Whenever Mari receives online booking requests from new clients, the dominatrix and sex worker asks them to email her their government identification or a piece of work ID.
She also accepts references clients may have from other sex workers. If a client is known to others as a bad date, she won’t see them.
But Mari, who asked Global News to identify her by first name only, says not all sex workers have the “privilege” of screening clients in this way.
Those who work on the street may not have the ability to screen at all, or have to negotiate services in unsafe environments since aspects of communicating about sex work are criminalized.
“It makes our work less safe,” Mari says.
WATCH BELOW: (April 18, 2018) Backpage shutdown has B.C. sex trade workers concerned
Sex workers and legal experts argue that Canada’s sex work laws are prohibitive and doing the opposite of what they’re supposed to do — instead of protecting “human dignity,” the laws push sex workers into dangerous situations by criminalizing nearly every aspect of their job.
Built into Bill C-36, the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA), is a commitment to review the laws by the end of 2019. That time is now, and advocates say nothing has happened.
The Canadian Alliance of Sex Work Law Reform is calling on the Liberals to start that review process and act on decriminalization. The group also wants to see provincial and territorial employment laws regulate the sex industry as a form of labour.
The organization, which is made up of sex workers’ rights groups from across the country, also says sex workers need to be part of legal reform. They are the ones who know how to best protect their rights, the alliance argues.
“Despite the stated commitment in 2015 to replace the PCEPA and to reform prostitution laws, the Liberal Party of Canada has yet to take meaningful steps,” the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network recently wrote to the government.
In a statement to Global News, a spokesperson for the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada said it is a governmental priority to ensure that “our laws are effective in meeting their objectives, promoting public safety and security, and are consistent with our constitutionally protected rights.”
“With regard to the five-year review, the Act provides that it is Parliament’s responsibility to establish or designate a committee to study the matter,” the spokesperson said.
“As Parliament has just opened, the House is currently in the process of forming Committees. In the interim, we continue to engage with those involved.”
Sex work laws in Canada
Bill C-36 criminalizes the purchasing of sex but decriminalizes its sale. Known as an “end-demand” model, it also forbids negotiating sexual services in certain public places, such as near schools, financially benefitting off the sale of someone’s sexual services or knowingly advertising sexual services.
Bill C-36 came into effect in 2014 under a Conservative government after the Supreme Court struck down Canada’s previous laws in 2013 for being unconstitutional.
The court found the old laws imposed “dangerous conditions on prostitution” and prevented people engaged in a “risky, but legal, activity from taking steps to protect themselves.”
In 2014, then-Liberal MP Justin Trudeau voted against Bill C-36, and the Liberals promised to reform sex work laws throughout the 2015 campaign. Despite this, the Liberal government made no changes to the law during Trudeau’s first mandate.
At the 2018 Liberal Party convention, the Young Liberals of Canada called for the decriminalization of consensual sex work. The organization argued the “current prohibition of buying consensual sex work does not address the underlying issues that make sex work dangerous, but rather creates a climate that makes sex workers unlikely to work with the police and be involved with more serious crimes.”
WATCH BELOW: Young people with disabilities aren’t being taught sex-ed
But sex work wasn’t a much-debated topic during the recent 2019 federal election campaign, despite efforts from more than 150 human rights groups that called on the winning party to decriminalize sex work. Sex work law reform was also not a part of the Liberals’ 2019 campaign platform.
Alice, a sex worker who asked Global News to change her name to protect her identity, says Maggie’s, the Toronto-based sex workers’ rights organization, even tried to host a panel with local MPs to raise its concerns.
The event was cancelled by Maggie’s due to poor response from politicians.
The laws essentially criminalize “almost every facet of sex work,” says Sandra Ka Hon Chu, director of research and advocacy at the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network.
“They make it incredibly difficult for sex workers to organize, to work in safety, to work together, to work with third parties who could promote their safety, and to even communicate with clients,” Chu says.
Some research shows how Canada’s end-demand model is harmful.
Research presented at the 2018 International AIDS Conference found that going after the men who buy sex does not actually help sex workers. Instead, researchers said it makes it harder for sex workers to negotiate terms of service, including condom use.
