An article from todays
Vancouver Sun. (Emphasis mine)
Coalition pushes for legal brothel during Olympics
Ottawa's support sought for safe, prostitute-run facility that would cater to Olympic visitors
Jeff Lee
Vancouver Sun
Sunday, November 11, 2007
VANCOUVER -- A group of Vancouver prostitutes wants to open a "co-op" brothel in time for the Winter Olympics, saying it would help sex-trade workers by providing a safer working environment when the world comes to visit in 2010.
Susan Davis, a working prostitute, said she envisions the creation of as many as five cooperative brothels if the B.C. Coalition of Experiential Communities -- which includes men, women and transgendered sex-trade workers -- convinces the federal government to permit the first brothel on an experimental basis.
The group has support from some politicians, including Vancouver East MP Libby Davies and Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan, who believe a brothel owned and run by sex-trade workers would help reduce violence against them.Now Sam Sullivan won by some very shady stuff by having a candidate whose name was
exactly the same name except he used his full name James Green instead of popular and former celebrated mayor Larry Summers endorsed COPE candidate Jim Green where people thoought they were voting for the COPE candidate but instead voted for
James Green. I don't like the guy, and he wouldn't have been elected if it hadn't been for the multiple Greens who were running.
Davis said the group is weeks away from incorporating a cooperative corporation and is looking for a possible location in the city's east-side Strathcona area. But she said the group won't open the facility, complete with "quickie rooms" equipped with sinks and a bench, unless it has support from the federal government.The Strathcona district is located in the Downtown East Side (DTES from now on) which is the part of Vancouver that is plagued with poverty, homelessness, drug addiction, and prostitution. It's also the area where serial prostitute killer
Robert Pickton picked up his 46 known victims. Opening a brothel there is not going to help anyone in the area.
"What we'd like to see is an exemption given to us along the lines of what was given for the Insite safe-injection site," Davis said.
She believes tens of thousands of men who come to Vancouver during the Games will be searching for sex. B.C.'s booming construction economy has already brought thousands of workers, and along with them, prostitutes, she said.
"Just like the workers are coming from all over the world to build the city, sex workers are coming with them," she said.
Sullivan, who said the city needs a new approach to dealing with the problems of prostitution, doesn't object to the idea of a co-op brothel.Again, Sullivan is an asshole. And rather then try to help the women currently on the streets in a productive manner he's buying in to the misconception that decriminalisation and legalisation *actually* make conditions better for prostitutes, which is patently
false.
But he said he's more focused on helping so-called "survival sex-trade" workers find cures to their addiction.
"I believe we need to keep an open mind," he said. "But I don't believe it would address the needs of the survival sex trade. I don't think a brothel of this kind would even allow women like that into it, because they come with lots of problems."It has been documented that many sex workers
do not start out as addicts, but become addicts to deal with the abuse they suffer because of prostitution.
Goldstein estimated that 40% to 85% of prostitutes were drug users; in addition, he reported that among higher class prostitute women, prostitution tended to precede substance abuse, while in lower class prostitutes, the reverse tended to be true (Goldstein, 1979). James, alluding to data from an unpublished 1976 manuscript, stated that "Prostitution follows addiction in 48% of the subjects, precedes it in 38%, and is simultaneous in 14%" (James, 1977).Opponents of the brothel say it would only perpetuate the idea that prostitution is acceptable, and not solve the abuse heaped on women in an industry most of them don't want to be in.
"It entrenches prostitution as legitimate, and therefore legitimatizes pimps and traffickers," said Daisy Kler, a social worker with Vancouver Rape Relief. "I do not believe the public would agree that this is a good idea, to have some disposable women available for the Olympics."
Last week, Calgary-based The Future Group released a report warning that Vancouver's Olympics will be a target of human traffickers wanting to exploit prostitution. The report, titled Faster, Higher, Stronger: Preventing Human Trafficking at the 2010 Olympics, said the federal and provincial governments need to deter traffickers from using the Games to profit from human misery.
Janine Benedet, an associate professor of law at the University of B.C., said the city already has hundreds of brothels. The only difference is that they operate illegally. Bringing in one for the Olympics, she said, is wrong.
"To the question, 'Is society ready for this?' my answer is, 'I hope not,'" said Benedet, who lectures on sexual violence. "The notion that this is somehow different or better than any of the other brothels out there is simply false."
Studies show more than 90 per cent of women in the sex trade are not there by choice, but rather because of trafficking, drug addiction and societal problems such as incest.
