“Sex Work Fact Sheet”
Community Initiative for Health & Safety
Aboriginal women are highly overrepresented in street-level sex work among women. This is due to the ongoing impacts of colonization and racism which has resulted in high rates of poverty, a lack of education and employment opportunities, substance misuse, and family breakdown. Often Aboriginal women are left with few options other than street-level sex work in order to meet their needs.
Enacted in December, 2014, The Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA) makes it a crime to
- purchase sex
- communicate for the purpose of purchasing sex
- habitually keep the company of or benefit materially from a sex worker, unless you are in a legitimate family or business relationship, provided you can prove that you are not forcing or encouraging the sex worker to sell sex; you are not involved together in a commercial sex enterprise; and you are not providing alcohol or drugs
- sex workers are prohibited from working or communicating near schools, playgrounds, day-care centres
- it is illegal to advertise sex services provided by anyone but the sex worker, and his/her advertising must not explicitly offer sex for sale.