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Justice committee Can we stay to watch?
April 1st, 2022Committee meeting
Melissa Lukings
Justice committee I'll just mute myself and watch. Thank you.
April 1st, 2022Committee meeting
Melissa Lukings
Justice committee That could be a good idea, but I think it's beyond the scope of what we're looking at here. I know that the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform has already made suggestions about how decriminalization could work with occupational health and safety standards. I think that wo
April 1st, 2022Committee meeting
Melissa Lukings
Justice committee The framework would have to be developed with the people who are impacted, so that would be with the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform, with the sex workers themselves. Again, it would be because we would be talking about an area that would be decriminalized. We would not
April 1st, 2022Committee meeting
Melissa Lukings
Justice committee I think you're running into the same thing, where it's just a job. Someone might take more shifts working at a bar to buy drugs or to pay for their kids, or to buy bread or whatever. It's just a job. What they're doing doesn't actually apply to whether or not there's exploitation
April 1st, 2022Committee meeting
Melissa Lukings
Justice committee Yes, absolutely. By criminalizing the whole sex work community, you're essentially eliminating all of your allies. I think someone already mentioned that. Where you would have sex workers report suspicious things in a decriminalized context, you're not getting that right now. Whe
April 1st, 2022Committee meeting
Melissa Lukings
Justice committee In the simplest way possible, we need to repeal all of the PCEPA laws—all of them. Then, as I mentioned, there is a tabling of the coercive control offence, which would allow us to refocus on the relationship rather than the work, because it's not about the relationship. You can
April 1st, 2022Committee meeting
Melissa Lukings
Justice committee Absolutely. You might already have it. It will be in my brief.
April 1st, 2022Committee meeting
Melissa Lukings
Justice committee Okay.
April 1st, 2022Committee meeting
Melissa Lukings
Justice committee Absolutely I can do that.
April 1st, 2022Committee meeting
Melissa Lukings
Justice committee I've had many roles. I worked for a while in massage parlours. That would be as an employee of a massage parlour. I also was the general manager—
April 1st, 2022Committee meeting
Melissa Lukings
Justice committee I was giving the massage. I was the sex worker.
April 1st, 2022Committee meeting
Melissa Lukings
Justice committee Also, for a while there was a whole.... Anyway, it was in St. John's. Then I was the manager of a massage parlour while simultaneously working there. I did hire people. We advertised. I created an advertising website when we were no longer able to use Backpage and Craigslist. I
April 1st, 2022Committee meeting
Melissa Lukings
Justice committee Yes.
April 1st, 2022Committee meeting
Melissa Lukings
Justice committee Yes, thank you. I wanted to talk about how exploitation is about the relationship between parties but not the relationship between a sex worker and client; it's the relationship between the sex worker and a third party. Often this overlaps with domestic violence cases, so the so
April 1st, 2022Committee meeting
Melissa Lukings