Canada's New Prostitution Bill

[The Intransigent Faction]

What are your thoughts on this, RevLeft?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/prostitution-bill-would-make-it-illegal-to-buy-sell-sex-in-public-1.2664683


The federal government says its proposed prostitution legislation will crack down on pimps and johns, but sex-trade workers say it will criminalize prostitution and land sex workers in jail.
Bill C-36, dubbed the protection of communities and exploited persons act, would make it illegal to sell sexual services in public spaces where persons under the age of 18 could be present. Offenders could face a maximum of five years in prison.
"Today our government is making prostitution illegal for the first time," Justice Minister Peter MacKay said in a written statement on Wednesday.

"We are criminalizing the purchase of sexual services and in very specific instances the sale … in areas where young people under the age of 18 could be present," MacKay said during a news conference after the bill was tabled in the House of Commons.
The justice minister said the bill would target johns and the pimps who sell and profit from prostitution, rather than the prostitutes themselves.
"The bill recognizes that the vast majority of those who sell sexual services do not do so by choice. We view the vast majority of those involved in selling sexual services as victims," MacKay said.
While MacKay said the aim of the bill is not to target prostitutes, he said they could face prosecution if found to be selling their services in public spaces where minors could be present.
"They would face fines in most instances," MacKay said.
The bill, which MacKay has described as a "made-in-Canada" model, would also:


Criminalize the advertising of sexual services in print or online, with offenders facing a maximum prison term of five years.
Increase the penalties related to child prostitution.
Provide $20 million to fund programs to help sex workers get out of prostitution.

Sex workers' safety should be priority, NDP says

The new bill comes just two days after the Justice Department released the results of an online consultation (http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/prostitution-survey-finds-support-for-making-selling-sex-legal-1.2661870) that showed two-thirds of the more than 31,000 respondents said selling sex should not be an offence.
The proposed legislation is the government's response to a Supreme Court of Canada ruling (http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/supreme-court-strikes-down-canada-s-prostitution-laws-1.2471572) in December, which found the country's prostitution laws unconstitutional.
The top court struck down key provisions including laws prohibiting brothels, living on the avails of prostitution and communicating in public with clients, saying the laws were too broad and "grossly disproportionate."
The Supreme Court gave the federal government one year to come up with new legislation.
Katrina Pacey, a lawyer for Pivot Legal Society, an intervener in the case to reform the country's anti-prostitution laws, has concerns about the proposed legislation.
"This is in fact full criminalization of prostitution ... which is going to result in sex workers going to jail."
"The minister has found various ways to limit all of the safe ways for sex-trade work," Pacey said.
MacKay said, "No model that involves full decriminalization or legalization will ever make prostitution a safe endeavour.”
NDP justice critic Françoise Boivin said she had reservations about the bill and whether it would ensure the safety of sex workers.
"That should be our No. 1 priority," Boivin said adding that "I'm not sure this piece of legislation does that."
Boivin said she would study the bill and consult with legal experts and sex workers before commenting further.
Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett worried the new bill would not stand up to constitutional scrutiny.
Appearing on a panel on CBC News Network's Power & Politics, Bennett said, "We're very concerned that it may not meet the test that the Supreme Court put forward in terms of the health and safety of women."
The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police commended MacKay for seeking public input and for providing new funding.
"Members agree that preventing victimization and exploitation of those selling sex, and allocating funding for support programs to assist vulnerable individuals, as well as preventing community harm, are key priorities," the chiefs of police said in a written statement.

[TheWannabeAnarchist]

I think it's bullshit; it's criminalizing prostitutes simply for trying to survive. It's like Russia's anti-"gay propaganda" law: it pretends to be defending children when it's actually attacking victims.

[tuwix]

In Hungary, right-wing administration banned a homelessness. And effect will be similar for such regulations...

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

It's crap, of course. It's bourgeois moralistic bullshit that's just as destructive as drug or alcohol prohibition.

