The woman at the center of the case said she spent a night with a customer in January 2022. Then she realized she wasn’t going to get paid when the PIN for the bank card he’d given her to withdraw money didn’t work.
“It’s very humiliating not to get paid after providing so much to someone. And it’s also disappointing that we don’t have more protection,” said Brogan, who CBC News is identifying only by her first name for security reasons, including that she is a survivor of human trafficking.
While not being paid for services was something she had experienced in the past, Brogan said she saw this incident as an opportunity to fight for sex work to be treated like other forms of employment.
“I’m very passionate about the rights of sex workers as they are,” he said.
“And when something happened to myself, without being paid, I saw an opportunity to do something about it, to show other people that they can also have rights as sex workers.”
“Sex workers need financial stability”
In Canada, sex workers are allowed to sell their services, but the Protecting Communities and Exploited Persons Act, passed in 2014, criminalizes aspects of that work – advertising sex services or soliciting services in a public place , are also offences. as a service market.
That prevents sex workers from being able to easily contract for their services because you can’t enter into a contract that requires one party to do something illegal, said Jessica Rose, staff attorney for the Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia representing Brogan.
“Sex workers need financial stability just like any other worker in Canada, and without being able to easily contract for their services, they are at a real disadvantage when it comes to getting paid the money their clients owe them,” Rose said. . .
Rose said the stated intent of sex work laws is to protect sex workers from harm, and that could create a legal avenue to enforce contracts between sex workers and clients.
“Where it’s in the best interest of the sex worker to be paid for her work, we could argue that this kind of illegal contract is still something that should be enforced, and that’s what we’re going to disagree with.”
The claim has yet to be tested in court. A pretrial date for the case is July 13 via video conference in Halifax. Multiple attempts to contact the defendant were unsuccessful.
The issues go beyond contracts
Legislation dealing with sex work doesn’t just raise contract concerns, Brogan said. The fact that the purchase of sex services is illegal makes it difficult to verify clients’ identities or implement other safeguards, he said. “You have absolutely no idea who’s walking through your door or whose door you’re walking through, and chances are you won’t know unless it happens,” Brogan said. Meanwhile, prevailing attitudes—including by law enforcement—that nonpayment or other forms of harm are inherent risks with sex work that make it harder to seek help when problems arise. “It’s seen more as, ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have signed up for this or something.’ It’s never been considered a workplace…I’ve never had anyone, other than a reasonable client, treat me like I’m doing a normal job.”
Sex work vs. exploitation
For Brogan, the distinction between sex work and sexual exploitation is clear. “The difference is huge,” Brogan said. Brogan was trafficked when she was younger. “You basically have no control over what you see, what you do, how much money you make,” he said, adding that he’s more comfortable with what he’s doing now. “None of my money goes to anyone else but me. And that’s the main thing for me, is that no one else is benefiting from what I’m doing,” Brogan said. Emma Halpern, executive director of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia, said it’s important for Canadians to recognize the difference. “There are some very, very problematic ways that sex is bought in this country,” Halpern said. “And certainly Brogan herself has experienced it and knows that’s not okay. “But you can recognize that and stand up to that and also say that there are also spaces where a woman has the autonomy to choose to sell sex and she should be given the safety and the protection and the support to do so as an employment opportunity like anything else.”
The sex work debate continues
Halpern said that as far as the Elizabeth Fry Society can tell from its own research, this civil action is the first of its kind in Canada — but non-payment is not uncommon in sex work. “I have heard many stories of women who are trying to make a safe, affordable living through sex work and have found it very difficult for many of the reasons Brogan raised. I think there is still a long way to go from our government’s perspective in terms of making sex work a safe place for women’. Emma Halpern is the executive director of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia. (Steve Lawrence/CBC) In 2021, a coalition of 25 organizations pushing for sex work law reform launched a constitutional challenge to the current law. The federal government has taken up the challenge, and the initial date for that trial is set for late 2022. If successful, that challenge could overturn the law. “And then, in that context, we’d like to see sex work regulated the way other work is regulated, and sex workers being able to form unions and have environments of access to workers’ rights and labor rights more generally,” said Jenn Clamen, national coordinator of the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform. As for Brogan, she said her experience is an example of why the legal status around sex work needs to change — and why her rights as a citizen and tax-paying worker need to be better protected. “I think the rights of a sex worker should be taken much more seriously,” she said. “I think it should be legalized to be safe.”
