





.

[Marc of Frankfurt]

Should prostitution be legalized?



Oct 01, 2008 03:36 PM
Kailey Willetts, Cody Willett


Vancouver’s Pivot Legal Society has launched a challenge against sections in the B.C. Supreme Court that forbid the operation of sex-work houses (brothels), in a hope to decriminalize prostitution.

Two Martleteers weigh in on the pros and cons of legalizing the world’s oldest profession.

Kailey Willetts: Prostitution is a profession, yes, but it is a profession stigmatized with many negative connotations.

Prostitutes are often viewed as dirty and drugged out, unable to make their way in life with a “regular” job.

However, the very conditions that give prostitution its negative connotations (the drugs, the STDs, the beatings from pimps) could be avoided if prostitution was decriminalized and regulations on the industry imposed.

Cody Willett: The answer to persistent social problems like prostitution is neither regulated decriminalization, nor tough on crime stances. It has been, and always will be, smart policy aimed at the root of the problem.

The sad existence of a prostitute is due to the fact that they operate in an environment of exploitation and violence at the hands of men.

Therefore, we need to criminalize the buying of sex and decriminalize the selling of sex, while offering support for women trying to get out.

Kailey Willetts: Prostitution is inevitable, whether or not the buying is criminal, the selling decriminalized, or vice-versa.

As long as there are men and women wanting to buy sex, there will be men, women and even children selling it.

If it is criminal to buy sex it will be done behind closed doors, in alley ways and dirty hotel rooms without any sanctions protecting the prostitutes.

The exploitation and violence won’t end if there is demand for the sex trade unless it is decriminalized and controlled in safe, clean environments.

With decriminalization, prostitutes would no longer be people who have been manipulated into the trade by pimps for food, drugs and survival, but workers in a valid profession who have the right to choose what they do with their bodies.

Cody Willett: By talking about regulations and control, we’re really just talking about legalization (and ultimately taxation) here.

The Netherlands has taken this approach and seen some improvements in living standards for prostitutes.

However, human trafficking into the sex trade, inevitably linked to criminal organizations, flourishes and facilitates disproportional exploitation of the women and children pushed into selling sex.

Sweden has seen an astonishing reduction in trafficking and prostitution in general by criminalizing the purchase of sex.

You can glamourize and sanitize the sex trade, but making it easier for women to take up brothel work is defeatist when we could be getting them help and education, and ultimately off their backs.

Kailey Willetts: It is not up to society as a whole to impose the moral attitude that prostitutes should be getting “off their backs.”

For many, the sex trade is a choice, and society hasn’t always dictated that this is an immoral profession.

In Ancient Greece, for example, high-class courtesan prostitutes called hetaerae had the freedom to culture their minds beyond what was typically allowed for women and enjoyed respect in society.

The Moulin Rouge, built in 1889, started its life as a high class brothel before being transformed into a night club. The stigmatization attached to prostitution is not naturally ingrained into humanity, but has developed in Western society.

Even today, places like Amsterdam show that not all prostitutes are manipulated into the trade through drug addiction and violence, but have made a choice to embrace this profession.

If you happen to be a nympho, what better way is there to make a living?

Cody Willett: This has nothing to do with morality.

Prostitutes are metaphorically on their backs as long as society treads on them while they’re down and out.

Canada jails prostitutes for living on the avails of prostitution and communicating in a public place for the purpose of selling their bodies.

Men who take advantage of women who “choose” to sell their sexual services over starvation must be the ones society punishes.

Make all the nympho jokes you want, but the social costs of young women aspiring only to peddle poonani are incredibly steep.

Can’t we inspire them to be part of the solution to society’s problems by making it easier to become teachers, community organizers and elected leaders? Do we really want to legislate the bar lower?

As long as we allow men the option of buying, selling and thereby exploiting women, gender equality will remain an elusive goal.

http://www.martlet.ca/article/4791-shou ... legalized-





Comments
Suzanne Hammond wrote:

Just a few points. Firstly, many studies have shown that prostitutes are much safer in the indoor environment than outdoors, and obviously safer in numbers than alone. Therefore criminalising brothel ownership/management is counter-productive to sex workers safety.

Secondly, actual trafficking stats as distinct from unreliable estimates show trafficked persons to be a tiny number compared with prostitute numbers. Here in the UK, two major exercises by all 55 police forces lasting between them nearly a year discovered 250 persons trafficked or treated as trafficked among an estimated prostitute population of 80,000, or under a third of 1 per cent. The US had spent $150m+ and set up 42 Justice Department task forces after estimating 50,000 trafficking victims a year were entering the US just before the millennium. The Washington Post discovered in September last year that they'd only found less than 1,500 in seven years of looking. Traffickig is a red herring in prostitution debates.

Cody's idea of criminalising purchasers (the "Swedish model") has major disadvantages:

(a) it drives prostitution further underground, as the market moves to avoid police detection. Street workers move to ill-lit alleys, have less time to appraise clients, lose their street networks relied on for safety, fear to carry condoms in case seized for evidence, and become more difficult for health and drug abuse outreach workers and others to count, let alone aid.

