Should brothels be legalized?

The B.C. Coalition of Experiential Communities, which includes male, female and transgendered sex-trade workers, has said it wanted federal support to open a co-op brothel. Spokeswoman Susan Davis said the group was looking for an exemption along the lines given for the safe-drug injection site in Vancouver.

Canadian Justice Minister Rob Nicholson has flatly rejected calls to decriminalize prostitution and dismissed as a non-starter the Vancouver group's hopes of opening a "co-op" brothel in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics to provide a safer working environment for sex-trade workers.

On February 7th 2008, he said to the Commons Status of Women Committee, “We are not in the business of legalizing brothels, and we have no intention of changing any of the laws relating to prostitution in this country.”

Prostitution in Canada is not illegal and never has been. What is illegal is living off the avails of prostitution, soliciting a prostitute in a public place, controlling a person engaged in prostitution, obtaining the services of a prostitute under the age of 18, and transferring a person to a bawdy-house.

Living of the avails of a prostitute means that if the prostitute gives any of her money obtained for her sexual favours to any other person, (other than her lawyer who has been retained to represent her) it is a criminal offence.

Soliciting a prostitute on a street or park or public building or anywhere else where the public has access is illegal. This also includes soliciting a prostitute in a private car that is on a public street. It does not mean soliciting her in a private car on private property, such as a driveway to a house.

Controlling a person engaged in prostitution obviously is directed to pimps, irrespective whether the pimp is a boyfriend or not.

Obtaining the services of a prostitute under the age of 18 is self explanatory.

Currently, it is not illegal in Canada for a man to have sex with a girl who is as young as fourteen years of age although the Canadian government is intending to raise the age to sixteen.

Transfering a person (customer or prostitute) to a bawdy-house could include the use of a taxi or private car and would included the person who retains the services of the driver of either a vehicle and/or the driver himself or herself.

As we can see, if the government permitted brothels to be established in Canada, there would have to be vast changes in our laws as they pertain to prostitution.

For example, the persons operating the brothels would in effect be living off of the avails of prostitution as would the employees (other than prostitutes in the brothel). This would also include public health persons who examine the prostitutes for diseases. Persons operating a brothel would also be controlling the prostitutes in the brothel. This means that these two aspects of the laws governing prostitutes would have to be changed.

There is another factor to be considered. The term prostitutes would also include male prostitutes. So in effect, if brothels for female prostitutes were permitted, brothels for male prostitutes would also have to be permitted.

The Commons Status of Women Committee recommended that federal prostitution laws be amended to stop arresting prostitutes who are breaking the law and start prosecuting only those procuring sex, or exploiting the prostitutes, such as pimps and bawdy house owners. That recommendation won the backing of Conservative, Liberal and NDP MPs, was among more than two dozen the committee made last year after a lengthy study to crack down on trafficking in human beings in Canada for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

Nicholson’s response to the Committee’s proposal was, "We have laws with respect to street soliciting or soliciting in public places that criminalizes completely the activity - the individual that is trying to purchase that service and the individual that is offering it. And those will continue to be the laws of this country."

I agree with his thoughts with respect to prostitutes or their pimps trying to soliciting business in public places. These women have to be protected from these kinds of men. The limits on freedom of expression imposed by s. 195.1(1) (c) of the Code are justifiable under s. 1 of the Charter. Section 195.1(1) (c) is aimed at taking solicitation for the purposes of prostitution off the streets and out of public view and, to that end, seeks to eradicate the various forms of social nuisance arising from the public display of the sale of sex. These include street congestion, noise, harassment of non participants and general detrimental effects on passers by or bystanders, especially children. Some parts of Toronto have been saturated with prostitutes and their pimps accosting citizens on sidewalks. Worse yet, men cruising the streets looking for prostitutes have accosted women going about their own business with comments like, “Hey, Babe. How much do you want to let me fuck you?” Even young girls and old women are accosted in this way.

Liberal MP Maria Minna said later about Nicholson's response. "He doesn't get it. The men don't get charged. Who gets the record and gets thrown in the clink, it's the woman. She's the victim." She was wrong in her statement. Many of the men are charged and the Toronto police force has police decoys on the streets for the purpose of nabbing men who are soliciting the services of prostitutes. I doubt that the women go to jail nowadays but they may be held for a short period of time so that they can be examined for venereal disease or AIDS as they are more prone to getting these maladies than the men since they are having sex with so many men.

Nicholson was joined at the committee by Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Immigration Minister Diane Finley. They described the government's three-pronged approach to tackling human trafficking as prevention, protection of victims, and prosecution of those who coerce others into what has been described a modern day form of slavery.

