SW-Led Organizations Take Human Rights-Based Approaches To Community Outreach, Engagement and Support

Reposted from our International SW Day coverage on June 2nd in Toronto.

On June 2nd each year SW organizations globally celebrate International SW Day. We come together to honor the long histories of SW organizing in our communities, celebrate the community members we’ve loved and lost, and commit to building a better world for all SWs.

Today we reflect on how our struggles for SW justice are connected across communites and globally! SWs around the world have come together to challenge criminalization, stigma and discrimination against our communities and we’re making important strides. From SWs  in India recently celebrating a Supreme Court ruling in favour of their right to be treated fairly by police and the press, to the wave of stripper strikes for improved working conditions and justice for Black strippers across the US, to Uganada’s Network of S/Work Led Organizations resisting discrimination from health care workers. SW organizing takes on many forms- from formal non-profit work to mutual aid efforts and the everyday work we do to show up for one another.

The History of International SWs Day: St.Nizier Church, Lyon, France, 1975

International SW Day recognizes the efforts of French SWs  who took part in an eight-day strile action in 1975. On June 2nd, 1975, 100 SWs  occupied Saint-Nizier Church in Lyon, France, to express their anger about their criminalised and exploitative living conditions. The SWs  occupying Saint-Nizier Church demanded, among other things, an end to police harassment, the re-opening of the hotels where they worked, and a proper investigation into a series of SW murders. SWs  in other French towns heard of the occupation in Lyon and, in solidarity, took sanctuary in churches in Marseille, Grenoble, Montpellier and Paris. Despite the national impact of the protest, the police refused to engage with the protestors’ grievances and threatened increasingly harsh punishments. 

SW Organizing in Canada: Ongoing Struggles Against Policing, Criminalization + Stigma

In a Canadian context, there are a number of important SW led struggles underway challening criminalization and its adverse impacts on our communities: 

• The Canadian Alliance for SW Law Reform is in the midst of a constitutional challenge that’s brought SWs  and our allies together to challenge the harmful impacts of criminal laws that target our communities, our clients, third parties and more. 
• Review of Bill C-36 - In February, Canada's Parliamentary Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights began a Review of Canada's anti-Swork laws — Bill C:36 - the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act in February 2022. We anticipate the release of the Committee’s findings shortly.
• Lifting Lifetime Blood Ban on SWs  - Last week Candian Blood Services lifted the life-time ban on SWs  interested in donating blood. The shift comes after decades of organizing from SW groups like Triple X in BC and marks an important shift away from person-centered bans. There is still much work to be done to challenge 
• The Federal Government will soon look at addressing online harms and has started working on legislation that will look to address and censor a broad range of virtual content and content platforms. 
• Anti-Trafficking campaigns honed in on adult content platforms and companies, pushing credit card providers to refuse transactions and pushing Canadian officials investigate. The Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics at the House of Commons launched a review specific to Pornhub and Montreal-based parent company Mindgeek.
• The Ontario Court of Appeal rejected a previous finding that elements of anti-S/work laws in Canada put our communities at risk. This undermines much of our work by maintaining the criminalizing areas of our work such as advertising, or targeting clients and third parties does not impact SWs  directly.
• Across Canada we’ve seen an increase in the use of public-health discourses to stigmatize and further marginalize SWs  through the pandemic.This had led to increased scrutiny and policing across our communities, specifically for SWs  navigating multiple forms of discrimination.

Ontario SWs  Are Fighting Back & Showing Up For SWs  In Community

While we’ve seen an uptick in the policing of SW, stigma and discrimination against our communities, across Ontario there’s incredible work happening to show up for SWs  through the pandemic and challenge harmful legislation: 

• Butterfly Asian and Migrant SW Support Network has been leading the challenge against Bill 251- anti-trafficking legislation that expands the powers of police, social service sectors, even hospitality sectors to target, profile and harass people suspected of engaging in SW under the guise of rescue. 
• Our friends at Butterfly are also currently challenging the town of Newmarket’s recent bylaw decisions that disproportionately impact Asian and migrant massage workers.
• SWAP Hamilton recently announced that they will be expanding into their own permanent space to continue providing important services and supports for SWs  locally. 
• SWANS Sudbury continues to provide life-affirming support for SWs  in Sudbury. We partnered with them to distribute emergency survival funds through the COVID-19 pandemic. 
• Safespace London is currently collecting donations to support their work and outreach for SWs  in London.
• Ottawa Independent Companions continues to provide collective space for companions in Ottawa to connect, share resources, support and protect one another. They are currently fundraising for their emergency fund!
• POWER Ottawa provides educational resources to SWs . 
• S/Professionals of Canada builds space for SWs  to network, share resources and learn about ongoing resistance to criminalization.

Find your local SW justice organization here!

What's New at Maggie's Toronto? How We're Working To Meet The Moment Through COVID-19 & Beyond!

At Maggie’s over the last year we’ve been working hard to continue providing pandemic supports to community, expand our programs and services and gradually re-open. The last two years have been an important moment for our organization to re-evaluate our programs and services, work to expand our supports to reach SWs  across industries and step up in the midst of a humanitarian crisis in Toronto to support our unhoused neighbours. Our work over the last year has included: 

• Humanitarian Aid for Unhoused Communities- Collaborating with grassroots organizations and outreach workers to provide basic humanitarian aid - water, masks/PPE, tents, sleeping bags, warm weather gear, etc. to our unhoused neighbors and communities in encampments.
• Delivering Food To SWs  through COVID-19 - Each month we deliver more than 160 fresh food boxes to SWs  across Toronto, including deliveries to community members in our shelter system, in partnership with Foodshare Toronto. 
• Challenging Harmful Public Health Narratives, Political Leaders and Discriminatory Policing through the COVID-19 pandemic by leading on vaccine + booster access for +3,600 people through public clinics, homecare visits and Rapid Test distribution. 
• Expanding our Public Health Programming and Outreach to indoor venues, bars and clubs to reach gay male SWs , Toronto’s ball community and more. 
• Establishing paid consultations and advisory committees for SWs  to provide feedback on their legal needs. Including dedicated space for strippers, trans SWs  and indoor workers. 
• Partnering with lawyers and mental health professioanls to offer pandemic-specific resources to address discriminatory policing, mental health and wellness challenges community experience through the current climate and providing creative outlets such as expressive arts therapy. 
• Laying the foundation for Toronto’s first S/worker-led Case Management Program to launch in the fall. 
• Securing multi-year funding for a SW parenting program that will provide drop-in space, workshops and supports to parents and caregivers in our community. 
• Building our internal capacity, skillsets and readiness for expansion by bringing on an HR Manager, a permanent/FT Executive Director and expanding our staff team while working to model the working conditions we believe all SWs  deserve access to. 

On International SW Day we’re proud to be part of a vibrant and thriving movement for SW justice. While there is so much work to be done to decriminalize SW, we also commit to a vision of SW justice that addresses the impacts of wide-ranging + intersecting forms of discrimination that disporporitonately impact queer and trans, Black and Indigenous SWs  of colour, poor and working class communities, survival SWs , migrant SWs  and others at the margins.