(b) as there are far more clients than prostitutes, criminalising clients requires a far higher commitment of criminal justice resources.

(c) the legislation creates a blackmailers' charter.

(d) interference in consenting adults' right to choose violates human rights.

(e) the legislation has a very negative affect on not only clients but their families, partners and children, causing employment loss and family breakdown in addition to the court penalties, with significant financial and non-financial costs to both individuals and the state.

I recommend you study not Amsterdam but the decriminalised system in New Zealand as a model for a way forward.





Mehr Hintergrundinformation:
http://www.pivotlegal.org/Issues/sextrade.htm





.

[Marc of Frankfurt]

Neue Kampagne der Heilsarmee gegen Paysex & Sexarbeit


The Salvation Army has a new campaign out here in Canada. It reads:

Julia:
Violent pimp
No freedom
30 men a day
Indebted
Enslaved

250,000 slaves in North America
27 million worldwide

http://thetruthisntsexy.ca

[Marc of Frankfurt]

Coming out der Sexworker

www.tinyURL.com/POWERottawa

[Marc of Frankfurt]

SW klagt gegen Altersdiskriminierung

Exotic dancer files age discrimination complaint


Last Updated: Monday, November 3, 2008 |
CBC News




Kim Ouwroulis doesn't believe her age should be a barrier in her chosen career: exotic dancing.

Kim Ouwroulis, 44, alleges the owner of a strip club fired her because she was too old. (Courtesy of Kim Ouwroulis)

In an unusual test of age discrimination laws, the 44-year-old Toronto-area woman filed a complaint last month with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, alleging the owner of a strip club fired her because she was too old.

Ouwroulis says she and three other women at the New Locomotion club in Mississauga were fired last summer, allegedly for the same reason.

"I was told by a manager, 'Your time is up here,'" she said. "At first I was speechless. And I said, well, 'Why am I being fired — my age?'

"I was told they were going in a new direction with younger girls," said Ouwroulis.

A tribunal official confirmed that a second complaint has been filed against the same employer but did not provide details.

The club owner has not returned phone calls from CBC News.

Ouwroulis started her exotic dancing career four years ago, and says she raked in thousands of dollars each week. Since her dismissal, Ouwroulis, who lives in the town of Whitchurch-Stouffville, has found work at another establishment in the Toronto area.

"I'm a bubbly blond with a good personality. The boobs and the blond hair, usually you can't go wrong in a strip club with those two things," she said.



Sex appeal argument 'tricky'

Denise Reaume, a University of Toronto professor who specializes in discrimination law, says the complaint explores uncharted territory.

"These kinds of cases don't get litigated very often, and so there's not a lot of hard thinking about them," says Reaume.

Under the Ontario Human Rights Code, employers are barred from treating a worker differently because of their age.

But while age discrimination cases typically examine the person's ability to perform their job, this case will look at how appearance, as it relates to age, plays a part.

Reaume says the respondent's underlying objection doesn't have to do with the quality of the dance, but rather the general appeal and look of the dancer.

"The question is going to be whether this employer can defend the argument that sex appeal is the essence of the job .… This is tricky because sexual response is as variable as human beings are."

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/11/ ... laint.html





Weitere SW Prozesse, die gerade in Kanada laufen:

- Zwei Verfassungsklagen in British Columbia und Ontario
- Ein Kunde klagt (British Columbia),
- Obiger Fall (Ontario).



Hier wird deutlich, warum SW-Arbeit- und Auftraggeber kein Interesse an 'normalen' Arbeitsverträgen und -rechten für SW haben.

Für den bisher gesellschaftlich ausgegrenzten Bereich Sexarbeit müssen quasi alle modernen sozialen Rechte einzeln nachträglich nocheinmal eingeklagt und errungen werden, wenn eine Gleichstellung mit anderen Berufen und Branchen endlich erreicht werden soll.

Was für eine übermenschliche Herausforderung für die vielfach Isolierten und prekär Beschäftigten.

Keep on fighting, sisters !!!





.

[Marc of Frankfurt]

Klage der Sexworker und Interessenvertreter gegen die diskriminierenden Prostitutionsgesetze wurde abgelehnt.

MONTREAL SEX WORKER RIGHTS GROUP DENOUNCES BC SUPREME COURT RULING THAT DENIES SEX WORKERS’ HUMAN RIGHTS


Montreal, December 15, 2008

Today, the BC (British Columbiy) Supreme Court refused to hear a case brought forward by a group of sex workers from the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver (“SWUAV”) who are attempting to challenge the prostitution laws using the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Lainie Basman, of Montreal’s Coalition for the Rights of Sex Workers says, “This decision is incredibly disappointing. The B.C. Supreme Court had the rare opportunity to hear a critical claim by sex workers that Canada’s Criminal Code endangers their safety and violates their fundamental right to equality. Outrageously, the Court has chosen to close its doors to one of this country’s most marginalized and oppressed groups.”

