The CFLS invites you to join us for our next lecture series event, welcoming Professor Mariana Valverde for a lecture and discussion.
“From bad to worse via a successful constitutional challenge: the tragedy of feminist engagement with prostitution law reform in Canada”.
Well before becoming a socio-legal scholar, Mariana Valverde was involved in feminist efforts to change Canada’s prostitution laws, in the 1980s. In this paper she revisits that experience with the benefit of hindsight and continues the story through the SCC’s decision in Bedford to today, when heavy funding of campaigns against sex trafficking coexist with police and Crown preferences for laying charges under the Harper prostitution laws, not the trafficking statute.
Mariana Valverde is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Her current work in socio-legal studies focuses on urban issues, including municipal bylaws, public-private infrastructure partnerships, and ‘smart cities. She comes to Vancouver to meet with colleagues who are starting work on a three-university research project on universities as settler colonial landholders Dr. Valverde served as Director of the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies at the University of Toronto from 2007 to 2013 and was one of the founders of the Sexual Diversity Studies program. Mariana’s recent books include: Chronotopes of Law: Scale, Jurisdiction, and Governance (2014), Michel Foucault (2015), (as editor and contributor) Smart Cities in Canada: Digital Dreams, Corporate Designs (2020), and (as editor) The Routledge Handbook of Law and Society (2021).
The event will be held in Room 104 at Allard and will also be livestreamed via Zoom. Please email cfls@allard.ubc.ca for the Zoom link. Note that in-person attendees will be required to wear a mask during the lecture. Thank you for your cooperation.
- Centre for Feminist Legal Studies
