Sex worker wins in Nova Scotia court, but ruling leaves sex industry conflicted – Halifax | 24CA News
In a authorized determination described as the primary of its form in Canada, a Halifax intercourse employee efficiently sued a shopper for nonpayment of companies, however actors within the trade are conflicted concerning the ruling’s impacts.
Former intercourse employee Brogan Sheehan took Bradley Samuelson to small claims court docket after he didn’t totally pay her price, which each events had agreed to beforehand. Samuelson argued that the settlement was invalid as a result of it’s unlawful to buy sexual companies, however court docket adjudicator Darrel Pink stated the contract may nonetheless be enforced and awarded Sheehan $1,800.
Sex work stays criminalized in Canada, however a 2014 regulation eliminated prison penalties for individuals, like Sheehan, who promote sexual companies. Paying for intercourse, nonetheless, stays unlawful.
Sheehan’s lawyer, Jessica Rose, says she and her shopper wished to show the court docket to the “economic realities of doing sex work.” As properly, Rose stated they wished to lift consciousness about “what is needed as far as access to the civil justice system to ensure sex workers are treated fairly by their clients.”
“This type of issue had never been addressed before in court,” Rose stated in a current interview.
Emma Halpern, govt director of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia, says the choice empowers intercourse staff to hunt authorized cures to implement their contracts.
The determination additionally displays a altering angle inside society and the regulation towards intercourse work, Halpern stated. The public is starting to grasp the distinction between “extremely harmful, predatory things like sex trafficking, and legitimate sex work by an adult who is a worker, pays taxes, has a business.”
As a response to the ruling, Halpern and Sheehan stated they deliberate to carry workshops for intercourse staff to assist them perceive their authorized rights.
But not everybody within the intercourse trade sees the court docket’s determination as a step ahead. Real change will happen as soon as politicians decriminalize intercourse work, stated Sandra Wesley, govt director of Stella, a Montreal-based group by and for intercourse staff.
The overwhelming majority of intercourse staff, she stated, gained’t search monetary recourse by way of the court docket system as a result of intercourse work remains to be criminalized in Canada. Going to court docket exposes a intercourse employee, and doubtlessly everybody else she is related to, to the justice system, Wesley stated.
“Even if there’s a chance she can win, there’s always a risk of workplaces being shut down, police being alerted to the activity, being evicted, deported,” she stated. “There are many consequences of being criminalized, even if we win in court.”
Wesley says the small claims court docket determination really goes towards the 2014 federal intercourse work regulation, referred to as the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act. That regulation emphasizes the significance of discouraging intercourse work and denouncing and prohibiting the acquisition of sexual companies “because it creates a demand for prostitution.”
Wesley says, “I hope the minister of justice and prime minister read the decision, read the law, and consider it’s time to change it.”
And whereas Pink’s determination says that each side within the court docket case consider it’s the first of its form in Canada, a authorized knowledgeable questions its significance on jurisprudence as a result of the ruling was rendered in small claims court docket.
“The usual court hierarchy doesn’t apply,” stated Wayne MacKay, professor emeritus at Dalhousie University’s regulation college. “Another small claims judge wouldn’t necessarily have to follow it, nor ahigher court.”
And whereas the choice doesn’t have a binding precedent, it may nonetheless affect different court docket rulings, he stated.
“The message is out there,” MacKay stated. “Sex work is work, legal work, and deserves to be treated like other legal work, and if people chose not to pay, they can get a remedy in small claims court.”
According to paperwork filed in Nova Scotia’s small claims court docket, Sheehan charged $300 an hour for her companies, and spent seven hours with Samuelson on Jan. 26, 2022. But the following morning, when she tried to take money out of an ATM along with his financial institution card, the transaction was denied. After a number of textual content exchanges, Samuelson finally paid Sheehan $300, leaving $1,800 excellent.
Pink’s determination, rendered in April, says public coverage requires the courts “not to increase or contribute to exploitation of sex work, and thus favours a regime that gives aggrieved sex workers access to the civil courts when they have a civil claim.”
MacKay stated the broader social affect of the novel determination could also be extra essential than the technical, authorized affect.
“One has to kind of admire the sex worker that decided to test the waters, see what small claims court would do, and succeeded,” he stated. “That’s the way things change sometimes.”
Sheehan, who advocates for the decriminalization of intercourse work, stated she wished to pursue the case in court docket as a result of she was a sufferer of human trafficking when she was a minor.
“I feel obligated to not leave things the way that they were,” she stated.
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed July 9, 2023.
