scholarly journals Mis/representation & Silence: Gendered Sex Work Discourse in the London Free Press

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-82
Author(s):  
Nathan Dawthorne
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Free Press ◽  
Public Discussion ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Canadian City ◽  
Gendered Stereotypes

In December 2014, despite the Supreme Court of Canada finding Canada's prostitution laws unconstitutional, the Conservative government passed a bill criminalizing the buying of sex and the advertisement of sex for sale. Sex work has a long history as a hot-button topic, and it continues to remain newsworthy throughout the country. This public discussion in some contexts has privileged certain lobbyists and so-called advocates, disregarding or distorting the voices of sex workers themselves. This territory is starkly heteronormative, reinforcing gendered stereotypes and naturalizing certain types of heterosexual behaviour while ignoring a spectrum of other realities. By analysizing depictions of sex work published for 2013 in the London Free Press, a politically centre-right newspaper printed in a midsized Canadian city, this paper provides analysis of articles about sex work in the local-regional context of London, Ontario (Canada). Exposing a Foucauldian rarefaction of discourse, the analysis works to unveil ideological underpinnings, fleshing out a distorted gendered discourse. 

scholarly journals The Constitutionality of the New Sex Work Law

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamish Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Advocacy Groups ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Policy Objectives

In this article, the author considers the constitutionality of Canada’s new law on prostitution: Bill C-36. When the new sex work law was first introduced into Parliament, a number of advocacy groups and commentators argued that it was unconstitutional because of its failure to respond to the concerns raised in Bedford v. Canada, a case where the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the old sex work law on the ground that its negative impact on sex workers’ security of the person outweighed its nuisance abatement objective. This author agrees that Bill C-36 may be unconstitutional, but for a different reason. The new sex work law adheres to the constitutional norms invoked in Bedford by making use of two novel policy objectives: discouraging sex work and reducing the danger of sex work to sex workers. In practice, however, these objectives are likely to conflict with one another. As a result, Bill C-36 is an incoherent piece of legislation that may be unconstitutional for creating arbitrary and grossly disproportionate effects on the security of the person of sex workers.

Public Interest Standing, Access to Justice, and Democracy under the Charter: Canada (AG) v Downtown Eastside Sex Workers United Against Violence

2013 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Dana Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Downtown Eastside ◽  
The Supreme Court

In 2012 the Supreme Court of Canada issued itsdecision in Canada (AG) v Downtown EastsideSex Workers United Against Violence (SWUAV).1Th e case centered on whether or not thoseinvolved in protecting vulnerable sex workershave standing to challenge the criminalizationof prostitution-related activities on their behalf.SWUAV represents a signifi cant break with previousjurisprudence on standing: it saw the Courttransform its vision of public interest standing,viewing it for the fi rst time as an access to justiceissue.

scholarly journals “Sexualized Online Bullying” Through an Equality Lens: Missed Opportunity in AB v. Bragg?

2014 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 709-737 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Central Issue ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Free Press ◽  
Online Bullying ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Interim Measure ◽  
Missed Opportunity ◽  
Structural Inequalities

In AB v. Bragg, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that fifteen-year-old AB should be allowed to use a pseudonym in seeking an order to disclose the identity of her online attacker. By framing the case as one pitting the privacy interests of a youthful victim of sexualized online bullying against principles protecting the free press and open courts, the SCC approached but ultimately skirted the central issue of equality. Without undermining the important precedent that AB achieved for youthful targets of online sexualized bullying, the author explores the case as a missed opportunity to examine the discriminatory tropes and structural inequalities that undergird the power of this kind of bullying. Viewed through an equality lens, enhanced access to pseudonymity for targets is not necessarily about privacy per se, but rather an interim measure to respond to the equality-undermining effects of sexualized online bullying—a privacy mechanism in service of equality.

scholarly journals A Critical Analysis of Canada's Sex Work Legislation

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-36
Author(s):  
Erica Mika Kunimoto
Keyword(s):  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Vulnerable Populations ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
Gender Violence ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
The Supreme Court

In 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that three sections of the Criminal Code of Canada pertaining to sex work were unconstitutional. In response to this ruling—otherwise known as the Bedford Decision—the Conservative government introduced the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA) in 2014. In this paper, I ask: to what extent does the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act meet its stated goal of addressing the health and safety of those who “engage in prostitution”? In exploring this question, I first trace the legal terrain leading to the PCEPA’s conception. Following this, I show that the PCEPA has failed to address its stated goals in two central ways. First, by co-opting the progressive framing of the Bedford Decision in a way that obscures the situations of violence it seeks to address, and second, by making the most precarious category of sex work even more dangerous through its implementation. In order to render the actual foundations of the PCEPA visible, I draw upon critical race and feminist theory. Through this analysis, I show how gendered and racialized hierarchies regulate violence along and within the sex work spectrum. Overall, this paper argues that the PCEPA has failed to address the health and safety of “those engaged in prostitution,” and instead, has facilitated racialized patterns of gender violence against vulnerable populations.

scholarly journals Decriminalizing Domestic Violence and Fighting Prostitution Abolition: Lessons Learned From Canada’s Anti-Carceral Feminist Struggles

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian Balfour
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Indigenous Women ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Liminal Space ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Potential Risks ◽  
Carceral Feminism

This article offers a cautionary tale for efforts to decriminalize domestic violence through a retrospective analysis of Canadian feminist legal activism to decriminalize sex work. Both domestic violence and sex work are contested terrains of activism, litigation, and scholarship and have come up against the disparate views of criminalization as necessary to protect women from violence, versus criminalization as compounding women’s potential risks for violence. Through the example of Canadian feminist jurisprudence in R v Bedford, wherein the Supreme Court of Canada recognized the endangerment of women as resulting from the criminalization of sex work, I explore the liminal space following this decision, and how regressive legislation was introduced to re-entrench carceralism in the breach of a seeming feminist victory. My focus is on how carceral feminism continues to occupy the liminal space as a force of colonial violence, further endangering Indigenous women. I draw linkages between several violent murders of street-involved Indigenous women and the severing of allyship among feminists, sex workers, and Indigenous women over the potential decriminalization of sex work. Finally, I suggest that opposition to the decriminalization of sex work is successfully argued by an emerging force of carceral feminism: neo-abolitionist feminists who have appropriated a politics of abolition and, yet, may have deepened carceralism in the lives of Indigenous women.

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