---

Jeremy Hainsworth / Xtra West, Vancouver / Thursday, March 11, 2010

A police campaign to quietly collect sex workers’ DNA across Canada is raising red flags.

Sex workers say it’s a violation of their rights. They don’t trust the police or government’s intentions.

And, they say, this collection opens the door for authorities to collect DNA from other groups too.

“If the government said everyone must submit their DNA, they’d be up in arms,” says Sue Davis of Vancouver’s Prostitution Alternatives Counselling and Education Society. “It’s a very hot-button issue.”

Prof Michael Goodyear of Halifax’s Dalhousie University studies prostitution issues. He agrees with Davis.

“Imagine if we wanted to collect nurses’ DNA in case they were murdered,” he says. “Most murdered people are pretty easy to identify.”

Davis says an Edmonton Police Service officer recently told her the DNA profiles would be used by Project KARE (Edmonton’s missing persons task force) to identify dead sex workers.

“How about protecting me so I don’t die?” she says.

Davis says changing the prostitution laws would remove the need for such data collection.

Though prostitution is not itself a crime in Canada, “communicating for the purposes of prostitution” and “living off its avails” are both illegal.

That’s the crux of this problem, say all the sex workers and advocates Xtra interviewed for this story: the laws around prostitution force workers out of the public eye and into violent or possibly fatal conditions. Change the laws and there will be no need for any DNA collection, they say.

But collecting DNA? “This is a huge violation of our rights,” says Amy Lebovitch of Sex Professionals of Canada.

RCMP K Division spokesperson Cpl Wayne Oakes says the DNA samples are taken voluntarily from those “involved in high-risk lifestyles.”

Oakes says information gathered can only be used if a person becomes the subject of a missing persons or homicide investigation.

He says Project KARE “has not and will not share any of the information collected.”

Davis says the officer she spoke to told her more than 700 workers have given samples in the Edmonton region.

But, she says, when she asked the officer how many prostitutes were currently working in the city, she was told 30 to 40. She wants to know what happened to the rest of the samples.

Edmonton isn’t the only area collecting sex workers’ DNA.

Corine Arthur, of the Surrey Women’s Centre Society, says sex workers there were told by police their DNA was needed so police could rule out still-living women whose DNA may have been found at the Port Coquitlam farm of convicted serial killer Robert William Pickton.

“We couldn’t get anybody to confirm or deny that was the truth at the time,” she says.

RCMP E Division spokesperson Cpl Annie Linteau confirmed to Xtra West Mar 8 that DNA was collected for elimination purposes from people who had been at the Pickton farm.

“That DNA will be held until the close of the investigation,” Linteau says.

Davis says she’s also heard of similar DNA collections in Halifax.

But a Halifax Regional Police Service spokesperson denies this.

“I’ve never heard of anything like that unless it’s being done through an organization that helps sex-trade workers,” says Const Brian Palmater.

That’s not the story from Oakes. He says the debate over the practice originated in Halifax. “They were engaged in this process very early on,” Oakes says.

Stepping Stones is a sex-worker support program in Halifax. Spokesperson Rene Ross says she’s heard “snippets” about DNA collections in the past. “I haven’t heard anything in quite a while,” she notes.

The Vancouver Police Department has not engaged in DNA collection, according to spokesperson Const Lindsey Houghton.

“Before the VPD were to get involved in something like this, we would have to explore the legal ramifications and implications and develop stringent policies around the collection, retention and use of the samples,” Houghton says.

Word has also surfaced of DNA collections in Winnipeg where a number of sex workers have been killed, say officials at Sage House, which provides support for street-involved women and transgendered people.

On Sep 25, 2009, the RCMP, the Winnipeg Police Service and the Province of Manitoba announced the formation of a task force to review cases involving missing and murdered women. A spokesperson for the police declined to comment.

All of it leads Davis to ask if some form of national database of sex workers’ DNA is being created by the RCMP in association with other police agencies.

“I can totally see that happening,” she says.

