Sex workers at risk?

Sex workers at risk under current law: report
CTV.ca News Staff
Advocates for sex workers say Canadian law puts prostitutes
in danger, and it's high time they received the same kind of
rights others workers have come to expect.
Although selling sex for money is legal in Canada, almost
every other activity connected with prostitution is illegal.
It's against the law to communicate in public for the
purposes of prostitution, or for a prostitute to do business
in her own home or to rent a location for the purpose of
doing business.
A report released Tuesday by the Canadian HIV/AIDS
Legal Network claims these rules endanger sex workers
and need to be repealed, and argues that sex workers
should have the same protection as all Canadians.
"It's really hard to have safe sex working conditions and
safe work places if your work is criminalized and your work
places are criminalized," the organization's deputy director,
Richard Elliott, told CTV News.
The current laws strain relationships between police and
workers and make it difficult for sex workers to assess their
clients and negotiate a transaction on the street,
Elliott said Tuesday.
"If you think about it you are constantly under the risk of
arrest. If you are talking to a client on the street for
example to negotiate a transaction, then you don't have
a lot of time to size-up your client and see if this is
someone that you want to get into a car and go
someplace with," he explained.
"You don't have a lot of time to negotiate safer sex
… and it creates a relationship with police that's often
conflictual and so sex workers aren't entitled to the
protection of the law as a result of that."
link:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20051213/
ottawa_sextradelaw_critics_20051213/20051213?hub=TopStories

Are we turning into Holland now?