Vol 86 Issue 8
The Definitive Source for Osgoode News
January 6, 2014
TERRI-JEAN BEDFORD MAKES THE VICTORY SIGN AFTER HEARING OF THE SUPREME COURT’S DECEMBER 20 JUDGMENT IN
HER FAVOUR.
Many missing voices in Bedford
commentary
SEAN AHERNE-BIESBROEK
Contributor
On December 20th the Supreme Court of
Canada released the Bedford decision, striking
down Canada’s prostitution laws as unconstitutional, suspending the decision for one year. As
an interested law student, I shadowed a member
of one of the intervenors in the case, the Asian
Women’s Coalition Ending Prostitution (“AW”),
at the media scrum on the day the decision
was handed down. AW is a group from British
Columbia concerned for the safety and rights of
Asian women in Canada, and was compelled to
intervene in the case. There is disproportionate representation of Asian women in the sex
industry that is highly visible in Vancouver.
AW expressed concern that Asian women are
especially vulnerable to the sex industry due to
factors such as trafficking, poverty, language
barriers and racism. Furthermore, the group
made it clear that racialization in sex industry advertising reinforces racial stereotypes of
Asian women (for instance, the submissive Chi-
nese doll stereotype).
In light of these concerns, the group
approached the case with a nuanced legal position. They argued the Supreme Court should
consider the sex industry through the lens of
gender and racial equality, given that equality is
a key value of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They ultimately advised applying Canada’s prostitution laws to johns and pimps but
not prostitutes. The position was also shared
by another intervenor, the Women’s Coalition
for Abolition (a coalition that included groups
such as the Canadian Association of Elisabeth
Fry Societies and the Native Women’s Association of Canada). “Prostitution should not be
fully legalized, nor fully criminalized because it
would only exacerbate the equality issues Asian
women and other women of colour face – that is
why we proposed this third option,” I was told
by Sarah Mah, of AW.
As a Vancouverite myself, I am convinced
the disproportionate representation of women
of colour in the sex industry is common knowl-
edge. The racial stereotypes of Asian women in
the sex trade have been the topic of jokes in my
conversations with others in Vancouver. Asian
Women backs their analysis of race and racial
» continued on page 15
In this issue...
Explaining the curve
page 3
McMurtry Fellow David Lepofsky
page 4
New Year’s resolutions
pages 11 and 12
What makes the Western
Conference better?
page 14