Topic: Prostitution

How our law places prostitutes in danger

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Mon, 08/16/2010 - 12:00pm
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By Peter McKnight, Vancouver Sun
 
Calls for a Pickton inquiry are typically predicated on the notion that we lack knowledge -specifically, knowledge about the conditions that allowed a man to prey on vulnerable women with impunity. But what if we knew about those conditions for years and, in fact, created them? And what if it was a lack of will, rather than a lack of knowledge, that prevented us from changing those conditions?
 
There's good reason to believe this is the case, since Canada's prostitution laws have been placing street prostitutes in grave danger for a quarter of a century, and we have been well aware of that for many years. But as a brief review of prostitution laws demonstrates, successive governments have failed utterly to do anything to improve the situation.
 
Prostitution has never been illegal in Canada. From the Prohibition era until the 1970s, prostitution was attacked through vagrancy laws, which allowed police to arrest and charge women who were unable to account for their presence on the street.

Advocate: New bawdy-house law will put sex workers at risk

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Tue, 08/10/2010 - 1:06pm
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By LOIS LEGGE, The Chronicle-Herald
 
Sex workers will face even more violence because of recent changes in Canadian law, says a Halifax advocate for prostitutes.
 
Rene Ross says changes to the Canadian Criminal Code will drive more women onto the streets, where they’re far more vulnerable to abuse and other crimes.
 
As reported by The Canadian Press, the federal government recently increased the penalty for operating bawdy houses, betting houses and other operations. They are now deemed serious offences, punishable by at least five years in prison and included under organized crime legislation.
 
The previous maximum sentence was two years in prison.

Chinese sex workers protest against crackdown

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Wed, 08/04/2010 - 4:03pm
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By Tania Branigan , Guardian.co.uk

A crackdown on China's fast-growing sex industry has prompted a backlash, with sex workers demonstrating for the legalisation of prostitution and an outcry about the treatment of women suspects.

The protest in Wuhan, central Hubei province, is thought to have been the first of its kind in the country. The small group of women asked onlookers to sign a petition calling for an end to discrimination against sex workers and the scrapping of anti-prostitution laws. Read more »

The staggering incoherence of Canada's prostitution laws

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Thu, 06/24/2010 - 8:43pm
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By Mario Canseco
 
A proper legislative discussion on the inconsistency of Canada's prostitution laws is long overdue. British Columbians recently endured the lengthy trial of Robert Pickton, and came face-to-face with the perils of life on the street for dozens of women who were victimized. Just a few blocks away from the Downtown Eastside, purported massage parlours operate in apparent disregard of the Criminal Code, blatantly advertising access to women on the Internet or the back pages of weekly periodicals.
 
Last year, two challenges to Canada's prostitution laws were launched in British Columbia and Ontario. It is the expectation of the plaintiffs that the Supreme Court of Canada will end up making the final call on how our country's prostitution laws should be interpreted.
 
Under existing guidelines, exchanging sex for money in Canada is legal. However, the Criminal Code makes many activities surrounding prostitution illegal, including the public communication for the purposes of prostitution, and owning, running, occupying or transporting anyone to a bawdy house (or brothel). In a 1990 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada called this incoherence "bizarre." Read more »

Montreal police target prostitution

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Mon, 06/14/2010 - 7:42pm
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CBC News
 
Montreal police have announced an action plan to crack down on prostitution in the city's east end.
 
The plan involves targeting potential clients, officials said on Monday.
 
Six additional police cadets have been hired to patrol Ste-Catherine Street East, said police.
 
Officers will also set up roadblocks to hand out pamphlets, warning about the consequences of hiring prostitutes.
 
Most of the prostitutes' clients are not people who live in the neighbourhood, said Montreal police Cmdr. François Cayer.

Needle-drug users and prostitutes report high rate of childhood sexual abuse

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Mon, 05/10/2010 - 6:44am
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Child Abuse strongly linked to drug abuse later in lifeBy Hannah Scissons, Saskatoon StarPhoenix
SASKATOON — Half of those at the highest risk of contracting HIV in Saskatoon have already been dealt one of the harshest blows in life: They were sexually assaulted as children.
 
That's one of the findings of a research project that is following 1,000 injection drug users and sex trade workers in the city for two years.
 
The research — an element of the Saskatoon HIV/AIDS Reduction of Harm Program, or SHARP — is aimed at determining why HIV is spreading at an exponential rate in the city. Saskatoon's number of new cases of HIV per year rose to 94 in 2009 from 16 only five years earlier.
 
Once there's a better understanding of why HIV is spreading, there will be a better chance of preventing new cases in the future, said Mark Lemstra, the lead researcher on the project.
 
"You can't prevent something when you don't know what the problem is," he said. "Two years from now, we want to be able to specifically recommend actions to reduce HIV." Read more »

Law on brothels puts prostitutes at risk

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Tue, 05/04/2010 - 8:21pm
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By: Diane Taylor, Guardian.co.uk
 
The laws governing sex for sale are clear – it is legal for one person to sell sex to another as long as elements including soliciting, trafficking, coercion and under-18s are not involved. However, if sex workers operate together they are breaking the law.
 
During its review of prostitution the government considered allowing more than one person to work together on the grounds that it would improve safety and would encourage those involved in street prostitution to work indoors, making them less vulnerable to attack. Much to the consternation of sex workers and their advocates, the government ultimately decided not to pursue this proposal.

Waitakere City Council on brothels

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Tue, 04/27/2010 - 11:46pm
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Press Release: Waitakere City Council [New Zealand]
 
Waitakere Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse believes central government needs to take some responsibility to help address community concerns about brothels being in close proximity to schools.
 
Henderson Intermediate is concerned about a brothel just across from the school in Lincoln Rd and Ms Hulse says while the business is legal and therefore the council cannot do anything about it she believes it is time for some wise heads to address some of the gaps and issues raised by the school and local community.

French sex workers protest legal brothels

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Thu, 03/25/2010 - 12:53pm
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Published: KVAL.com
 
PARIS (AP) - Dozens of French sex workers proclaiming themselves proud to be prostitutes marched Wednesday to protest a lawmaker's proposal to legalize brothels in France, arguing that such a law would deny them the freedom to work on their own.

A lawmaker in France's governing party has proposed reopening brothels just over six decades after they were banned in order to move prostitutes off the streets and provide them with medical, financial and legal protection.

The protesters say the proposal limits their options to make their own decisions - and are demanding, instead, a repeal of a 2003 law that outlaws solicitation.

Read more »

Prostitution crackdown plans ‘could make matters worse’

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Wed, 03/24/2010 - 11:20am
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ROBBIE DINWOODIE, Herald Scotland
 
A senior police officer has claimed that Labour’s planned clampdown on prostitution may do more harm than good and should be put off for proper consideration.
 
In a setback for the attempt by an MSP to introduce 11th-hour changes to the Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill, Lothian and Borders Police Assistant Chief Constable Iain Livingstone doubted the value of the plans and questioned whether the rushed process of late amendments was the right way to go about it.