Anti-Prostitution Laws Struck Down By Supreme Court

[Olowkow]

...of Canada, that is.

I was completely surprised by this news. Somehow I missed any brewing controversy in Canadian current affairs.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/20/canada-anti-prostitution-law_n_4480105.html

Canada's highest court has struck down the country's prostitution laws in their entirety in a unanimous 9-0 ruling. The high court on Friday struck down all three prostitution-related laws: against keeping a brothel, living on the avails of prostitution, and street soliciting.
The ruling is a victory for sex workers seeking safer working conditions because it found that the laws violated the charter guarantee to life, liberty and security of the person.

ETA: Better link from BBC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25468587

 

[Polaris]

...of Canada, that is.

I was completely surprised by this news. Somehow I missed any brewing controversy in Canadian current affairs.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/20/canada-anti-prostitution-law_n_4480105.html

Huh. Well...good. What's the Canadian version of OSHA and how are they going to monitor the safety of the workers on the job?

 

[Olowkow]

Huh. Well...good. What's the Canadian version of OSHA and how are they going to monitor the safety of the workers on the job?

I guess it's the CCOHS. Prophylactic goggles and hard hats?

 

[Dessi]

Harm reduction > prohibition.

Good for Canada. Sex workers can depend on regulation and law to make their industry safer, can move money out of the hands of pimps and into their local community in the form of taxes.

One weird area, however, is whether this ruling effects unemployment law. Suppose someone claims unemployment, but refuses to take a temp job working in a brothel? Would that person lose their unemployment eligibility for turning down a job?

 

[BenBurch]

Harm reduction > prohibition.

Good for Canada. Sex workers can depend on regulation and law to make their industry safer, can move money out of the hands of pimps and into their local community in the form of taxes.

One weird area, however, is whether this ruling effects unemployment law. Suppose someone claims unemployment, but refuses to take a temp job working in a brothel? Would that person lose their unemployment eligibility for turning down a job?

You don't generally have to take a job not in your field, or in any hazardous occupation. So I imagine no problem. It's not like a well-run brothel has any death of job applicants after all.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

Harm reduction > prohibition.

Good for Canada. Sex workers can depend on regulation and law to make their industry safer, can move money out of the hands of pimps and into their local community in the form of taxes.

One weird area, however, is whether this ruling effects unemployment law. Suppose someone claims unemployment, but refuses to take a temp job working in a brothel? Would that person lose their unemployment eligibility for turning down a job?

Unlikely. In Germany, where a scare story about this had been circulating:

A spokesman for the Federal Labour Office said that if job seekers said they were prepared to work as, for example, dancers in strip bars, advisers could put them in touch with any suitable employers, but vacancies would not be displayed in job centres.

He also stressed job centres would not look for prostitutes on behalf of brothels, nor offer sex industry jobs to people who hadn’t specifically mentioned it as an area of interest.

http://amptoons.com/blog/2005/02/01...ng-forced-into-prostitution-by-welfare-state/


I presume similar rules would be followed in other countries.

 

[FenerFan]

Here in Istanbul there are several state approved brothels. The women are all liscenced and get periodic health checks. Security is provided by the police and the prices are fixed. However, the number of new liscences issued has gone down greatly in the last several years due to the religiously conservative government.
There are a large number of unliscenced prostitutes working here as well, of course. Many of them tend to be Eastern European and are controlled by local organized crime.

 

[Polaris]

Here in Istanbul there are several state approved brothels. The women are all liscenced and get periodic health checks. Security is provided by the police and the prices are fixed. However, the number of new liscences issued has gone down greatly in the last several years due to the religiously conservative government.
There are a large number of unliscenced prostitutes working here as well, of course. Many of them tend to be Eastern European and are controlled by local organized crime.

Yet more reasons to keep religion far, far away from government.

 

[Corsair 115]

Here's the CBC News article on the story: Supreme Court strikes down Canada's prostitution laws. There are several links embedded in the story where you can get more background information, including one to a PDF file of the Court decision itself (for any lawyers out there).

Interesting point: prostitution itself has not been illegal in Canada for quite some time. What has been illegal is communication for the purposes of prostitution. A weird quirk of the law, but that's how things evolved over the years.

 

[LashL]

I'm not surprised by the decision, really. It's been brewing for quite some time. The declaration of invalidity has been suspended for a year to give Parliament an opportunity (if it wishes, and it will) to rewrite its prostitution-related laws in a manner that will pass constitutional muster.

Direct link to the SCC decision here.

 

[LashL]

Interesting point: prostitution itself has not been illegal in Canada for quite some time. What has been illegal is communication for the purposes of prostitution.

Also, living off the avails and keeping a common bawdy house (which are the other two that have just been declared unconstitutional by the SCC).

 

[marplots]

There's something not right about combining the words 'work' and 'sex'.

 

[blutoski]

Also, living off the avails and keeping a common bawdy house (which are the other two that have just been declared unconstitutional by the SCC).

Yep. Prostitution per se has been legal in Canada for years, but not considered 'a business' so restricted from advertising, and pimping was illegal. Although, I have never heard of anybody being prosecuted for advertising in magazines or newspapers my lifetime (the Georgia Straight and XtraWest and the WestEnder classifieds are a bottomless well of entertainment). This might expand it to TV, billboards, who knows.

