My fabulous EFC colleague Julia Beazley had a great op-ed piece run in today’s National Post:
Why is this? Because the violence experienced by women in prostitution is not rooted in the laws on paper, or in how they stand up to a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The violence directed at women in prostitution is rooted in the demand for paid access to women’s bodies — and the fundamental inequality that underlies this sense of entitlement. […]
The violence is rooted in the underlying view among the people, mostly men, that purchase them that women in prostitution are somehow fundamentally different from their mothers, sisters, girlfriends, wives and daughters. This misperception justifies treatment of women as objects to be bought and sold. The very existence of prostitution requires a subclass of people who are available to be bought, sold and rented; people understood to be somehow just a little less equal than everyone else. The Netherlands, New Zealand and Australia have discovered that legalizing prostitution does not change this.
photo credit: Hani Amir via photopin cc
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Julia Beazley writes an accurate piece. Glad the Post carried the story and hope the politicians and perhaps more importantly the media come to understand prostitution violates and de-criminalization would make things worse.
Faye, what is the actual legal situation of prostitution in Canada? I had kind of thought that prostitution itself was not criminal, but solicitation was. I’m starting to think that that is not right.