Olivia Cao / Staff reporter
On February 16, a proposed class action lawsuit was filed in B.C. Supreme Court, which wants the court to order criminal records related to sex work removed from police information systems nine years after Canada’s highest court threw out the laws, according to the Vancouver City news article “Proposed B.C. class-action lawsuit seeks permanent deletion of sex-work criminal records.”
The retention of criminal records has deeply affected sex workers, especially for people who’ve moved on with their lives. Based on a CBC news article by Bethany Lindsay, the lawsuit said plaintiff Susan Davis wanted to volunteer for a community policing foundation in 2020, however, she found the sex-work charges 30 years ago still in her criminal record. In fact, these offences that were no longer crimes in 2013 and for which she’d received a pardon.
“Everybody in the community knows that I’m a sex worker — I’m very out of the closet — but I didn’t have any control over the release of that information,” according to Davis told to CBC News.
The record of sexual behavior has clearly affected the normal order of the original sex workers’ life, who now have legalized their work but still have criminal records and probably are not accepted by their communities and friends. Since criminal record checks are required for many employment and volunteer positions, and that the disclosure of sex work records to potential employers, schools and other organizations can harm applicants’ chances. Their right to privacy is seriously violated, since other countries will also have their criminal records, they may be prevented from entering other countries.
Samantha Li, a grade 11 student said, “Sex workers are not criminal now and it is unreasonable to keep it on the record, which can cause they couldn’t belong in the society, and even lead to the mental health problem.”
Just as Li said, keeping a record of sex crimes is not only unreasonable, but also may cause society to discriminate against sex workers. Since there are still many people who believe that the sex industry is improper work, they do not tolerate or respect people who have worked in the sex industry, making it difficult for them to integrate into society and find new jobs. Long-term rejection by the community may also lead them to have nowhere to get help, and even commit suicide. As early as nine years ago, much of sex work was already not criminal, sex workers were also engaged in a legitimate industry, so we should remove the sex work criminal records from police information systems to give the privacy and respect to sex workers they deserve.
Sources:
“Proposed B.C. class-action lawsuit seeks permanent deletion of sex-work criminal records”
“Outdated convictions must be deleted from sex workers’ records, lawsuit argues”
“Nevada demonstrates the impact of decriminalizing sex work”
“One-third of Canadian sex workers don’t call 911 due to fear of police”