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The new legal regime not only fails to address the harms identified by Canada’s highest court in Bedford but also fails to protect sex workers. Rather it supports the exclusion of sex workers from communities, and maintains the industry in isolated areas, increasing the potential for exploitation and violence. Since the implementation of these laws, sex workers have reported increased stress, fear, and antagonism with police. The laws impel sex workers to work alone, be less visible, and forego protective mechanisms. Sex workers who have experienced the most antagonism and repression from police under this new regime are racialized and migrant sex workers working indoors and sex workers on the street. The new sex work related laws are an example of institutionalized and state violence against sex workers.

Not surprisingly, in these contexts, sex workers are reluctant to report violent incidents to law enforcement or to seek out help to improve working conditions. As long as specific laws that criminalize the sex industry exist, it will be impossible to effectively improve working conditions and secure the rights and safety of sex workers. These laws prevent sex workers from naming exploitation and labour abuse in the workplace and negotiating with third parties who are considered exploiters by law; these laws negate experiences of violence because they consider all of sex work to be violent. Without total decriminalization of the sex industry, sex workers are vulnerable to gendered violence and wage exploitation; those of us who have fewer options for income and decide to do sex work need a decent wage and affordable housing.