This is making all that legal. Legalizing advertising will absolutely stimulate demand and capture/preserve market share. Regarding 'living off the avails'- this means a business arrangement where sex workers can have an agent who takes a percentage of their rate is now legal.

A previous post suggested that this ruling would reduce pimping, but this is fully legalizing pimping as a legitemate business arrangement, just like any other piecework job with an agency. I do see an upside: I think legalization will mean that sex workers can seek justice through the system if there has been a violation of contract. But so can pimps, of course. And a lot of the supporters point out that not all pimps are evil - this also legalizes the romantic role of a benevolent madam or 3rd party matchup agency (Dial-A-Companion)

 

[Olowkow]

Yep. Prostitution per se has been legal in Canada for years, but not considered 'a business' so restricted from advertising, and pimping was illegal. Although, I have never heard of anybody being prosecuted for advertising in magazines or newspapers my lifetime (the Georgia Straight and XtraWest and the WestEnder classifieds are a bottomless well of entertainment). This might expand it to TV, billboards, who knows.

This is making all that legal. Legalizing advertising will absolutely stimulate demand and capture/preserve market share. Regarding 'living off the avails'- this means a business arrangement where sex workers can have an agent who takes a percentage of their rate is now legal.

A previous post suggested that this ruling would reduce pimping, but this is fully legalizing pimping as a legitemate business arrangement, just like any other piecework job with an agency. I do see an upside: I think legalization will mean that sex workers can seek justice through the system if there has been a violation of contract. But so can pimps, of course. And a lot of the supporters point out that not all pimps are evil - this also legalizes the romantic role of a benevolent madam.

Thanks. This is all very enlightening to me, since I knew next to nothing about Canadian law. I seem to recall something about confiscating cars and property of prostitutes who were soliciting, or was it the Johns who were caught.
I've been scrambling to learn more and found some good comments on Reddit.

This pretty much echoes what you have posted.
http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1tbt0t/the_supreme_court_of_canada_has_struck_down_the/

Actually, the act of exchanging sex for money was not illegal in Canada to begin with. Solicitation, however, was illegal.
You were allowed to make money from sex, but you could not advertise that yourself as such. Prostitutes were not allowed to walk the streets and offer their services. You could, however, hire an escort and make a private agreement for sex.

 

[blutoski]

Thanks. This is all very enlightening to me, since I knew next to nothing about Canadian law. I seem to recall something about confiscating cars and property of prostitutes who were soliciting, or was it the Johns who were caught.

Possibly both. I can only speak for Vancouver, but it's probably the same in other major cities. They seem to run afoul of ordinary municipal bylaws about soliciting and conducting business in public.

It's one of those somewhat discretionary laws in that the police accept that there will be streetwalkers, but want to contain them in specific neighbourhoods. Usually industrial districts many blocks away from parks, playgrounds, schools, homes. So they selectively prosecute when prostitutes solicit in undesireable locations. This legalization at the federal level may precipitate a formalization of the limits of what exactly constitutes legal soliciting, when and where.

I don't remember anything about confiscating cars, but there was a period where locals published photos of cars showing their license plates as a "shame the johns" project.

They will also prosecute if the 'transaction' is taking place in a car in a way that can be seen, since that's considered sex in public, and I expect those cars get towed.

 

[kerikiwi]

It's not like a well-run brothel has any death of job applicants after all.

I would hope not!

 

[Beerina]

Harm reduction > prohibition.

Good for Canada. Sex workers can depend on regulation and law to make their industry safer, can move money out of the hands of pimps and into their local community in the form of taxes.

One weird area, however, is whether this ruling effects unemployment law. Suppose someone claims unemployment, but refuses to take a temp job working in a brothel? Would that person lose their unemployment eligibility for turning down a job?

Sorry, my sarcasm organ is itching -- as usual with government, it jumps from making people criminals to making them tax-generating workhorses whose activities the government instantly knows how to regulate in detail, skipping the just let people be freaking free moment.

 

[Belz...]

There's something not right about combining the words 'work' and 'sex'.

Why ?

 

[BenBurch]

There's something not right about combining the words 'work' and 'sex'.

My dear friend Priscilla Alexander edited a book a while ago called "Sex Work" - perhaps you could read it? I think your eyes would be opened.

 

[Brian-M]

It sounds like they've gone even further on this matter than we have. Over here brothels are legal (if they're registered and comply with zoning laws), but public solicitation isn't.

Here in Istanbul there are several state approved brothels. The women are all liscenced and get periodic health checks. Security is provided by the police and the prices are fixed. However, the number of new liscences issued has gone down greatly in the last several years due to the religiously conservative government.
There are a large number of unliscenced prostitutes working here as well, of course. Many of them tend to be Eastern European and are controlled by local organized crime.

Sorry, but I just have to correct your spelling here. It's spelled license or licence, depending on what you're using the word to mean (unless you're using US English, in which case it's spelled license regardless of which definition applies).

But in UK English, a licence is an item (such as a card, certificate, or document) used to signify that you have license to take certain actions. For example, my driver's licence is proof that I have license to drive. If my license were suspended, I'd still have a driver's licence but wouldn't have license to drive.

So if those prostitutes are given a physical license, they have both license and a licence to sell sexual services. If they only have to register, they'll be licensed but not licenced.