March 2007 Prostitution Law Challenged
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Wednesday March 21, 2007 8.45 am PST
For Immediate Release
At this moment in Toronto Ontario a group of sex workers and their legal team are announcing the first major court challenge to the laws prohibiting most forms of sex work in Canada.
The Sex Party supports this courageous litigation.
Terri Jean Bedford (former Bondage Bungalow dominatrix), Valerie Scott (former sex worker and current Executive Director of Sex Professionals of Canada - SPOC) and Amy Lebovitch (current sex worker) will be initiating an application in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice seeking the constitutional invalidation of s.210 (bawdy house), s.212(1)(j) (living on the avails) and s.213(1)(c) communicating for the purpose of prostitution) of the Criminal Code.
The act of prostitution itself is legal in Canada yet the provisions challenged in this application operate to deny sex workers safe legal options for the conducting of legal business. The applicants will argue in court that the combined effect of these three provisions violates s.7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by depriving sex workers of their right to liberty and security in a manner that is not in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.
Though the on-going trial in Vancouver of Robert Pickton has brought worldwide attention to the dangers sex trade workers are exposed to on the streets, the trial will not in any way address the larger legal and political issue of how to prevent the continuing disappearance and murder of sex trade workers. As the Pickton trial unfolds, it must be remembered that this horrific story is not an isolated phenomena. Project Kare in Edmonton is currently trying to solve the disappearances of over 80 women in “high-risk professions”, and every government report written on the sex trade in the past 20 years has acknowledged that street prostitution is a dangerous business. Yet even as the body count continues to rise, nothing is done.
The applicants are represented on a pro bono basis by Professor Alan Young of Osgoode Hall Law School, Stacey Nichols of Neuberger Rose LLP, Ron Marzel, Matthew Wilton and Paul Burstein, but the majority of the legal work in preparing this application has been done by volunteer law students. We invite you to attend the press conference to hear from the applicants, members of the volunteer law student team (Ehsan Ghebrai and Katherine Rhodes), a representative of Maggie’s Toronto Prostitutes’ Community Service Project, and Professor Young in order to receive more details of the upcoming challenge. News coverage of the Pickton trial has graphically exposed the issue and we hope you can attend to now report that something is finally being done about the problem.
For further information, contact: Amit Thakore, Safe Haven Legal Team, 647.298.8225 or amit.thakore@gmail.com
For Sex Party interviews, contact: John Ince, 604.688.4810 or info@thesexparty.ca