“Re: City of Toronto’s consultation on human trafficking
The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network (“Legal Network”) promotes the human rights of people living with, at risk of or affected by HIV or AIDS, in Canada and internationally, through research and analysis, litigation and other advocacy, public education and community mobilization. We are also a member of the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform, formed in 2012 and composed of sex worker rights and allied groups and individuals in cities across Canada working together to fight for sex work law reform, sex workers’ rights and community well-being. We write this letter to urge the City of Toronto to adopt a human rights-based approach to human trafficking that considers the harms of conflating sex work with human trafficking and sexual exploitation, provides support to people at risk of exploitation rather than employs law enforcement as the method of protection, and invests in social supports and other community-based and sex worker–led services to prevent conditions that allow exploitation to occur.”