Learn more. The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness is the largest national research institute devoted to homelessness in Canada. The sex trade industry is broad and encompasses a variety of activities including escort services, street-level sex workers, pornography, exotic dancing, massage, internet work, phone sex operators and third-party support drivers, managers, bartenders etc.
Note: prostitution is a very specific type of sex work and is used mostly as a legal term within the sex worker community; sex trade or sex work is the preferred term.
It is illegal to keep a common bawdy house, be found in one whether worker, client or visitor or to direct or take someone to one i. For example, a sex worker cannot ask another sex worker to join him or her with a client or refer a client to another sex worker. For some people, sex work stems from a background of poverty, addiction, lack of education and abuse. A significant numberof sex workers are survivors of sexual abuse including rape, sexual assault and incest.
Additionally, many sex workers have been part of the child welfare system adoption, foster care, juvenile detention in their youth or childhood. For some people, however, becoming a sex worker is a conscious and informed act or choice; this is particularly true for people engaged in higher-end work including exotic dancing, pornography and private escort services.
A study funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research found that:. Sex work, and therefore sex workers, are often victimized and marginalized. Violence against sex workers is continual and for women working on the street especially the fear of kidnapping, rape, physical assault, theft and harassment is constant.
