By MINDELLE JACOBS
EDMONTON SUN
March 23, 2007
When governments are too cowardly to repeal bad laws, the courts inevitably step in. Just as judges forced change on the medical marijuana issue, they will hopefully repeal our terrible prostitution laws.
Over the past couple of decades, government committees, independent experts and assorted advocacy organizations have recommended that our useless — and dangerous — prostitution laws be overturned.
Such diverse voices as the Canadian Medical Association Journal, the HIV/AIDS Legal Network and an RCMP-commissioned report have pleaded for change.
Even public opinion polls have indicated Canadians want prostitution legalized.
On this issue, however, federal politicians have steadfastly kept their heads buried in the sand. The thinking seems to be if the government continues to ignore the problem, it will eventually go away.
Unfortunately, it’s impossible to sweep the disappearance and murder of dozens of prostitutes under the rug. When only the occasional sex-trade worker was being killed in the 1970s and early 1980s, it was easy to look the other way.
But with the Robert Pickton case dominating the news and Project Kare investigating the disappearance of scores of Alberta prostitutes, continuing to deny the link between our laws and the danger faced by hookers is absurd.
Still, the government is too lead-footed to act. So York University law professor Alan Young 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. He just wants the section that bans living on the avails of prostitution repealed.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.
While the Supreme Court of Canada upheld our prostitution laws in 1990, there has been compelling evidence since then that not only is the law not achieving its objective, it’s placing prostitutes in grave danger, says Young.
“You have murder on one side of the ledger and a big question mark on the government side,” he says.
“You have to give a sex-trade worker on the street who is exposed to violence . . . legal options. And there are no legal options.”
There are some people who are of the view that prostitution is degrading and hookers get what they deserve, he says.
But he suspects there are lots of Canadians who, even if they dislike prostitution, believe the state shouldn’t be implementing anti-prostitution laws that endanger so many lives.
Prostitution, itself, is legal in Canada, remember. But our laws, especially the communicating provision enacted in 1985, make it virtually impossible for sex-trade workers to safely go about this supposedly legal activity.
Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks couldn’t have dreamed up such legal hypocrisy.
There were few prostitute murders before 1985, notes John Lowman, a Simon Fraser University criminologist who is filing an affidavit in support of Young’s constitutional challenge.
But between 1985 and 1994, 46 prostitutes were killed in B.C. He estimates about 50 were killed in that province between 1995 and 1999.
For years, police, politicians and neighhbourhood groups have emphasized the need to get rid of hookers, adds Lowman.
“(The communication law) gave serial killers just more justification to go and do exactly that.”