This article was published more than 7 years ago. Some information may no longer be current. Brenda Belak is a Vancouver-based lawyer who campaigns for sex workers' rights with the Pivot Legal Society.
We connect with our new client, Li not her real name. Her online ad describes her as "young" and "new in town," a year-old ready to "give you what you please. When we eventually meet her in person, we find that she is twice her advertised age. On the Internet, not everything is as it appears. Through our online outreach program, we have offered support to more than 1, women who use the Internet to conduct their business. We support women who are assumed in the dominant public discourse to be victims of sex trafficking.
Despite the preponderance of ads advertising sexual services of somethings, the average age of the women we support is Over the past few years, there has been a war against online classified-ad websites such as Backpage that carry sex workers' ads.
While this war started in the United States, it has crept across the border to Canada as the discourse around sex trafficking has intensified. But one perspective is consistently missing: that of the sex worker exercising agency and using the Internet as a safety tool. Why does this matter? Li and many women like her use online classifieds to screen clients.
This relatively inexpensive form of advertising allows them to work for themselves, define the parameters of their own business and work indoors, which research shows is much safer for them than the street. It provides greater control over their working conditions.
