Bawdy house battle

Paula Todd, host of CTV’s “The Verdict”, interviewed York law student Ehsan Ghebrai (BA ’05) who is part of the legal team mounting the Safe Haven challenge of three provisions in Canada’s criminal law dealing with prostitution. Ghebrai told Todd: "What we're really saying with this challenge is that there is Section 7 violation of the charter, right to life, liberty and security of the person, because you're taking away those things by forcing women out into the streets in vulnerable positions, and taking away their support.

* When governments are too cowardly to repeal bad laws, the courts inevitably step in, wrote columnist Mindelle Jacobs in The Toronto Sun March 23. Just as judges forced change on the medical marijuana issue, they will hopefully repeal our terrible prostitution laws. Still, the government is too lead-footed to act. So, Alan Young, criminal law professor at York’s Osgoode Hall Law School, and three former sex-trade workers have launched a constitutional challenge to quash the laws against bawdy houses, communicating for the purpose of prostitution and living on the avails.

Just to be clear, Young doesn’t want to strike down the pimping provisions that deal with procuring, exploitation and control, wrote Jacobs. He just wants the section that bans living on the avails of prostitution repealed. Young would like to see the current laws overturned so the provinces and municipalities can step in and regulate what will, hopefully, be a legal activity. “You have murder on one side of the ledger and a big question mark on the government side,” he says. “I’m not saying [the Robert Pickton murder case] wouldn’t happen if these provisions were repealed. But you have to give a sex-trade worker on the street who is exposed to violence...legal options. And there are no legal options.”

* The Edmonton Sun also carried a story on the Safe Haven initiative March 22.

Y-File
http://www.yorku.ca/yfile/archive/index.asp?Article=8163