The 4th World Congress for the Abolition of Prostitution kicked off in Montreal on Saturday with a march to honour survivors of sexual exploitation.
“The goal of the congress is to gather all front-line workers who support survivors and to end the practices when it comes to ending the sexual exploitation of women and girls,” explained Jennie-Laure Sully, a community organizer at La CLES.
Attendees of the many workshops and panels also have another objective: a world without prostitution.
La CLES works with several people and organizations involved in the sex industry to work towards the same goal. “A world without prostitution should be possible,” said Sully, adding “if we believe in equality between men and women, equality between countries of the south, countries of the north.” She told Global News that “prostitution affects women from the global south more, poor women more, Indigenous women more.”
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April Eve Wiberg, an Indigenous survivor of commercialized sexual exploitation from Alberta, agrees. She said that since contact with Europeans, Indigenous women and girls “have been looked at as objects.” She added that, “we need to get back to our traditional roles as Indigenous people and not feel that we have to sell what is most sacred in order to survive.”
Wiberg was moved by the turnout at the event. These occasions are important to her as they give her an opportunity to share her story. “The more I speak out, the more I am approached by other survivors that may be suffering in silence and don’t realize that there is a lot of support out there,” she explained.
A counter-protest was also present at Place Émilie-Gamelin. The pro-sex work activists were there to oppose the congress.
Adore Goldman, a sex worker and activist with Sex Workers Autonomous Committee, said they are not against the survivors present at the opposing march. “I think we both share this common experience of having worked in the sex industry, and most of us has also survived violence in the sex industry,” she explained.
But the sex work advocates believe that the solution to end the violence is not to abolish the trade altogether.
“We don’t negate that there’s exploitation in the sex industry,” said Goldman. “But we say that there is exploitation in all the industry, and what we do against exploitation is organize as workers.”
Canada’s Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act does not criminalize selling sex, but buying it is a criminal offence.
Pro-sex work activists believe that criminalizing any aspect of the trade puts sex workers at risk. On the other hand, prostitution abolitionists such as Sully think the Act is good on paper, but not enforced sufficiently.