Lebovitch says such collection just makes police work easier once sex workers are dead.

“What about while we’re alive?” she asks. “How will this stop violence against us? It’s not addressing the problem.”

Moreover, she wonders what will happen when authorities across Canada have a bank of sex workers’ DNA.

“Are they going to sell it to the highest bidder? Maybe [for] some study on sex worker DNA?” she asks.

Which, says Micheal Vonn of the BC Civil Liberties Association, leads to another concern around such highly personal data.

“There is a very important principle that information collected for one purpose cannot be used for another,” Vonn says. “It’s not always the case.”

---

Prostitution laws endanger lives of sex-trade workers, former escort says

February 8th, 2010

By Dalson Chen, The Windsor Star

Former escort Valerie Scott has a message for those who believe prostitution should be criminal on moral grounds: Get over it.

On Monday, the law school held a panel discussion on how Canada’s Criminal Code endangers the safety of sex workers.

“This really can’t keep going on,” Scott said at the University of Windsor’s faculty of law building.

“If people have a moral problem with … the commercialization of sex — sex as a commodity — you need to get over that. Because your moral problem is killing people.”

The panelists were: Scott, who is executive director of Sex Professionals of Canada; sociology professor Jacqueline Lewis; lawyer Alan Young; and professional dominatrix Terri-Jean Bedford.

Last fall, Scott and Bedford, represented by Young, launched a constitutional challenge of Canada’s prostitution laws, arguing that the laws deny the security and liberty of those in the sex trade.

Exchanging money for sex is not illegal in Canada. However, doing so in a fixed location is illegal (the offence of running a bawdy house). It’s also illegal to communicate in public for the purposes of prostitution.

The result, Lewis said, is a “defacto form of prohibition” that makes it criminal for sex workers to take measures to protect themselves.

According to Scott, the laws do “the opposite of protection” by pushing sex workers to be “always on the run,” plying their trade in “unlit alleyways and streets,” making them easy victims for predators.

Scott said the trade would be much safer if the law allowed sex workers to bring clients to a fixed location. “When I go to his place, I don’t know what I’m going to,” Scott said. “I don’t know if there are three guys hiding in the next room.”

To make a point about the “irrational” and “arbitrary” nature of the prostitution laws, Scott gave a nickel to each audience member — then announced they were doing something illegal. By accepting her nickels, they were living on the avails of prostitution, which is prohibited under the Criminal Code.

“It’s as though society is saying sex workers are so unlovable, that if you are with one, we’ll make you a criminal, even if you aren’t,” Scott said.

When the Superior Court of Ontario held a hearing on the constitutional challenge in October, groups such as the Christian Legal Fellowship, the Catholic Civil Rights League and REAL Women of Canada argued that protecting public morals is a necessary part of the Criminal Code.

At Monday’s panel discussion, Young said such groups “have got to grow up a little bit.”

“Understand that the law can’t possibly protect every one of your moral preferences,” he said.

“There’s a horribly ugly side to the sex trade. I’m not naive. But I don’t see things in black and white.”

According to Young, criminal law is a “blunt instrument” that is too cumbersome to deal with a social issue such as prostitution. “If you want to solve problems in the sex trade, you don’t use criminal law.”

Young said the current laws did nothing to protect sex workers from the likes of Robert Pickton, who was convicted in 2007 of murdering multiple women on his pig farm in Port Coquitlam, B.C.

“The sanctity of life trumps moral preferences,” Young said.

Bedford — whose professional name is “Madame de Sade” — said her first arrest and conviction under Canada’s prostitution laws happened in Windsor. “Are you nervous that I’m here?” she joked to the audience of law students.

*Note from SPOC.  Valerie Scott is a current sex worker.

---

From back alleys to brothels

Friday, February 5th, 2010

By MJ Deschamps, Centretown News

Imagine going to work not knowing if you’ll be ripped off, battered or sexually abused. Not knowing if you’ll come home at the end of the day.

For sex workers in Canada, that's the norm. Violence and crime have become just another part of the job.

