Fact Sheet

Sex work and the law

• Sex work has never been illegal in Canada. However, it is illegal to communicate for the purposes of prostitution in a public place, to own or operate a bawdy house, to live off the avails of prostitution, to transport a person to a bawdy house, and to procure someone to become a prostitute.[1]

• Solicitation of a sex worker who is a minor (under 18 years of age) is always illegal. Using the defense that the customer BELIEVED the sex worker was 18 years old is not an acceptable defense.[2]

Safety

• Street-level sex workers face extremely high rates of violence. A 2005 Vancouver study with street-level sex workers found that 90 per cent had been physically assaulted in sex work, 78 per cent had been raped in sex work and 72 per cent met the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder.[3]

• There has been an increasing level of violence experienced by sex workers in the last decade in Vancouver, according to Vancouver: Amnesty International.[4]

• Sex workers working indoors are less likely to face violence than those working on the street. A study of indoor sex workers in Vancouver found that 63 per cent of the study participants—who work in massage parlours, for escort agencies or independently out of their homes—had never experienced violent behaviour.[5]

Health

• Street-level sex workers have a higher risk for HIV/AIDS transmission. In 2007, the MAKA Project in Vancouver found that drug use, working in public spaces, working away from main streets because of policing and violence from clients makes it more difficult for street-level sex workers to negotiate condom use with clients.[6]

• Homelessness and an inability to access drug treatment for female street-level sex workers are associated with an increase in physical and client-perpetrated violence.[7]

Demographics

• 5 to 20 per cent of sex work takes place on the street. The remainder occurs through independent escort agencies and in massage parlours, private residences, brothels, bars, clubs, trick pads and bathhouses.[8]

• Both men and women are engaged in sex work. An estimated 75 to 80 per cent of sex workers are female, and between 25 to 30 per cent of sex workers are male and transgendered.[9]

• Sex workers come from all ages, ethnicities, educational and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Marginalization

• Aboriginal women are highly overrepresented in street-level sex work among women. In a 2005 study, 52 per cent of women working in the lowest paying tracks in Vancouver were young, Aboriginal women. However, Aboriginal people make up only 1.7 to 7 per cent of the population.[10]

• Street-level sex workers have extremely high rates of sexual abuse. A 2005 study with Vancouver street-level sex workers found that 82 per cent reported a history of childhood sexual abuse, by an average of four perpetrators.[11]

Sex buyers

• Almost all sex buyers are male. Of the participants in a 2010 study, 99.4 per cent of sex buyers were male.[12]

• A 2010 study found that sex buyers come from all educational, ethnic, occupational backgrounds, ages and all sexual orientations.[13]