Canadian Sex Work Policy for the 21st Century: Enhancing Rights and Safety, Lessons from Australia

This paper reviews the current problematic state of public policy addressed to the sex trade in Canada. It explores the recent parliamentary inquiry into the sex trade and suggests that the Canadian polity needs to set in train a clear program for reform in this area. A particular priority of these reforms should be to enhance the safety and rights of sex workers. At present the Canadian polity is mired in philosophic, moral and political divisions over the acceptability of sex work and this is limiting the search for practical ways of addressing urgent social problems. We argue that this search needs to be wide and continuing and that some practical ‘lessons’ can be learned from Australia where reforms have been in place for some time.