Abstract

The international sex worker rights community has been struggling towards decriminalization of the sex industry since the 1970s. Alongside activist and political work on behalf of the community itself, there has been a plethora of political and academic research from outside the community in Canada that attempts to define the needs of sex workers and make recommendations for law reform. Most legal reform recommendations, however, have not included sex workers' perspectives. In response to this and to the current political climate of Canadian prostitution law review, this thesis highlights how a small group of sex workers inform a political process by identifying their own recommendations for legal reform using through community-based action research. It also provides a privileged look at how sex workers organize around law reform, providing an opportunity for sex workers to participate in an action research project where they construct an ideal model of law reform. In turn, this project initiates an empowered community response to policy reform through research, as is rarely done by communities themselves.