Benedet said the majority of Vancouver's prostitutes are native women, and many of them suffer from deep psychological trauma. Davis said a brothel run as a cooperative would not turn away prostitutes looking for a safe and clean place to do their business.From the article linked to above under the word "false" (though actually on
page two comes these facts:
United States: 56% don't want it legal, 88% want out now.
South Africa: 62% don't want it legal, 89% want out now
Thailand: 72% don't want it legal, 94% want out now
Turkey: 96% don't want it legal, 90% want out now
Zambia: 92% don't want it legal, 99% want out now
Amazing that pro-prostitution people bandy about how "legal" means safer and is what prostitutes want. I'd say that the study shows that prostitutes
*don't* want prostitution to be legalised.
The trial of Robert Pickton, who is accused of the first-degree murder of 26 women, all of whom were either survival sex-trade workers or addicts, amplifies that point, she said. (see above)
"It would be better to be working inside in a bad place than it would be to be outside and getting killed," she said. "Our main focus is to help the adult prostitutes. We're focusing on the Downtown Eastside first because that's where so many of them are getting killed."So why don't we address the real problem: that these women are seen as disposable. Many cities do not even investigate missing prostitutes until the numbers reach the double digits, which shows just how much these women are valued in society, i.e. they have less value then an unprostituted people.
Davis said the co-op has the support of federal politicians, including Davies, Liberal MP Hedy Fry and Senator Larry Campbell, the former Vancouver mayor. Davies said she supports the coalition's idea of the co-op, and also wants to see prostitution decriminalized. (again, see above)
Society's prohibitionist stance against the sex trade hasn't solved the problem that men continue to seek out women for sex, she said. While she is opposed to child prostitution, she doesn't think adult prostitution should be illegal.
"Where there is sex between two consenting adults, even if there is money exchanged, I don't think the state should prohibit it," Davies said. "I think even the police would agree that the current situation is not tolerable, and that we need safer conditions for sex-trade workers."
But Vancouver police department spokesman Const. Tim Fanning said a brothel can't legitimize an industry that completely victimizes women.
"You can call it what you want, but prostitution is just a breath short of slavery," he said. "These women are not in it by choice. The police department would in no way support anything like a brothel."WOOT WOOT! Unfortunately I am shocked that a Constable actually understands what prostitution does to women, but it is a very welcome surprise.
Davis said better "exit" strategies are needed to help prostitutes who want to leave the industry. But she thinks prostitution as a whole should be accepted instead of stigmatized. She said as an example, she services many elderly men whose wives either won't have sex with them or who are widowers and don't want long-term relations.Isn't that sweet. A modern day Mother Theresa. *rolleyes*
But Kler saw Davis's proposal as a thinly disguised attempt to legalize an industry she sees as akin to slavery.
"Fundamentally, it's not the laws that kill, beat and rape women, it's men," she said. "The mantra in this city is that it's safer, it's safer, it's safer. We fundamentally see prostitution as a form of violence against women. If you are coming from a women's equality perspective, as we are, fighting for the equal status of women, we see that there is no benefit to women as a group to legalizing or decriminalizing prostitution." (did I mention that Daisy kicks ass? but then again, Vancouver Rape Relief also kicks ass)
The idea of brothels is not new to Vancouver. In 2005, then-councillor Tim Louis suggested the city should open one to support prostitutes as long as it didn't make money from it, prompting Sullivan, then a mayoral candidate, to say: "The goal should be to help these women get out of the survival sex trade, not keep them in it. I'm running to be mayor to help people, not to get into the business of being a pimp."
But the approach of the Winter Games has brought the issue to the fore again. The Olympics, like many major sporting events, traditionally generate a boost in prostitution.
Victor Malarek, author of the best-selling book The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade, said more than 40,000 women and girls were brought to Athens for the 2004 Summer Games.
For the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, more than 20,000 women were imported. In both countries, prostitution is legal, but the vast majority of those brought in were foreigners from countries like Moldova, Romania and Ukraine.
While Canada's immigration laws and visa requirements will prevent many foreign prostitutes from being trafficked in Vancouver for the Games, Malarek says the reality is that the 2010 Winter Games will be no different than other Olympics.
"You're going to open up a Pandora's box if you allow even one legal brothel," he said.
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, the federal government's senior minister in B.C., and the Vancouver Organizing Committee declined to comment.
jefflee@png.canwest.com (to contact the author of this article)To learn more about what pornography (taped prostitution) and prostitution are really like you should visit (for starters anyway):
Prostitution Research and EducationAgainst PornographyPolaris ProjectFactbook on Global Sexual ExploitationCoalition Against Trafficking in Women InternationalGenderberg
