by: Eve Anderson/ February 20, 2010
Lorna Dueck’s Globe and Mail article “Sex For Sale is Hardly Sporting” is misguided and misleading. Click HERE to read the article.
Ms. Dueck fails to make a distinction between adult sex workers and child prostitutes. That she cites a youth exit program worker is specious, as only underage, victimized prostitutes would utilize such services. In “reading between the lines” of the advertisements on Craigslist, Dueck is actually fabricating a demand for underage prostitutes.
The John Howard Society paper Dueck cites, focuses on street based sex work, a vulnerable minority of sex workers. Further, the paper stipulates that treating them as criminals is ultimately unhelpful. Indeed, it is the criminalization of bawdy houses and solicitation which force sex workers on to the streets and limit our colleagues’ negotiating time with clients that make them vulnerable to violence.
Our charter challenge is for decriminalization, which would allow us to support our children and report crimes such as abuse, theft, extortion and rape, without fear of arrest. Decriminalization would not exacerbate trafficking — it would make sex work safer and less stigmatized. Dueck also links trafficked persons with migrant workers, that is to say sex workers who travel to work in Vancouver during the Olympics by choice. Trafficking must be separated from chosen adult sex work, and combated as part of global issues of gender disparity, slavery, child abuse and poverty.