Joe Arvay, a lawyer working on the case alongside Katrina Pacey, of Pivot Legal Society, says, “The government’s argument that the Court should recognize as plaintiffs only those sex workers who are presently active in sex work or who are presently facing an actual prosecution is neither sound law or good policy.”

This court decision affects sex workers all across the country. Recent years have brought attention to the human rights atrocities perpetrated against sex workers in Canada and to the large number of women murdered and missing in recent years in Vancouver and Edmonton. Anna-Louise Crago, Coalition member, states, “In Montreal, the issue is as pressing as it is in those cities. In our city there are presently at least two ongoing cases involving men accused of the serial rape of sex workers. Sex workers will not be free of violence or the threat of violence until we are free of the laws that criminalize our work and our lives. The need to recognize sex workers’ rights to work in safe and decent working conditions is urgent.”

The Coalition wishes to express not only grave concern, but also its strong support for the right to address these human rights violations in a court of law.

For more information contact:
info at montrealcoalition dot com





Siehe auch diese Klage eines Prostitutionskunden:
viewtopic.php?p=43537#43537





.

[Marc of Frankfurt]

Sexarbeiterinnen wollen ihr eigenes, selbstgeführtes Bordell eröffnen.

Frauengeführte Bordell-Kooperative:



Vancouver prostitutes say consulting business would pay for brothel



Published Wednesday December 17th, 2008
Greg Joyce, THE CANADIAN PRESS


VANCOUVER, B.C. - A group of prostitutes has moved a step closer in their efforts to open a brothel so women involved in selling sex in the Downtown Eastside can get off the violent streets.

Sue Davis, a prostitute who has been a driving force behind the goal of opening a brothel, said proceeds from a consulting business launched Wednesday by the West Coast Co-operative of Sex Industry Professionals will enable the group to eventually open a brothel.

"Everybody is going to go crazy and think it's the brothel (that's opening)," she said, adding that won't happen until several commercial enterprises have been developed to help longtime prostitutes find alternatives to working the streets.

The sex workers' co-operative hopes to open a brothel in time for the 2010 Olympics and envisions a site similar to the plethora of massage parlours that now operate essentially as fronts for paid sex.

Their alternative work initiatives include the arts, publishing, catering and consulting.

Davis said a client and worker would rent a room for a sum that's privately arranged between them at the site and that money would go towards its operating costs.

[Zimmervermietung zum Selbstkonstenpreis an Sexworker. Anm.]

"If younger women are worth protecting (by working off-street) why aren't the girls in the east end allowed to be in those environments?" Davis said.

"People in Vancouver agree that something different needs to be tried," she said. "Business owners, residents and neighbourhoods that are impacted by sex work are tired of having to deal with all these issues."

Davis has already been involved in consulting work.

She has voluntarily spoken to many Vancouver police officers at police headquarters about how to deal with street prostitutes and has been paid $150 an hour to make similar presentations to other groups.

Davis said she wants a broader group of prostitutes to start making presentations and to use skills that some have to raise money for the co-operative through the arts and catering.

She said many prostitutes she knows have artistic and culinary skills.

Two prostitutes have been invited to speak at a conference at the University of Victoria, where they will each be paid $400, Davis said.

While prostitution is legal in Canada, operating a bawdy house is not.

Tamara O'Doherty, a criminologist at Simon Fraser University, wrote her master's degree thesis on the "off-street sex trade" and the degree of violence the women encounter compared to street workers.

"I found out (violence) just doesn't happen at the same rate in the off-street community," O'Doherty said. "That says to me that there are ways people can work in the sex industry safely."

She said the off-street sex trade - massage parlours, escort agencies and women working out of their homes - makes up 80 to 90 per cent of the industry in Canada.

"We assume that violence is inherent in the act of selling sex and I wanted to find out if that's true."

In a related development, O'Doherty and a lawyer who tried to argue in court that the Criminal Code sections dealing with prostitution violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms were disappointed that their case was dismissed earlier this week without a trial.

In a ruling, a B.C. Supreme Court judge said the Downtown Eastside Sex Workers United Against Violence Society had no standing to argue their case.

The sex workers society wanted the court to strike down the Criminal Code section that makes it an offence to keep a bawdy house. It also wanted the court to strike the section that deals with transporting a person to a bawdy house, as well as the section that deals with soliciting in a public place.

The group said these sections infringe Charter rights including freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, and freedom of association.

Katrina Pacey of the Pivot Legal Society, an advocacy group, said the bawdy house law means the street prostitutes "can't work indoors and end up working on the streets, which are dangerous."

[Das Bordellverbot ist eine Ursache für das Elend des Straßenstrichts. Anm.]

The matter had been set for a six-week trial starting in February but the Attorney General of Canada applied to dismiss the action.

"The (Attorney General) submits that there are other reasonable and effective means for the constitutional validity of the impugned sections of the Criminal Code to come before the court and . . . there is currently other litigation underway in Canada in which the same issues are being raised," Justice William Ehrcke said in his ruling.

http://www.canadaeast.com/news/article/514979





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