The fact is, if you want things like prostitution to go away, you can't just try to legislate it out of existence. All that does is drive it underground and make the sex workers out to be criminals, without the ability to unionize, negotiate and agitate for better working conditions.

No, if you want prostitution to stop, you have to get rid of the material conditions that makes things like prostitution exist in the first place.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

[Sorry. Double Post.]

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Bourgie moralistic guff that should be fought by any communist.


While MacKay said the aim of the bill is not to target prostitutes, he said they could face prosecution if found to be selling their services in public spaces where minors could be present.

So, pretty much everywhere. And I love the hypocrisy: think of the children! If they see a prostitute they might find out sex exists! And that some people engage in sex to pay their bills. Whereas it's completely normal for children to know that soldiers, that is, people who kill other people to pay their bills, and pigs, people who beat up and kill other people who can't kill them back to pay their bills, exist.


The bill, which MacKay has described as a "made-in-Canada" model, would also:

Provide $20 million to fund programs to help sex workers get out of prostitution.

Probably by teaching them a low-skilled job that won't pay as much as their former profession, probably by force. Hooray for the government that cares.

[consuming negativity]

"After voting on the bill, a large number of the representatives went to undisclosed locations, allegedly to solicit escorts."

[Red Son]

The tradition of flawed legislation designed to 'combat' prostitution continues then. As per previous posts, the solution to ending exploitation is not to prosecute those who are exploited (even men and women who might enter into prositution willingly are if anything more open to exploitation other workers given their enterprise is both illegal and operates in a capitalist system)

[Lynx]

It's the status quo, with flavoring.

[trickster]

Honestly, this is infuriating.

Making sex work illegal does NOTHING to protect sex workers. All it does is make it impossible for sex workers to report when they are attacked and brutalized, for fear of arrest. It enables violent people to take advantage of the underground nature of sex work, and allows them to act out with no fear of repercussions.

Also, we need to stop associating child prostitution with other forms. Child prostitution is terrible and cruel and sickening and it must be stopped, but lumping it under the label of prostitution does a lot of damage. We don't consider rape a different form of sex. We don't consider kidnapping a different means of travel. Child prostitution is sexual assault/rape. It needs to be treated as such, and it needs to be recognized that this is different from legal prostitution.

The other thing is, this bill seems to assume that every person involved in sex work doesn't want to be. This is true for a lot of woman, and if they want to leave the industry, we should aid them in doing so. But some woman LIKE sex work. Some want to be sex workers. I'm sick of this sexist notion in society that says a woman shouldn't enjoy sex for anything other than procreation. I'm sick of woman being told that they need to 'save themselves for marriage/true love', while it's OK for men to have all the sex they want. I'm sick of hearing about woman who enjoy sex being shamed or stigmatized because 'enjoying sex isn't something a lady should do'.

Also, by criminalizing sex work in order to try and 'help' victims of child prostitution or forced prostitution enables those in power to incarcerate victims of sexual assault and rape. I'm not in Canada, but I know in the US there are several states where children can be charged with prostitution, even if they are under the age of consent. I, for one, am not comfortable being part of system that jails victims/survivors of sexual assault for having the 'audacity' to be sexually assaulted. It's sick.

If an informed, consenting, adult woman (or anyone for that matter) wants to exchange the experience for sex for cash or something of cash value, that should be between her and her client or partner. The government shouldn't have the right to tell us what we can and cannot do with our bodies. What's more, is these laws completely ignore the double standards society has about sex work and sex in general. If a man buys a woman dinner and showers her with gifts, and she agrees to have sex with him, that's fine. But if he gives her the money so she can by her own dinner and stuff, that's morally wrong? It's OK to be a sex worker, as long as it's being filmed? So what? It's alright for a woman to have sex for money, as long as she's willing to share the experience with the entire world? Am I the only one who thinks this is a throw back to the whole ideology of women 'owing' men sex? Or of a woman needing to be reliant on a man, with her sole responsibility being to provide for his sexual needs in exchange for him 'taking care of her'?

So yeah. I think it's a bad, bad idea. /rant