Sat, January 20, 2007
By DONNA CASEY, OTTAWA SUN
It’s the world’s oldest profession and many experts say Canada’s prostitution laws need a major overhaul to protect the lives of women who sell sex.
Starting Monday, a conference at the University of Ottawa will look at issues surrounding prostitution around the world and in Canada.
The week-long event comes on the heels of a report by a parliamentary subcommittee last month that spent two years hearing from 300 experts but couldn’t decide on how to revamp the country’s archaic solicitation laws.
“We knew this was a traveling roadshow to assuage politicians’ guilt about all the murders happening across the country,” said Valerie Scott, executive director of Sex Professionals of Canada, of the “wishy-washy” report.
Ironically, the U of O conference starts on the same day as the murder trial of Robert Pickton. The B.C. pig farmer is accused of murdering 26 women, many of whom worked as prostitutes on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Sociologists know the causes that lead women and men to sell themselves, but that hasn’t translated into changes on the street corner, in the massage parlour or in the courts, said Richard Poulin, professor of sociology and anthropology at U of O.
PENALTIES FOR PIMPS
Legislators need to decriminalize the work of prostitutes while clamping down on pimps and johns, Poulin said.
“You need the strong, severe penalties for pimps and the clients and finance specialized programs for the women who work as prostitutes,” he said. *( See SPOC response on the above comments by Richard Poulin at the end of this article. )
The conference will also look at the links between teenage prostitution and street gangs and the surge in sex tourism. According to UNICEF, more than 71 million people travelled for sex in 2002, about 10% of all tourists.
While 95% of sex tourists are men who routinely hire three or four hookers during a week-long trip, there’s a growing trend of women from North America and Europe traveling to India, Jamaica, Senegal and other African countries for what experts call “sex romance.”
Next month, the Sex Professionals of Canada will file a lawsuit in Ontario’s Superior Court, arguing Canada’s existing common bawdy house laws — which can evict women from their own homes — threaten women’s safety.
“It’s about time Canada deals with this issue in a mature and sensible manner,” said Scott.
* Richard Poulin’s comments are a classic example of a visceral reaction to the commercialization of sex and devoid of rational thought. SPOC (Jan, 21 / 07)