Protection for Whom and from What? Canadian Sex Work Legislation and Competing Narratives of Structure and Agency
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Protection for whom and from what? Canadian sex work legislation and competing narratives of structure and agency by Ashley Wilson A Thesis presented to The University of Guelph In partial fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Public Issues Anthropology Guelph, Ontario, Canada © Ashley Wilson, August, 2017 ABSTRACT PROTECTION FOR WHOM AND FROM WHAT? CANADIAN SEX WORK LEGISLATION AND COMPETING NARRATIVES OF STRUCTURE AND AGENCY Ashley Wilson Advisor: University of Guelph, 2017 Dr. Satsuki Kawano This thesis investigates the relationship between agency and social structures based on narratives on sex work provided during a series of meetings where the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (Bill C-36) was being reviewed in 2014. The meeting participants were Department of Justice representatives; Members of Parliament, and; expert witnesses. Bill C-36 is intended to protect of sex workers, but this thesis reveals that the provision of protection is reliant on their commitment to exiting sex work. The dominant discourse employed during the meetings established sex workers as invariably exploited by individuals who purchase sexual services and underestimated the impact of structural and systemic violence that makes sex work a viable work option. In sum, the discourses of sex work that emerged reproduced perceptions of sex workers as victims rather than workers with diverse class and gender identities who have varying degrees of control over their career choices. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I could not have completed this project without the knowledge and support of Dr. Satsuki Kawano, my advisor. Dr. Kawano was patient and encouraging despite my desire to pursue other ambitions while completing this project and pushed me through periods of uncertainty and slow productivity. Thank you, Dr. Kawano, for your faith in me and in this project. I owe tremendous gratitude to my committee member Dr. Belinda Leach for her thorough and thoughtful feedback. Thank you to Dr. Mavis Morton, my examiner, for her time and input and to Dr. Jeji Varghese for chairing my committee. Thank you to Shelagh Daly for helping me through the administrative and emotional hurdles of the program. Finally, thank you to everyone who sat across from me and my computer working on their own projects and pushing me to keep working on mine. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................... 8 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 8 Sex Work ........................................................................................................................................ 8 Sex Work and Power .................................................................................................................... 11 Sex Work, Victimization, and Choice .......................................................................................... 15 Sex Work, Space, and Identity ..................................................................................................... 22 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 25 CHAPTER 3: METHODS ..................................................................................................... 27 The Birth of Bill C-36, the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act ................. 28 Participants .................................................................................................................................. 30 Representatives of the Department of Justice ............................................................................. 30 Committee Members .................................................................................................................... 31 Witnesses ...................................................................................................................................... 32 Critical Discourse Analysis .......................................................................................................... 33 Coding .......................................................................................................................................... 38 CHAPTER 4: DATA AND ANALYSIS ............................................................................... 42 The Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act: The Importance of the Title ...... 42 Constructing Exploited Persons .................................................................................................. 44 Who is to Blame? The Social Context and the “Perpetrators” .................................................. 49 Protection ..................................................................................................................................... 54 Protecting children ....................................................................................................................... 58 Protecting Sex Workers ............................................................................................................... 61 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION .............................................................................................. 67 WORKS CITED ......................................................................................................................... 78 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION By using theoretical concepts of agency and structure, this thesis investigates the complex and variable constructs of sex workers’ exploitation and protection based on the narratives provided during a series of meetings where the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (Bill C-36) was being reviewed in 2014. The participants of the meetings were: representatives from the Department of Justice who presented the Bill and the context within which it had been drafted; Members of Parliament who formed the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights and were tasked with reviewing the Bill prior to making a recommendation to the House of Commons to adopt or reject the Bill, and; a group of 74 expert witnesses who appeared to provide testimonies to help the Committee make an informed decision. While the title of Bill C-36 identifies the protection of sex workers as one of the intentions, this thesis reveals that the provision of protection is reliant on their commitment to exiting sex work, rather than reducing risks of violence toward those who continue their work. The dominant discourse employed during the Committee meetings established sex workers as invariably exploited by individuals who purchase sexual services and underestimated the impact of structural and systemic violence that makes sex work the most viable work option for those who lack social and cultural capital. This research demonstrates that the protection of “exploited persons” is secondary to the protection of communities in the Bill, as it proposed to criminalize sex workers when they work in locations where children may be present and to criminalize the advertisement of sexual services. While some participants stressed that the new legislation is likely to increase the risks of violence for sex workers by driving them underground, their concern was ignored by those who argued that abolishing sex work was the only valid means of protection. In sum, the discourses of sex work that emerged during the discussion of the new 2 legislation reproduced the dominant perceptions of sex work as a threat to social order and the views of sex workers as victims rather than workers with diverse class and gender identities who have varying degrees of control over their career choices. By using Sherry Ortner’s concept of agency (2001), this study concludes that doing sex work can be an exercise in agency that is often performed within the limitations of oppressive structures, and that structural inequalities that severely limit the availability of viable work options need to be dismantled prior to eliminating sex work. In 2013, through a constitutional challenge called R. v. Bedford, initiated by three current and former sex workers, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down three sections of the Criminal Code of Canada that were ruled to be a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms insofar as they infringed on the rights of security of the person (3 SCR 1101). At the time of the decision in R. v. Bedford, the government of Canada was given until December 2014 to implement new laws related to prostitution before the sections of the Criminal Code that were deemed unconstitutional would be repealed. As such, Bill C-36, the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, was proposed and then voted into law on October 6, 2014. In this thesis, I will be examining a series of meetings of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights (the Committee) that took place from July 7 to July 15, 2014 where witnesses made presentations on the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act to show their support or opposition to the Bill, or portions of the Bill. Law is typically understood to be created and enforced to ensure order and uphold rights, but a close examination of the Committee meetings illustrates that what constitutes order and whose