Jonathan Spicer
Reuters
Monday, July 09, 2007
TORONTO (Reuters) - As grisly details emerge in a sensational case involving the serial killing of Canadian prostitutes, a group of lawyers is launching a constitutional challenge of the country's prostitution law, seeking to decriminalize the practice to make it safer.
"We call it the world's oldest profession for a reason. It's time to get out of the world of political denial and take care of these people," said Toronto law professor Alan Young, who leads the challenge.
Under the convoluted Canadian law, buying or selling sex is legal, but it is illegal to communicate about it beforehand, live off its avails, or run a private bawdy house.
The group of lawyers and law students -- representing three current and former prostitutes -- will argue in Ontario Superior Court, likely in August, that these three provisions are unconstitutional in that they endanger the lives of sex trade workers.
If you can't talk with a prospective client before entering the client's vehicle, "how do you expect someone on the street to screen a client to know whether it's Robert Pickton or not?" Young said in an interview.
He is referring to the trial of Robert "Willie" Pickton, who has been charged with killing 26 of more than 60 prostitutes who disappeared from the streets of Vancouver, British Columbia, from the early 1990s until 2001. It is the worst serial killing case in Canadian history and includes allegations that Pickton, a pig farmer, butchered his victims.
Young, who has launched similar challenges to Canada's marijuana laws, said the Pickton trial ensures "maximum political mileage."
A scheduling judge will hear preliminary cases this week in the first step of what Young expects to be a legal process that will eventually end at the Supreme Court of Canada. It is unclear how the government will respond to the challenge.
If the challenge is successful in striking down portions of the law, it would decriminalize the practice until new legislation is introduced.
That could bring Canadian law more in line with countries such as Australia, Germany and the Netherlands, where the business and act of prostitution are legal. The United States has a patchwork of laws dealing with prostitution that differs among states, but the practice is generally illegal.
Between 1991 and 2005, there were 116 work-related killings of prostitutes in Canada. Forty-three occurred in the last four years for which statistics are available.
"We've been seeing an escalating murder rate for a couple decades now..." Young said.
"The bigger problem is everyday violence because people have nonsecure settings and no personnel to work with."
© Reuters 2007
RESPONSE
I feel compelled to respond to your article concerning Alan Young’s constitutional challenge of Canada’s current sex laws. I have a particular concern with Young et al’s goal of decriminalizing Section 210 of the Criminal Code, regarding the bawdy house laws.
There is a serious lack of evidence that decriminalizing indoor sex work creates a safer environment for prostituted women. There IS evidence that the sex industry has flourished in countries where brothels have been decriminalized and that this has lead to an increase of human trafficking and child exploitation in those countries. It has also further victimized vulnerable women working for survival who do not fit the mould of a brothel.
It is reprehensible when the deaths of the missing women in Vancouver and Edmonton are used as leverage to defend the decriminalization of brothels. Brothels would be very unlikely to serve survival prostituted women. As has happened in other countries where brothels have been decriminalized, women such as these have been pushed into the illegal underground, have been further criminalized and/or have found themselves in more dangerous working situations than before.
The decriminalization of brothels stands to benefit those in the upper echelons of prostituted women who work indoors. It does not stand to benefit many of the women who find themselves working the dark alleys and streets of the industrial Downtown Eastside.
I would disagree with Young that an activity is deemed acceptable because it is “the world’s oldest profession.” Certainly enslaving humans is a practice that goes as far back in history as prostituting them does, but I would never dream of decriminalizing slavery because of it’s longevity in human history!
With Young, I agree that it is time to “take care of these people,” take care of them by: supporting and funding education and employment strategies for marginalized women, providing more female-specific de-tox beds, facilitating affordable housing, funding long-term comprehensive exit programs and implementing preventative education campaigns. I would disagree that taking care of prostituted persons entails proliferating the sex industry, in particular by decriminalizing brothels. We can do better than that.