McBride Bronwyn, Goldenberg Shira M, Murphy Alka, Wu Sherry, Mo Minshu, Shannon Kate, Krusi Andrea
Centre for Gender & Sexual Health Equity, c/o St Paul's Hospital, 1081 Burrard St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V6Z 1Y6.
Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive Burnaby, BC, Canada V5A 1S6.
SSM Qual Res Health. 2022 Dec;2. doi: 10.1016/j.ssmqr.2022.100048. Epub 2022 Jan 28.
In 2014, Canada implemented end-demand sex work legislation which leaves the sale of sex under some circumstances legal. However, immigration policies based on discourses positioning sex work as exploitation and migration as trafficking continue to criminalize many im/migrant sex workers. Despite community reports of punitive policing, limited research has explored how police interactions with im/migrant sex workers have impacted labour conditions since this legislative shift. As part of a longstanding community-based Vancouver study, we drew on the conceptual framework of slow violence to analyze 20 in-depth interviews with sex workers born outside Canada. Despite rhetoric positioning im/migrant sex workers as victims deserving protection, participants described experiences of punitive, racialized, and stigmatizing police treatment. Fear of being 'outed' as a sex worker and living with precarious immigration status undermined participants' ability to seek police protections; yet when they did seek assistance after experiencing violence/theft, police were unsupportive or discriminatory. Our findings suggest that policies depicting im/migrant sex workers as victims act not to protect them, but to justify targeted repressive, racist policing that severely undermines women's occupational safety. Our results illustrate the harms of policies conflating sex work with trafficking; demonstrate the inherent opposition between legislative aims to protect those who sell sexual services and to abolish the sex industry; and interrogate who the state affirms as a deserving victim. The full decriminalization of sex work, removal of prohibitions on sex work among im/migrants, and community-led alternatives to the criminal justice system are urgently needed to uphold im/migrant sex workers' labour rights.
2014年，加拿大实施了终结性交易需求的立法，在某些情况下使性交易合法化。然而，基于将性工作定位为剥削以及将移民定位为人口贩运的话语而制定的移民政策，继续将许多移民性工作者定罪。尽管社区报告了惩罚性的治安措施，但自这一立法转变以来，仅有有限的研究探讨了警方与移民性工作者的互动如何影响劳动条件。作为温哥华一项长期社区研究的一部分，我们借鉴了“慢性暴力”的概念框架，对20名在加拿大境外出生的性工作者进行了深度访谈。尽管有言论将移民性工作者定位为值得保护的受害者，但参与者描述了他们遭受惩罚性、种族化和污名化警方对待的经历。担心被“曝光”为性工作者以及处于不稳定的移民身份，削弱了参与者寻求警方保护的能力；然而，当他们在遭受暴力/盗窃后寻求帮助时，警方却不提供支持或存在歧视。我们的研究结果表明，将移民性工作者描绘为受害者的政策并非是为了保护他们，而是为有针对性的镇压性、种族主义治安措施提供正当理由，这严重损害了女性的职业安全。我们的研究结果说明了将性工作与人口贩运混为一谈的政策的危害；展示了旨在保护性服务提供者和废除性产业的立法目标之间的内在矛盾；并质疑国家认定谁才是应得保护的受害者。迫切需要将性工作完全合法化，取消对移民性工作的禁令，并由社区主导替代刑事司法系统的方案，以维护移民性工作者的劳动权利。
