Indeed, we have seen an increase in the detainment and deportation of racialized women who work in the sex industry, all of which has an impact on the health and safety in our communities.

The 2013 Supreme Court of Canada decision in Bedford v. Canada recognized the harms and unconstitutionality of laws that criminalize sex workers and their workplaces. The courts were provided with over 25,000 pages of evidence that demonstrated the link between violence against sex workers and criminalization of sex work.

Six months later the Harper government introduced a more rigid and repressive set of laws known as the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act. These new laws have empowered law enforcement to target women assumed to be “exploited victims” — namely, racialized and migrant women in the sex industry.

To accompany these new laws, the federal government has allocated millions of dollars to combat “human trafficking,” while neglecting to support the development of safety measures for women working in the sex industry. Much of this government funding has been allocated to police and law enforcement and used to conduct periodic investigations and raids on sex work establishments in the name of anti-trafficking.

Asian sex workers are often the targets of these investigations and are subjected to surveillance, arrest, harassment, detainment and deportation. Armed with an anti-trafficking mandate — which is often conflated with sex work itself — police and other officials target establishments where Asian and migrant sex workers can be found.

Current immigration laws single out the sex industry as the one place that people with a working visa cannot work. It is also the one place that many migrant sex workers without a visa will decide to work because of limited options in other informal labour markets. Since the implementation of the new laws, sex workers with legal immigration status have been charged and harassed arbitrarily by city police.

These conditions encourage sex workers to choose work locations that are less visible and have fewer safety protections, to work and live in isolation and to avoid mainstream services. They encourage a targeting of migrant sex workers and create a climate of impunity for predators who are aware of the vulnerabilities that migrant sex workers face because of criminalization and the risk of deportation.

Early in the morning on Jan. 23, Tammy Le was found dead from strangulation at a hotel in Hamilton, Ontario. Her death followed the murders of Jiali Zhang and Evelyn Bumatay Castillo — she is the third Asian sex worker in Hamilton and Mississauga to be murdered within the past two years.

Violence against Asian sex workers is a direct result of repressive laws and a climate of hatred towards sex workers and sex work. Because Asian sex workers avoid detection from police and larger societal stigma and discrimination, Asian sex workers are at once both isolated and targeted for violence.

What can be done to address real exploitation?

Amend immigration law and policy so that sex work is not singled out as a forbidden work zone. This will lower the number of detainments and deportations as well as decrease antagonism with law enforcement, thereby reducing migrants’ isolation, fear, and inability to access mainstream services.

Repeal laws related to sex work that frame all sex work as exploitative. The objective of eradicating the sex industry does not account for the myriad of reasons that women — migrant and otherwise — work in the industry, and it cast all sex workers as victims and in need of saving from law enforcement. The result, as we have seen, is not saving but in fact law enforcement initiatives that arrest, detain and deport sex workers. A legislative framework that focuses on the health and safety of all sex workers, and all migrants — with or without immigration status — needs to be prioritized.

We urge the public to pay close attention to the ways that anti-trafficking measures and repressive legal policies impact sex workers. We encourage creative responses that provide sex workers an opportunity to create safe and secure measures for their work and their lives. Recognition of sex work as legitimate work is important for sex workers to access their rights and their justice. We wait with impatience for an end to a climate of hatred of sex workers that encourages people to violate and prey on them.

We honour and remember Tammy Le and the other workers who have survived and lost their lives to violent ends.

Butterfly (Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Support Network)
Based in Toronto, Ontario, Butterfly is the Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Support Network. It was formed by sex workers, social workers, legal and health professionals. It provides support to and advocates for the rights of Asian and migrant sex workers. The organization is founded upon the belief that sex workers are entitled to respect and basic human rights. Butterfly asserts that, regardless of their immigration status, Asian and migrant sex workers should be treated like all other workers.