However, violence is not something that is actually inherent in the profession – it’s the product of a badly organized structure and a set of laws surrounding sex work.

If society wants to look at sex workers as “troubled” or “misguided” children of sorts, then they should also look to the government as the neglectful parents.

In this country, selling sex is legal, but prostitutes aren’t able to do it safely due to solicitation laws in the Criminal Code. Without being able to work in bawdy houses or brothels, sex workers are left without any protection, and become at risk for violence.

“Currently it’s legal to do our job, but not legal to conduct any aspect of our job,” says Toronto sex worker Brigitte Benoit, who is a member of the activist group Sex Professionals of Canada (SPOC).

Enforcement policies have ultimately led to the elimination of safe work spaces for sex workers, says Benoit.

“If we had control over a venue, prostitutes could feel safer, hire security, and have access to showers and safe-sex supplies.”

In October, fellow SPOC members and sex workers Valerie Scott, Amy Lebovitch and Terri-Jean Bedford brought their complaints around the issue to the Superior Court of Ontario. They are challenging sections 210-213 of the Criminal Code that prohibit bawdy houses, living on the avails, and communicating for the purpose of prostitution. The women say these prohibitions are a violation of their human rights.

Attempts have been made in the past to strike down parts of these prostitution laws, but this challenge is the first broad sweep of provisions in two decades.

By striking down all the Criminal Code sections pertaining to solicitation, it would effectively decriminalize prostitution.

Government laws are forcing Canadian citizens into dangerous environments, just so they can make a living, says University of Ottawa criminology professor Christine Bruckert.

Bruckert, a former stripper, spent three years studying the personal and professional lives of sex workers in Ottawa.

She looked at how, within the current justice context, sex workers continually experience violence from clients, and from police.

“Allowing for bawdy houses isn’t the perfect solution, but it is definitely the better alternative to forcing sex workers into dark corners and into jails” says Bruckert.

“If you look at countries that do have decriminzation, rates of violence go down dramatically and working conditions go up.”

Until the government moves to change legislation, sex workers will have to continue to look out for themselves, and each other.

On the SPOC website, they maintain a “bad date” list, to try and bring attention to some violent clients in the Toronto area. For now, says Benoit, that’s really all they can do.

The list includes detailed descriptions of bad “Johns”, the names they gave, vehicles they drove, partial phone numbers and addresses as well as a description of the violent act they committed.

“Colleague was picked up by a client at Queen St.E and Pape Ave. Both walked to a nearby gas station where the male stabbed her in the head and sexually assaulted her,” reads a posting from December 2009.

“Violence isn’t something that naturally comes with the job,” says Bruckert. “It’s a product of the way the industry is organized.”

And though prostitution is legal in Canada, violent crimes against sex workers often don’t get reported because of the stigma and fear of being charged under the other laws that criminalize sex work.

A 2006 government commission found that between 1994 and 2003, “at least 79 prostitutes” had been murdered on the job in Canada. This of course, does not begin to reflect the real number, especially when you consider the hundreds of ‘missing’ Aboriginal women across the country.

The report includes only cases where the police were able to actually determine that the death occurred during prostitution-related activities.

When Robert Pickton allegedly confessed to murdering 49 women – most of them sex workers from the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, the country was horrified, but nothing was done to make the lives of other sex workers safer.

“It’s becoming a real health and safety issue,” says Benoit. “We want recognition of our human rights and safe spaces to work in”

Prostitution sweeps happen frequently in Ottawa - about once every couple of months, according to Sergeant Jim Elves. Sex workers are often charged and thrown into jail for trying to do their jobs.

Although most sweeps happen because of citizen complaints of ‘nuisance’, he says he does not think that bawdy houses are a good solution to getting sex workers off the streets and out of the public eye.

“The only way to solve the problem is to get rid of it altogether,” said Elves.

As the world’s oldest profession, however, it doesn’t look like prostitution will be going away anytime soon.

So, in order to reduce stigma and violence against sex workers, society’s approach to the profession needs to change.