By Peter Berton
WINDSOR, Canada – If Canadians truly care about protecting the health and civil rights of sex workers, “unionization is the way to go.” That’s according to Terri-Jean Bedford, a former dominatrix who helped lead the fight against the anti-prostitution laws recently overturned by the Canadian Supreme Court.
The now-defunct laws made it illegal for sex workers to work indoors, to pay other people to provide security for them and to screen clients by discussing the purchase of sexual services with prospects first. The Supreme Court invalidated the laws on the grounds they put sex workers’ safety at unreasonable risk.
Speaking before a crowd of more than 200 students at the University of Windsor on Wednesday, Bedford said the Supreme Court’s decision already has improved life for the average Canadian sex worker, unionized or not.
“It’s so much better for her now,” said Bedford. “She’s no longer stigmatized or devalued. She’s a human being. She has her rights and freedoms.”
The one-time professional dominatrix — now a grandmother — also commented that, rather than protecting sex workers, the overturned laws increased the risk to workers’ lives and health.
“The sex-slave industry that [the authorities] are talking about is a direct result of the laws,” Bedford said.
The fight for Canadian sex workers’ rights is not over, however. The Supreme Court gave the national government one year to create new legislation addressing the same issues within the limits of Canada’s Charter of Rights, which the court determined the original laws violated.
So what is most likely to happen? Given Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s 2012 statement “We view prostitution as bad for society and we view its effects as particularly harmful for our communities and women, and particularly for vulnerable women, and we will continue to oppose prostitution in Canada,” it seems unlikely the country’s right-wing Conservative government simply will let the overturned laws fade away.
For her part, Bedford called Harper’s position “a national disgrace.” She added that, if Harper truly cared, he would enforce existing laws protecting women and children and take steps to deal with poverty in Canada.
“The best thing about [sex work] is that, believe it or not, women like to have sex,” Bedford said. “The worst thing is when people are forced into doing things they don’t want to do.”
