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Is Prostitution a Business in Vancouver?

Peter Severinson

| July 15, 2009

Image by: Walnet.org

The fight is on in the courts over what we do about the plight of Vancouver sex workers – if anything.

There's been a major new development in what I feel is one of the most compelling social issues of our time: prostitution. A year ago, my feature story on the subject ran in BCBusiness. Since then, thanks to lovely readers such as yourself, it has become one of the most-read articles on the entire site. I point that out not to brag (OK, maybe a little bit) but to show that a lot of people have taken an interest in the topic. So I felt we could all use an update.

The background is that sex workers are getting organized to challenge Canada's prostitution laws, saying these make their work unsafe. And even the people who can't agree about anything else seem to agree that these laws are absurd.

More: Red Light, Green Light: Sex in Vancouver
Stats: Spotlight on Sex Work
Blog: Prostitution: The Truth Ain't Pretty

Vancouver's Pivot Legal Society helped launch a Charter challenge to have these laws struck down, but that was disqualified. However, another big court case in Ontario is now in full swing. (I recommend a search for "prostitution" at theglobeandmail.com for complete coverage.)

The court challengers, all sex workers, are arguing that Canada's laws make prostitution legal but impossible to conduct safely. For example, it is illegal to communicate a transaction involving sex and money in a public place. So for a street-level sex worker to talk to a client legally, she usually has to enter a car first. It's also illegal to run a brothel, which means sex workers can't work in groups under a single roof. Also it's illegal to live of the money generated by prostitution, which outlaws pimps, but also makes it illegal for a sex worker to hire security, for instance.

And so we have sex workers on one side asking for changes and the federal government on the other arguing for the status quo, and a judge will ultimately decide whether we need to overhaul the entire system (after we repeat the process a couple of times in the appeal and supreme courts, of course). But if the judge does strike down the laws, we'll have to redesign how this business is carried out.

But that's the central question, isn't it? Is prostitution a business? Because if it is, in fact, a legal economic activity, sex workers should enjoy the same workplace safety standards as any other profession. One person I spoke to for my article put it this way: you might not like the munitions industry either, but the factory workers making bullets still deserve a safe workplace.

However, according to another perspective, there is no such thing as violence-free prostitution because prostitution IS violence. So from this point of view, the very notion of safe prostitution is a contradiction. And in my research, I never found a clear logical reasoning for this argument. It's like trying to explain why murder is wrong; it just is.

Anyway, this is going to be an ugly, vicious fight that's going to make a lot of people upset and uncomfortable. All the same, I encourage everyone to keep up with the developments in the case and learn a bit more about the topic. This is the province that gave the world Robert Pickton, after all, so let's not turn a blind eye. We've done that for long enough.

Tags

The law against

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 2009-12-21 00:42.

The law against communicating for the purpose of prostitution is an end-run around the constitution, which prevents them from banning prostitution or loitering directly. Telling people for what purposes they may communicate, when prostitution itself is legal, is a serious abuse of personal freedom. Consenting adults should be able to determine for themselves what to do with their own bodies, including their sex lives. This is moral puritanism. I'm embarrassed to live in a society where basic personal freedoms are taken away so that the prudes can be spared the horrible sight of consenting adults hooking up for paid sex.

The law against

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 2009-12-20 00:17.

The law against communicating for the purpose of prostitution is an end-run around the constitution, which prevents them from banning prostitution or loitering directly. Telling people for what purposes they may communicate, when prostitution itself is legal, is a serious abuse of personal freedom. Consenting adults should be able to determine for themselves what to do with their own bodies, including their sex lives. This is moral puritanism. I'm embarrassed to live in a society where basic personal freedoms are taken away so that the prudes don't have to be subjected to the horrible sight of consenting adults hooking up for paid sex.

Hi Peter, To respond to your

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 2009-10-26 08:16.

Hi Peter, To respond to your comments, "But while this question ["Do we want to live a (sic) society and in communities that encourage the sex trade and all the risk factors that come with it?"] is an important one to ask, it's also quite problematic if you think it through. What if our answer is No? Then what? What does that change about how we deal with sex workers and the crimes that are committed against them? Because sex workers are out there, and they are being hurt. What does a No answer actually do to fix that problem?" While I applaud you for tackling the problem of prostitution, I disagree with the stance of turning it into a legitimite business as that would be legalizing violence against women. The "No" answer should be followed up by society's actions to change our treatment of women. If we treat prostitution as a business, then we are decriminalising prostitution which makes it invisible; and thus, an acceptable form of misogyny. "Decriminalisation implies that the "problem about prostitution" is social stigma and needless arrests. In fact, the "problem" is that people in prostitution are raped, battered, and treated like things." (source: "Prostitution is a Hate Crime" w w w.thehousegroup.org/archive/res_hate_crime.pdf - remove the spaces between the "Ws" after you paste into your browser) I highly recommend this short article about prostitution and the physical, emotional, and psychological abuse they face everyday at "work" and why it really is not a business, but more along the lines of physical and psychological torture. The solution to the problem of prostitution is not to legalize all aspects of it in order to make women "safe", which is such an oxymoronic statement. The solution is many fold: 1) Re-educate and teach men, women and children that prostitution is violence against women. (It is not the oldest profession, but the oldest form of abuse. Slavery is just as old and we no longer tolerate it, just as we do not tolerate racism, homophobia, and all hate crimes); 2) We need to help prostitutes by providing them with a home or a safe place; 3) We need to provide counselling to these women. 4) We need to provide job training to these women; and, 5) We need to provide drug and alcohol treatment for these women. To implement these solutions will take time, money, and a whole lot of effort. The easy way out is to classify prostitution as a business because that way we ignore the real problem; why these women fell through the cracks and became prostitutes. Because really, no little girl grows up dreaming of being a prostitute.