Day acknowledged that prostitution tends to increase around such major sporting events as the Olympics, but the minister said he does not anticipate a significant increase in the cases of women, children and others being trafficked into Canada during that period. He argued traffickers will be deterred by the tight security, plus strict passport and visa requirements, that go with the Olympics. He also said, "In terms of the actual act of illegally transporting people to the event - we are talking here about the international human trafficking itself - we don't see a significant uptake there."

The question that really has to be answered is; ‘what is really wrong with having legal brothels in Canada?” The advantages certainly will reduce the problems of prostitution facing society at this present time.

As I said earlier in this piece, prostitution is not illegal in Canada. If Canada was to pass a law saying that prostitution is illegal, it would be contrary to Canada’s Charter of Rights which guarantees every citizen, be they male or female, the right to govern their own bodies, for whatever purpose they choose to use it.

Section 7 of the Charter states that, ‘everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.’ Security of the person is a concept so large that the possibilities of its infringement are too numerous to list.

The Law Reform Commission of Canada defined ‘security’ to mean; ‘not only protection of one’s physical integrity but the provisions of necessaries for its support.” I will now deal with the issue of ‘protection of one’s physical integrity’.

The Supreme Court of Canada in 1990 looked into the issue of physical integrity and in the head note of that case, it said in part;

“Section 7 is mainly concerned with the restrictions on liberty and security of the person which occur as a result of an individual's interaction with the justice system and its administration. Section 7 is implicated: when the state, by resorting to the justice system, restricts an individual's physical liberty in any circumstances; when the state restricts individuals' security of the person by interfering with, or removing from them, control over their physical or mental integrity; and, finally, when the state, either directly or through its agents, restricts certain privileges or liberties by using the threat of punishment in cases of non compliance. A generous interpretation of the Charter that extends the full benefit of its protection to individuals is achieved without the incorporation of all other rights and freedoms in the Charter within s. 7.”

What this clearly means is that if a woman or a man wishes to sell the use of her or his body to another adult for whatever purpose they agree upon, it is not the business of the state to interfere. Obviously, I am not talking about selling body organs; I am talking about selling sexual favours, for want of a better term.

I don’t wish to get into the morality or immorality of prostitution as this is not pertinent to this article. The Criminal Code does not attempt, at least in any direct manner, to address the exploitation, degradation and subordination of women that are part of the contemporary reality of prostitution.

What is pertinent is whether or not permitting legal brothels to exist in our communities is really a means that may reduce the problem of soliciting prostitutes on the streets and in other public places and more importantly; bring about the reduction of sexual diseases and AIDS caused by many unregulated prostitutes.

I remember when I lived in Nelson, British Columbia in 1947; there was a brothel (we kids called it the whore house) in that small city. For the most part, the police left it alone. It was not located in a residential area although it was a house. Accordingly, no one complained although I am sure many of the citizens knew of its existence. I don’t ever remember seeing any woman offering her services on the streets of that small city. If a man was in need of the services of a prostitute, he went to the brothel.

I have traveled around the world but I have never used the services of a prostitute or entered a brothel. I am not a prude. When I was single, I had sex with other single women but I took great care to protect myself and for this reason, I have never caught a sexual disease or AIDS. Unfortunately, many men don’t have access to women who are not prostitutes and yet are willing to indulge in the requests of men seeking sexual pleasure from them. If these men went to a brothel where the use of condoms was the rule, they would not get these horrible diseases because these women wouldn’t have them in the first place.

If having brothels in our communities in locations outside residential areas in which prostitutes who are regulated and examined for sexual diseases and Aids regularly will reduce the trafficking of women for prostitution, get them off our streets and reduce sexual diseases, then I am in favour of such so-called houses of ill repute.

And equally as important, is the terrible problem of prostitutes on our streets being murdered by the likes of Robert Picton; the pig farmer and serial killer who murdered and butchered 26 women living in the greater Vancouver area. If these unfortunate victims, of which some of them were prostitutes, had worked out of a brothel, I doubt that Picton (and other serial killers who have murdered prostitutes in the past) would have gotten access to them. These women would probably still be alive at the time of this writing.

We are in a sad state of affairs when you consider that the young women, who were for the most part when they were younger, decent women, have to stoop to selling their bodies in order to pay for the illicit drugs they put into their arms and legs. When we solve that problem, it will reduce prostitution considerably.

However, as history has shown us since time immemorial, prostitution is with us and will always be with us. There are women around the world and amongst us who for reasons only they know, will sell their sexual favours to any man in need of them. I will not fault these women at all. There are men everywhere, who for some reason or another; cannot get sexual release because they don’t have a girlfriend or they are not married or maybe they are so horribly disfigured, a woman won’t touch them, let alone let such a man touch them. I would rather these men go to a prostitute, preferably one that is regulated and examined regularly by a doctor or nurse, than rape a girl or woman to get his sexual release.