Violence against sex workers: Correlates and Changes under ‘End-Demand’ legislation in Canada: A five city study

ABSTRACT

Canada is among several countries to have implemented ‘end-demand’ criminalization frameworks for sex work. Drawing on interviews with sex workers (n = 200) in five cities, we employed multivariate logistic regression to identify associations with workplace violence. We also analysed descriptive data on trafficking and on workplace violence under end-demand legislation. In the past 12 months, being unable to call 911 in a safety emergency at work for fear of police detection (Adjusted Odd Ratio AOR: 4.307, 95% Confidence Interval CI: 1.697 –10.927), being unable to screen clients due to fear of police detection (AOR: 2.175, 95% CI: 1.074 –4.405), having experienced anti-sex work housing policy/eviction (AOR: 2.031, 95% CI: 0.897–4.598), and being Indigenous (Adjusted Odd Ratio (AOR): 2.167, 95% Confidence Interval (CI): 1.060–4.428) were all independently associated with workplace violence in the past 12 months. Of those who worked prior to the law change (n = 167), a majority of respondents (80.24% (134)) reported that violence in the workplace had increased or stayed the same compared to the previous criminalization model and 87.43% (n = 146) reported it was harder or the same to get help in an emergency.

KEYWORDS:

• Sex work
• violence
• trafficking
• end demand
• Swedish model
• law
• criminalization
• social determinants of health
• indigenous

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s ).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by 10.13039/501100000024 Canadian Institutes of Health Research: [Grant Number HHP-98835, PTJ-153423]; 10.13039/501100000155 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada: [Grant Number Banting Fellowship].