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. 2020 Dec;22(2):257-270.

Underreporting of Violence to Police among Women Sex Workers in Canada: Amplified Inequities for Im/migrant and In-Call Workers Prior to and Following End-Demand Legislation

Bronwyn McBride  1 , Kate Shannon  2 , Brittany Bingham  3 , Melissa Braschel  4 , Steffanie Strathdee  5 , Shira M Goldenberg  6
Affiliations

Underreporting of Violence to Police among Women Sex Workers in Canada: Amplified Inequities for Im/migrant and In-Call Workers Prior to and Following End-Demand Legislation

Bronwyn McBride et al. Health Hum Rights. 2020 Dec.

Abstract

Sex workers globally face high levels of violence. In Canada, im/migrant sex workers who work in indoor venues may be uniquely targeted by police due to immigration policies, racialized policing, and the conflation of trafficking and sex work. In 2014, Canada passed end-demand legislation that purportedly encourages sex workers to report violence to police; however, little research has evaluated its impact. Using interrupted time series and multivariable logistic regression, we examined proportions of reporting violent incidents to police among sex workers who had experienced workplace violence (2010-2017), including potential changes prior to and following end-demand legislation. We then modeled the independent effects of im/migrant status and place of work on reporting violence. Among sex workers who experienced recent violence during the 7.5-year study (n=367), 38.2% of all participants and 12.7% of im/migrants reported violence to police, and there was no significant change in violence reporting after end-demand legislation. Our results suggest that end-demand laws do not remove barriers to justice faced by sex workers and instead actually perpetuate harms, particularly for racialized im/migrant and indoor workers. Policy reforms to decriminalize sex work, address discriminatory policing, and promote access to safety and justice are urgently needed.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Figures

Note: Observed semiannual proportions of workplace violence reported to police are presented with dots; estimated semiannual proportions of workplace violence reported to police are presented with a solid line; and predicted semiannual proportions of workplace violence reported to police had end-demand legislation not been implemented are presented with a dotted line. Estimated and predicted rates represent estimates from our interrupted time series analysis. The gray box represents the legislative transition period between January 2014 (after Canada’s previous sex-work laws were struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional) and December 2014 (when end-demand legislation was officially implemented). These data points are excluded due to variation in how the laws may have been enforced during this transition period.
Figure 1
Interrupted time series depicting proportions of reporting violence to police among sex workers who experienced recent workplace violence in Vancouver, 2010–2017 (N=367)
Figure 2
Figure 2
Percentage of Canadian-born and im/migrant sex workers who reported or did not report any violence to police among those who experienced workplace violence in Vancouver, 2010–2017 (N=367)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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