“The criminalization of sex work makes the environment of sex workers’ labour criminal by criminalizing relationships with clients and third parties and sex work income and workplaces,” another recent report by Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network found.
“While the PCEPA immunizes some sex workers from criminal prosecution, sex workers continue to experience ongoing human rights abuses perpetuated by both the presence and practice of law enforcement in the course of their work.”
New Zealand decriminalized sex work in 2003, which has lead to improved conditions for sex workers, including safer working environments and better relationships between workers and police, a 2008 study found.
Another 2009 study found New Zealand’s laws also did not lead to an increase in sex workers, as numbers in the industry stayed around the same.
This is not surprising to Mari, who says Canada’s end-demand model ignores the fact there’s always going to be people who purchase sex.
“And that’s why the model is a very bad model to be following; it restricts our movements and our rights.”
Advertising and communicating about sex work is incredibly hard
For sex workers who find clients online, laws around advertising make it very difficult to explicitly outline services. Bill C-36 criminalizes advertising the sale of sexual services, including through print media, on websites or in “locations that offer sexual services for sale,” like strip clubs.
While sex workers are protected from criminal liability for advertising their own sexual services, website administrators can be charged for hosting such ads, which means sites are less likely to host sex workers’ websites. Content in violation of Canada’s laws can be taken down at any time and seized by the authorities.
This results in sex workers having to use more vague and coded terms so their content is not reported.
WATCH BELOW: (November 9, 2017) App could offer some safety to sex trade workers
“Advertising is very important for business and for openly communicating terms of service and determining consent,” says Anne Margaret Deck, vice-chair of the board at Maggie’s.
While prohibitive for all sex workers, those who work on the street may experience even further challenges.
Canada’s laws also make it illegal to communicate “for the purposes of offering or providing sexual services for consideration” near school grounds, playgrounds or daycare centres.
Kerry Porth, a former sex worker and sex work policy consultant at the Vancouver-based Pivot Legal Society, says even though communication laws are directed at clients, they harm sex workers, too.
“Even if you only criminalize one party, that communication becomes criminalized and very difficult,” she says.
What’s more, the fact that a third-party cannot advertise on behalf of a sex worker is also harmful, she says. Porth highlights that some sex workers lack resources or the ability to work independently and prefer to work for an escort agency, for example.
Chu, the lawyer, says that for migrant sex workers, for whom language barriers may be a factor, the laws are especially damaging.
“The most marginalized people who do sex work, they’re probably under the most scrutiny because they don’t have access to some of the things that less marginalized people do,” she says.
Screening clients can be hard
Because it’s illegal to purchase sex, Mari says clients have a lot of fear around divulging their identity.
This makes it difficult for sex workers to screen clients in a comprehensive way, which ultimately jeopardizes their safety.
“If [clients] do not want to divulge their identity, their places of work and their reasons for coming to see us, it creates danger for the worker because you do not have any information about your client,” Mari says.
“In any other workplace or any other business, you have information about your clients.”
Those who work in rural communities may have greater difficulty getting clients to offer their personal information ahead of a meeting, especially in places where sex work is heavily policed.
Porth echoes this and says sex workers who work online — who are generally independent indoor workers — are also concerned they might be communicating with a police officer masked as a client.
WATCH BELOW: Canada’s failure to end violence against women
“There’s been a number of sting operations online and so those concerns are valid,” she says.
Violence and sexual harassment are also a legitimate concern.
According to Statistics Canada, there were 294 homicides of sex workers between 1991 and 2014. A third of those murders were unsolved as of 2016, more than 10 per cent higher than the unsolved rate for murders that do not involve sex workers.
Predators are aware that police are less inclined to investigate the disappearances of sex workers, the Canadian Alliance of Sex Work Law Reform says, and they also know Indigenous and migrant women often fear police detection and apprehension.
“Street-based sex workers or sex workers that don’t have an established business and are working independently might have to compromise their safety in order to simply get business and pay their rent,” Deck says.
“And predatory clients know this; they know what they can get away with.”
Efforts to squash stigma
Outside of legal barriers, the stigma around sex work is one of the biggest issues sex workers face. Industry experts argue the laws paint all sex workers as “victims” that need to be “saved” from sex work.