In response to: "you might

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2009-10-22 09:56.

In response to: "you might not like the munitions industry either, but the factory workers making bullets still deserve a safe workplace" The factory worker is not required to use their body parts in the production of arms and if they were, irregardless of product, it would be intolerable in western society. Therein lies a difference to significant to ignore and significant enough to find that argument invalid.

From what I can understand

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 2009-10-21 14:18.

From what I can understand about prostitution is ,it be the oldest profesion in the world today and that should give it some status.Lawyers are probabaly the second and oldest and there in lays the problem they make the laws ,defend against the laws ,and prosecute what they deem a broken law I think we have a catch 22 situation that will never have a solution in Canada,.

Hmm. The gov't needs to

Submitted by bgirl.d (not verified) on Wed, 2009-10-21 13:14.

Hmm. The gov't needs to step up. I haven't been checking the Globe and Mail, but I did see a couple of articles regarding prostitution in other local papers lately (24 hrs, province, sun, etc). And I have to admit, the current laws regarding prostitution is nonsensical. The occupation itself? Legal. Everything else about it? Incredibly dangerous if you follow the law. So prostitutes are left with the two options of either risking their lives or breaking the law. I think a brothel with some high-level security is a great idea. It might be tough on the men who'd rather have these transactions occur as under-the-radar as possible, but prostitution would lose some it's negative connotations if STI's weren't so directly linked with it... and brothels could make condoms mandatory -- as well as enforce regular get check ups for the sex workers and providing proper treatment.

When we focus on secondary

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 2009-10-21 12:47.

When we focus on secondary questions like, "Is prostitution a business?" and "Are sex trade workers entitled to safe working conditions?" we forget to ask primary questions like . . . Do we want to live a society and in communities that encourage the sex trade and all the risk factors that come with it? Do we want this in our neighbourhood? Do we want vulnerable youth and immigrants to view this "business" as an easy alternative to furthering their education or seeking other forms of employment? I hope the answer is . . . NO.

Hey. Thanks so much for

Submitted by pseverinson (not verified) on Wed, 2009-10-21 16:23.

Hey. Thanks so much for posting. You pose an excellent question here: "Do we want to live a society and in communities that encourage the sex trade and all the risk factors that come with it?" But while this question is an important one to ask, it's also quite problematic if you think it through. What if our answer is No? Then what? What does that change about how we deal with sex workers and the crimes that are committed against them? Because sex workers are out there, and they are being hurt. What does a No answer actually do to fix that problem? So while it's a very valid and valuable question to ask, the answer to that question doesn't actually give us a lot of practical answers. It doesn't tell us what to do next. I guess that's what's attractive about the idea of treating prostitution as a business: it suggests some real, practical alternatives to how we can reduce the violence suffered by sex workers - something that the opposition doesn't seem to provide. But you're right, we might be paying a moral cost if we allow prostitution to proceed unrestricted. Is it worth it? And if it's not worth the price, what's the alternative? Peter Severinson Assistant Editor, BCBusiness

I can't believe that this is

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 2009-10-21 12:43.

I can't believe that this is even a topic of discussion! 'Is prostition a business'??? GET REAL!

The difference is that

Submitted by pseverinson (not verified) on Mon, 2009-10-19 11:22.

The difference is that selling drugs is a crime. If the government put in place a bunch of rules designed to help people sell drugs, they would be contradicting the criminal law against the practice. Prostitution is not a crime. The problem is that there are so many rules restricting the practice that it is almost impossible to do it without breaking the law. So we have an absurd situation where we have a legal activity that's almost impossible to practice legally. Your comment touches on a very good question: If prostitution is not supposed to be legal, why not make it a crime (like dealing drugs)? But if it is legal, how are people supposed to practice it in a safe and responsible way? That's a question no government has been willing to answer, and in the meantime a lot of sex workers have been killed. That's why the issue is now before the courts. Hope that helps. Peter Severinson Assistant Editor, BCBusiness