The purpose of this thesis is to come to an understanding of the reasoning behind the enactments of Sweden's Sex Purchase law and Canada's Bill C-36. Furthermore, to discuss how the two legislations regarding prostitution have changed the protection for women in the sex industry. The methods used in this study is a Comparative Method, specifically, a Most Similar System Design, and an Argumentation Analysis. These methods are used in conjunction with three theories — History of Prostitution Models, Sociology of Law, and the Paradoxes of Rights. The result of the analysis shows that Canada's Bill C-36 is based on conservative reasoning with a focus on the abolishment of prostitution. The Swedish Sex Purchase law focuses on the criminalization of the purchase of sexual services instead of the seller. They reason that by shifting the responsibility on the purchaser, social norms and stigma regarding sex workers will change.

In 2007, one current and two former sex workers, Amy Lebovitch, Terri-Jean Bedford and Valerie Scott launched a charter challenge, Bedford v Canada, arguing that the prostitution provisions criminalizing bawdy houses (section 210), living on the avails (section 212 (1)(j)) and communicating for the purposes of prostitution (section 213.1 (c)) violated their section 7 rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Six years later, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously to strike down all three challenged laws, leaving a one-year period to construct a new regime on prostitution. On December 6, 2014, the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA) came into effect, criminalizing, for the first time, prostitution in Canada and introducing a law that replicates many of the provisions of the previous regime. This thesis uses semi-structured interviews and qualitative analysis to examine the experiences of nine street-based sex workers in Ottawa, paying particular attention to experiences after the introduction of the new law. Drawing on the work of Mead & Blumer’s symbolic interactionism theory and Goffman’s concept of stigma the thesis examines how embedded stereotypes in legislation ‘play out’ in the lives of sex workers. I argue that the interactions of sex workers in Ottawa are conditioned by stereotypical assumptions which in turn lead to their broader discrimination and marginalization. This study concludes by finding that the first objective of PCEPA, to protect those who sell their own sexual services, has not been met; instead, PCEPA has resulted in street-based sex workers in Ottawa assuming more risk, and in turn, facing more danger while on the job.