While there are instances in which women are trafficked into sex work, that is not the reality for many sex workers who simply want to be able to work safely and on their own terms.
Alice says the stigma affects many aspects of her life, including the ability to secure housing and travel. Landlords don’t like renting to sex workers, and health-care providers may pass judgment, too.
Sex workers deserve the right to work in safe conditions just like any other Canadian worker, Deck says.
“Having these laws in the Criminal Code at all just continues to criminalize the industry, push it underground, further isolate sex workers and contribute to stigma.”
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — The Australian government announced on Thursday what it described as world-leading legislation that would institute an age limit of 16 years for children to start using social media, and hold platforms responsible for ensuring compliance.
“Social media is doing harm to our kids and I’m calling time on it,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.
The legislation will be introduced in Parliament during its final two weeks in session this year, which begin on Nov. 18. The age limit would take effect 12 months after the law is passed, Albanese told reporters.
The platforms including X, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook would need to use that year to work out how to exclude Australian children younger than 16.
“I’ve spoken to thousands of parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles. They, like me, are worried sick about the safety of our kids online,” Albanese said.
The proposal comes as governments around the world are wrestling with how to supervise young people’s use of technologies like smartphones and social media.
Social media platforms would be penalized for breaching the age limit, but under-age children and their parents would not.
“The onus will be on social media platforms to demonstrate they are taking reasonable steps to prevent access. The onus won’t be on parents or young people,” Albanese said.
Antigone Davis, head of safety at Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said the company would respect any age limitations the government wants to introduce.
“However, what’s missing is a deeper discussion on how we implement protections, otherwise we risk making ourselves feel better, like we have taken action, but teens and parents will not find themselves in a better place,” Davis said in a statement.
She added that stronger tools in app stores and operating systems for parents to control what apps their children can use would be a “simple and effective solution.”
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday. TikTok declined to comment.
The Digital Industry Group Inc., an advocate for the digital industry in Australia, described the age limit as a “20th Century response to 21st Century challenges.”
“Rather than blocking access through bans, we need to take a balanced approach to create age-appropriate spaces, build digital literacy and protect young people from online harm,” DIGI managing director Sunita Bose said in a statement.
More than 140 Australian and international academics with expertise in fields related to technology and child welfare signed an open letter to Albanese last month opposing a social media age limit as “too blunt an instrument to address risks effectively.”
Jackie Hallan, a director at the youth mental health service ReachOut, opposed the ban. She said 73% of young people across Australia accessing mental health support did so through social media.
“We’re uncomfortable with the ban. We think young people are likely to circumvent a ban and our concern is that it really drives the behavior underground and then if things go wrong, young people are less likely to get support from parents and carers because they’re worried about getting in trouble,” Hallan said.
Child psychologist Philip Tam said a minimum age of 12 or 13 would have been more enforceable.
“My real fear honestly is that the problem of social media will simply be driven underground,” Tam said.
Australian National University lawyer Associate Prof. Faith Gordon feared separating children from there platforms could create pressures within families.
Albanese said there would be exclusions and exemptions in circumstances such as a need to continue access to educational services.
But parental consent would not entitle a child under 16 to access social media.
Earlier this year, the government began a trial of age-restriciton technologies. Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, the online watchdog that will police compliance, will use the results of that trial to provide platforms with guidance on what reasonable steps they can take.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said the year-long lead-in would ensure the age limit could be implemented in a “very practical way.”
“There does need to be enhanced penalties to ensure compliance,” Rowland said.
“Every company that operates in Australia, whether domiciled here or otherwise, is expected and must comply with Australian law or face the consequences,” she added.
The main opposition party has given in-principle support for an age limit at 16.
Opposition lawmaker Paul Fletcher said the platforms already had the technology to enforce such an age ban.
“It’s not really a technical viability question, it’s a question of their readiness to do it and will they incur the cost to do it,” Fletcher told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“The platforms say: ’It’s all too hard, we can’t do it, Australia will become a backwater, it won’t possibly work.’ But if you have well-drafted legislation and you stick to your guns, you can get the outcomes,” Fletcher added.
TOKYO (AP) — A robot that has spent months inside the ruins of a nuclear reactor at the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi plant delivered a tiny sample of melted nuclear fuel on Thursday, in what plant officials said was a step toward beginning the cleanup of hundreds of tons of melted fuel debris.
The sample, the size of a grain of rice, was placed into a secure container, marking the end of the mission, according to Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, which manages the plant. It is being transported to a glove box for size and weight measurements before being sent to outside laboratories for detailed analyses over the coming months.
Plant chief Akira Ono has said it will provide key data to plan a decommissioning strategy, develop necessary technology and robots and learn how the accident had developed.
The first sample alone is not enough and additional small-scale sampling missions will be necessary in order to obtain more data, TEPCO spokesperson Kenichi Takahara told reporters Thursday. “It may take time, but we will steadily tackle decommissioning,” Takahara said.
Despite multiple probes in the years since the 2011 disaster that wrecked the. plant and forced thousands of nearby residents to leave their homes, much about the site’s highly radioactive interior remains a mystery.
The sample, the first to be retrieved from inside a reactor, was significantly less radioactive than expected. Officials had been concerned that it might be too radioactive to be safely tested even with heavy protective gear, and set an upper limit for removal out of the reactor. The sample came in well under the limit.
That’s led some to question whether the robot extracted the nuclear fuel it was looking for from an area in which previous probes have detected much higher levels of radioactive contamination, but TEPCO officials insist they believe the sample is melted fuel.
The extendable robot, nicknamed Telesco, first began its mission August with a plan for a two-week round trip, after previous missions had been delayed since 2021. But progress was suspended twice due to mishaps — the first involving an assembly error that took nearly three weeks to fix, and the second a camera failure.
On Oct. 30, it clipped a sample weighting less than 3 grams (.01 ounces) from the surface of a mound of melted fuel debris sitting on the bottom of the primary containment vessel of the Unit 2 reactor, TEPCO said.
On Thursday, the gravel, whose radioactivity earlier this week recorded far below the upper limit set for its environmental and health safety, was placed into a safe container for removal out of the compartment.
The sample return marks the first time the melted fuel is retrieved out of the containment vessel.
Fukushima Daiichi lost its key cooling systems during a 2011 earthquake and tsunami, causing meltdowns in its three reactors. An estimated 880 tons of fatally radioactive melted fuel remains in them.
The government and TEPCO have set a 30-to-40-year target to finish the cleanup by 2051, which experts say is overly optimistic and should be updated. Some say it would take for a century or longer.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said there have been some delays but “there will be no impact on the entire decommissioning process.”
No specific plans for the full removal of the fuel debris or its final disposal have been decided.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — DeMar DeRozan scored 27 points in a record-setting performance and the Sacramento Kings beat the Toronto Raptors 122-107 on Wednesday night.
Domantas Sabonis added 17 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds for his third triple-double of the season for Sacramento. He shot 6 for 6 from the field and 5 for 5 at the free-throw line.
Keegan Murray chipped in with 22 points and 12 rebounds, and De’Aaron Fox scored 21.
The 35-year-old DeRozan has scored at least 20 points in each of his first eight games with the Kings, breaking a franchise mark established by Chris Webber when he reached 20 in his first seven games with Sacramento in 1999.
DeRozan spent the past three seasons with the Chicago Bulls. The six-time All-Star also has played for Toronto and San Antonio during his 16-year NBA career.
RJ Barrett had 23 points to lead the Raptors. Davion Mitchell scored 20 in his first game in Sacramento since being traded to Toronto last summer.
Takeaways
Raptors: Toronto led for most of the first three quarters before wilting in the fourth. The Raptors were outscored 33-14 in the final period.
Kings: Fox played strong defense but struggled again shooting from the floor as he is dealing with a finger injury. Fox went 5 for 17 and just 2 of 8 on 3-pointers. He is 5 for 25 from beyond the arc in his last three games.
Key moment
The Kings trailed 95-89 early in the fourth before going on a 9-0 run that gave them the lead for good. DeRozan started the spurt with a jumper, and Malik Monk scored the final seven points.
Key stat
Sabonis had the eighth game in the NBA since at least 1982-83 with a triple-double while missing no shots from the field or foul line. The previous player to do it was Josh Giddey for Oklahoma City against Portland on Jan. 11.
Up next
Raptors: At the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday night, the third stop on a five-game trip.
