“All the tools available”

Publishing photos of those who have been charged is not about enforcing the law – it is about
shaming the purchasers of sexual services. This approach, along with other end demand initiatives
are directly harmful to sex workers. It does not end demand, but pushes sex workers into more
isolated working conditions, out of the reach of supports if safety becomes an issue.

Less clients does not translate into less demand or less sex workers, or less folks trafficked. It does
mean longer working hours in more risky, isolated location to ensure finances are secured. It also
means lowered rates, which breeds competition among workers, and erodes sex worker
communities.

"Clients are worried about police. To avoid police they wanna move to a different area. I don't
want to go out of my zone right. […] Once you get out there, like you know their turf so it's
harder for me cause it's their comfort zone so they act differently, you know what I mean. Yeah
it never ends up good”

Over the past two years in London sex workers are informing us they feel pressured to present as
trafficked in order to access the services at other organizations, and avoid more judgment. This is
overtly harmful for those seeking consensual transactions.

Equally harmful for the sex workers if not more, is that you are taking away our livelihood. It positions
absolute consent as a requirement (that apparently, according to prohibitionists, is impossible) for sex
work. This is not the standard for other jobs where people face potentially dangerous working
conditions, or subject to exploitation, including in the garment industry, food services, and home
based childcare & nannies. We constantly see other people who engage in other forms of labour
facing harm, i.e. ear drums being blown out, loss of limbs, chemical poisoning, attacks by patients.
Rates of workplace violence for sex work are actually lower than they are for several other
professions, including emergency room nursing. No one ever says, we must end mining! End heavy
machinery operations! End nursing!

If home is the most unsafe place for women and their children, how come prohibiting marriage isn’t on
the table?

No. Because that would be ridiculous. Instead we say, how do we make theses working and living
conditions safer? How do we develop services that are responsive, meet people where they are at,
and believe them when they speak their truth. HOW DO WE MAKE SEX WORK SAFER!? We
decriminalize. Full stop. Do your homework. Talk to current sex workers. Read the empirical evidence
base. Talk with local researchers and other allies, i.e. ANOVA.
Chief John Pare said "This is a warning to make better choices in life" What makes him the moral
authority?

Nothing.

Let’s remember we need to hold to LPD accountable for the harm they’ve caused our community, and
under his leadership.

• Let’s not forget London has the highest rates of unfounded sexual assault cases in Canada.

• Let’s not forget that Michael Hay (& all others involved) ordered release of a fellow officer busted in
their John sting.

• Let’s not forget you RELEASED Oluwatobi Boyede with NO warning after a sex worker warned you
someone would die after she was chocked, sexually assaulted and confined and he went on to
MURDER Josie Glenn.

We have not forgotten.

These statements send the message to our community that if someone is trafficked they are a victim
and we should empathize, and rally to their aid
But if someone is a sex worker, and they’re assaulted it’s their fault. It’s their ‘high risk’ lifestyle to
blame. There is no consideration of how policing has contributed to what constitutes risk. It is not their
fault.

What the current line of reasoning ignores:

• It ignores all the other populations engaged in the selling and purchasing of sex, and how sex work
has been affirming in the lives of providers and clients alike, including those with disabilities and
trauma survivors.

• It ignores the structural conditions that results in sex work as the best solution, including lack of safe
and affordable housing, unsafe or inaccessible shelters, inadequate OW/ODSP funding levels,
discrimination, racism, poverty, wait lists for residential substance use treatment, lack of trauma
informed services …. On and on ….

• It ignores that consent as an ideal cannot be realized within capitalism where profit is made off of
the exploitation of the working class by the owners of the means of production, and where resources
are unevenly distributed across all members of our community

What a shame Megan Walker that you can stand up and applaud such a harmful practice against sex
workers. That you have pushed for it for 10 years, regardless of what evidence has come forward in
the meantime. How can you say you are an ally when you hyper focus on infantalization and continue
to harm the women you claim to help by refusing to create space for a broader conversation about
the continuum of consent within sex work?

What a shame LPD. Your unwillingness to invite us to the table is blatantly obvious. It is no wonder
why nobody in our SafeSpace community trusts cops. You abuse your power, you continue to ensure
the public sees us as victims, but at the same time ignoring a whole community of consenting adults
when we tell you our lives and choices are more complex than simply being victims. You assume
everybody is a victim, and ignore cries to decriminalize sex work to ensure safer working conditions,
and ignore to legitimize a profession. You continue to say you’re just enforcing the laws.

However, how you proceed is a matter of discretion. The tactics you use, the choices you make, the
way you engage in the discussion and with whom, those are on you Chief John Pare. Now, you are
publicly shaming our clients. Clients who are all types of individuals, and yes, from all walks of life.
Clients who haven't done anything except engage in a consent based transaction. And while you are
required to enforce the law, the added personal cost attached to this new policy will be paid off on our
backs. We endorse reprimanding bad John's and circulating publically information about people who
have been violent toward sex workers, but that would require you having discussions with us about
what this means, to communicate openly with us about known risks, and this would require us to trust
you.

End the end demand campaigns.

If the London Police were sincere in wanting to utilize all the tools available to them to identify and
respond to sex trafficking in our community, they would speak with members of SafeSpace London -
the only peer-driven, sex worker organization in our city. They would seek active and sustained
relationships with our collective, demonstrating a willingness to seriously engage in reimaging what
the appropriate role should be in enhancing safety for people in vulnerable situations in our
community who engage in sex work. They would seek consultation before making a decision that
directly impacts the lives and livelihoods of those they are professing to want to ‘help’.

They would ask for input from members of SafeSpace. At a minimum, provide notice to the
community so we could address the safety concerns this decision generates. We could try to
prepare.

Do you know who is in the best position to identify people being trafficked?

Sex workers.

The sex worker community circulate in areas with other sex workers. We are the first to bring
someone we are concerned about to SafeSpace. People with a range of experiences in sex work and
trafficking access SafeSpace. For almost 10 years SafeSpace has provided a community for anyone
entering, working and exiting sex work. This includes supporting victims of sex trafficking.

Instead, the London Police, along with LAWC continue to blatantly conflate sex work with human
trafficking. Continue to groom the public to see all sex workers a victims. They have the resources
($$$) to sustain this agenda in our community; regardless of how other organizations have pushed
back against this problematic dialogue.

What a shame. What poor policy development. And what negligence.

#rightsnotrescue #sexworkisrealwork #JUST #HumanTraffickingAwarenessMonth

#sexworkisnothumantrafficking #knowhumantrafficking

Source: Criminalisation of clients: reproducing vulnerabilities for violence and poor health among street-based sex
workers in Canada—a qualitative study, 2014