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Women's shelters from around the world yesterday strongly condemned a Vancouver proposal to set up brothels, an idea backed by MP Libby Davies and other advocates for decriminalizing prostitution.
"Normally we look forward to enlightened policies coming from our neighbours in Canada," said Suzanne Koepplinger of the Minnesota Indian Women's Resource Centre in Minneapolis, who is in Vancouver for a conference on transition houses. "But this is one of most harebrained and knuckleheaded ideas to come out of Canada.
"Anyone who purports to put the veil of decency over a horrible crime is advocating for the brutal subjugation of women."
Prostitution traps vulnerable women addicted to drugs or suffering from sexual trauma into the sex trade and encourages the trafficking of women from countries in Asia and Eastern Europe, she said.
"Let's stop kidding ourselves, prostitution is not a victimless crime," she said, calling it the "world's oldest oppression."
Marai Larasi of the Nia Project in London, England, said experiences in European countries that have liberalized prostitution show that it hasn't reduced harm to prostitutes but instead has increased it.
"It's a myth that prostitution is a choice for women," said Dianne Hogg of Clydebank Women's Aid in Scotland.
Women are forced into it by a lack of job opportunities and available social services, such as affordable housing and daycare.
Jacqueline Gullion of the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres said the goal of her group is to criminalize the buyers and sellers of prostitutes, not the women.
"We are aiming to end prostitution as one element of violence against women," she said.
"We will reject and will interfere with the racist and sexist promotion of prostitution leading up to the 2010 Olympics."
She wouldn't elaborate on planned tactics.
The B.C. Coalition of Experiential Communities, which includes male, female and transgendered sex-trade workers, has said it wants federal support to open a co-op
brothel in Vancouver.
Kathleen Piovesan of Vancouver Rape Relief said it's shameful for Davies to promote brothels and accused Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan and councillors who haven't publicly opposed the idea of "promoting the degradation of women."
Sullivan didn't return phone calls yesterday but has said in the past he doesn't object to the idea.
Davies said she supports women-run brothels because prostitutes face a "dangerous environment" on the streets.
"As long as women are in the sex trade, we should try to make them as safe as possible," she said.
She disagreed that all women are victims in the sex trade.
"There are women there by choice," she said. "I subscribe to the harm reduction view of it."
Susan Lazaruk, The Province
Published: Friday, May 30, 2008
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