Submission on Bill S-224, An Act to amend the

AESHA findings have also been shared in a submission to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights calling for an end to the conflation between sex work and sex trafficking. [...] Harms of punitive laws that conflict trafficking with sex work The harms of laws and policies that fail to distinguish between sex work and trafficking in persons (and thus violate sex workers’ autonomy and human rights) have been well- documented by the long-standing research engaged in through the AESHA Project. [...] Bill S-224 proposes to amend section 279.04(1) to read: For the purposes of sections 279.01 to 279.03, a person exploits another person if they engage in conduct that d) causes the other person to provide or offer to provide labour or a service; and e) involves, in relation to any person, the use or threatened use of force or another form of coercion, the use of deception or fraud, the abuse of a. [...] In light of the empirical evidence identified above concerning the conflation of sex work and trafficking in law enforcement, a practice which disproportionately impacts Indigenous, racialized and migrant sex workers, the amendments to s. [...] Add a preamble that acknowledges the problematic conflation of sex work with trafficking: Preamble Whereas the Parliament of Canada recognizes the harms the conflation of sex work with sexual exploitation causes sex workers; Whereas the Parliament of Canada recognizes the harms of human trafficking initiatives that equate sex work with human trafficking; Whereas the Parliament of Canada is committ.