For International Women's Day, we wanted to donate $1000 to an organization of YOUR choice. We are very happy to have donated to Project L.U.N.E.
Mission
The mission of Project L.U.N.E is to intervene, support and welcome women/trans/queer, sex workers or victims of sexual exploitation through community action in a peer intervention approach, in respect with a philosophy of empowerment, in order to improve their quality of life.
Accommodation
The L.U.N.E. Project is two types of accommodation drop-in, the first has been open since November 2014 and the second since December 2020. It aims to protect women and also to protect the street.
- 12 places / Open from 6 p.m. to noon (319 Prince Edward Island)
- 8 places / Open from midnight to 8 a.m. (65 Notre-Dame-des-Anges)
Hygiene kits offered
These kits include toiletries for women doing street sex work (TSR) who find themselves in a situation of homelessness. Nearly 80 kits are assembled and distributed by the women involved in Project L.U.N.E. annually. The products contained in the kit allow those who receive them to maintain their personal hygiene while reducing the risk of HIV and hepatitis C infection.
The TDS know what they want and they want transformations. They want things to change. They want to be treated equally as anyone else. They want to be balanced and to be able to carry out their activities freely and with dignity while real injustices are fought and corrected. They want to be able to work safely. They want their decisions and opinions to be respected. They want their work to be decriminalized. We are proud to help change things once and for all.
DECRIMINALIZATION
BILL C-36
Working in the sex industry is not criminal.
You can :
- receive a material benefit in exchange for your own sexual services;
- find yourself in an indoor workplace (home, hotel or living room).
Customers are criminalized.
They can be sued for:
- communicating for the purpose of obtaining paid sexual services;
- obtaining paid sexual services.
The law does not differentiate between sex work and sexual exploitation:
The difference is in consent. Sex workers deliberately choose to exchange sexual services for payment. Victims of exploitation do so under duress.
It is important to keep in mind that like all workers, TDS have good and bad days, that the reasons for exercising this profession are as varied as there are people who practice it. Being a TDS is a choice just like being a convenience store clerk, janitor or waitress.
The allies and peer helpers of the L.U.N.E. actively advocate for the decriminalization of sex work. Decriminalizing means that no more laws would regulate sex work. In the Canadian Criminal Code, there are already all the offenses that people can be charged with and that allow victims to be protected: forcible confinement, sexual assault, assault, etc. Criminalizing sex work puts women at risk and stigmatizes them enormously.
Here are some links for documentation on the different laws:
Organization Chez Stella:
https://chezstella.org/publications/
Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform:
Technical document Bill C-36:
https://www.justice.gc.ca/fra/pr-rp/autre-other/protect/p1.html
Backgrounder on Bill C-36 Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act: