McBride Bronwyn, Shannon Kate, Bingham Brittany, Braschel Melissa, Strathdee Steffanie, Goldenberg Shira M
Postdoctoral Fellow at Simon Fraser University and at the Centre for Gender and Sexual Health Equity, Vancouver, Canada.
Professor at the University of British Columbia and Executive Director at the Centre for Gender and Sexual Health Equity, Vancouver, Canada.
Health Hum Rights. 2020 Dec;22(2):257-270.
Sex workers globally face high levels of violence. In Canada, im/migrant sex workers who work in indoor venues may be uniquely targeted by police due to immigration policies, racialized policing, and the conflation of trafficking and sex work. In 2014, Canada passed end-demand legislation that purportedly encourages sex workers to report violence to police; however, little research has evaluated its impact. Using interrupted time series and multivariable logistic regression, we examined proportions of reporting violent incidents to police among sex workers who had experienced workplace violence (2010-2017), including potential changes prior to and following end-demand legislation. We then modeled the independent effects of im/migrant status and place of work on reporting violence. Among sex workers who experienced recent violence during the 7.5-year study (n=367), 38.2% of all participants and 12.7% of im/migrants reported violence to police, and there was no significant change in violence reporting after end-demand legislation. Our results suggest that end-demand laws do not remove barriers to justice faced by sex workers and instead actually perpetuate harms, particularly for racialized im/migrant and indoor workers. Policy reforms to decriminalize sex work, address discriminatory policing, and promote access to safety and justice are urgently needed.
全球范围内的性工作者面临着高度的暴力侵害。在加拿大，在室内场所工作的移民性工作者可能会因移民政策、种族化治安管理以及人口贩卖与性工作的混淆而成为警方的独特目标。2014年，加拿大通过了旨在鼓励性工作者向警方报告暴力行为的终结需求立法；然而，很少有研究评估其影响。我们使用中断时间序列和多变量逻辑回归分析，研究了在工作场所遭受暴力的性工作者（2010 - 2017年）向警方报告暴力事件的比例，包括终结需求立法前后的潜在变化。然后，我们模拟了移民身份和工作地点对报告暴力行为的独立影响。在为期7.5年的研究中经历过近期暴力的性工作者中（n = 367），所有参与者中有38.2%以及移民中有12.7%向警方报告了暴力行为，终结需求立法后暴力报告情况没有显著变化。我们的研究结果表明，终结需求法律并未消除性工作者面临的司法障碍，反而实际上使伤害持续存在，尤其是对种族化的移民和室内工作者而言。迫切需要进行政策改革，将性工作合法化，解决歧视性治安管理问题，并促进获得安全和司法救助的机会。
