Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino speaks during a news conference on the government’s plan to enable expungements for convictions under the Criminal Code for bawdy house, indecency-based and abortion-related offences in Ottawa in March 2023.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
Experts on the history of sexuality in Canada say recent changes to the Expungement Act don’t go far enough, and they urge Canadians to reject attempts to divide marginalized communities.
Activists hold placards as they call for the decriminalisation of prostitution.
MATTHEW KAY/AFP via Getty Images
Regulating the sex work industry is the only way to protect sex workers from abuse and violence.
Sex workers and their supporters protest outside the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court during the first appearance of a man accused of killing six women.
EPA-EFE/Kim Ludbrook
COVID-19 restrictions created life-threatening challenges to female sex workers as they weren’t able to access their medication, support or their clients.
After a change in the law which criminalises the purchase of sexual services, the French government is willing to help only those who wish to exit prostitution for good.
Gustave Boulanger, The Slave Market, 1886.
Wikimedia Commons
From a young age, Neaera was trained for the life of a hetaira, or courtesan. Her tragic story comes to us only through court documents, but she deserves to be remembered.
For centuries, people thought nothing of crowding family members or friends into the same bed.
miniwide/Shutterstock.com
Brian Fagan, University of California, Santa Barbara
Today’s beds are thought of as bastions of privacy. But not long ago, they were the perches from which kings ruled and places where travelers hunkered down with complete strangers.
Sex worker rights – fought for at this red umbrella protest in Vancouver – are under threat by ‘hospitality’ programs which ask civilians working in hotels to ‘report’ on their guests.
Caroline Doerksen
While there’s still a great deal that is unknown about sex trafficking, research studies and nonprofits have been able to gather telling data on this industry’s victims and perpetrators.
Trafficking is a very real threat for kids in Nigeria.
Paschal Okwara/Shutterstock/Editorial use only
If India really wants to stop sex trafficking, legislators might consider asking sex workers in Kolkata how they keep the Sonagachi red light district safe and exploitation-free.
Protesters in front the Supreme Court of Canada in 2013 when the court was hearing arguments on the constitutionality of Canada’s prostitution laws.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
Canada’s prostitution laws are based on the idea that prostitution is dangerous. Legalizing prostitution doesn’t eliminate the risks of violence and psychological harm.
Sex workers protest in Westminster in early July.
Andy Rain/EPA