Most recent articles on prostitution related laws, opinions, comments

canada-man

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VICTORIA - Her typical work day begins around 8 a.m. with a coffee, emails and a sleepy cat on her lap.

“I message people, set up appointments … and probably spend too much time on Facebook,” Cameron Diablo said. “You have to be really disciplined being your own boss.”

The routine is similar to anyone running a home-based business. She advertises, does her own paperwork and monitors what customers say about her services online.

But she works discreetly from home for her safety, not just convenience.

Diablo is a sex worker. She uses a pseudonym and asks her clients to use a specific etiquette when visiting her residential neighbourhood. “If they knock on the front door, the appointment is over,” she said.

Her supplies include condoms, wipes and fresh sheets. Her work attire includes lingerie “and little dresses I would never wear in my real life,” she said. “And instead of a desk in my office, I have a bed.”

Diablo is among some Victoria sex workers and advocates concerned that prostitution legislation introduced by the federal government last month could make her job even more dangerous and stigmatized.

The proposed legislation makes purchasing sex illegal for the first time in Canada. It also outlaws communicating for the sale or purchase of sex services, advertising sex services in print or online and selling sex anywhere children might be present.

As dozens of academics, former sex workers and social organizations testified at a House of Commons justice committee hearing on the bill last week, Diablo shared her concerns at a downtown cafe.

“I don’t understand how it’s going to be better or safer,” said Diablo, who screens clients through her website, via email and by sharing information with other escorts.

“And I worry about my good clients. They’re supposed to be perverts because their wife died years ago and they haven’t had sex?”

Diablo is frustrated by the perception that sex workers like herself are victims or “troubled people who came from awful circumstances.”

She recognizes that trafficking, addiction and exploitation are a problem in the industry, but said the circumstances that led her to sex work were fairly ordinary.

Diablo grew up on the Island. She started waitressing at 15, travelled through Europe in her early 20s and studied social work.

“After being in the service industry for so long, I wanted to do something more intelligent,” she said. She decided to go to massage therapy school but couldn’t balance studies, work and the mounting debt.

“I got sick of calling my parents for money just so I could pay my $800 rent,” she said. After a bad breakup, she found herself on Craigslist looking in Intimate Encounter — a section of the website for people looking for consensual hook-ups. Instead, she came across an ad soliciting sex work.

“We emailed, he came over, and I made a few hundred dollars,” she said. “I had no idea what I was doing but it wasn’t a bad experience. I’ve never had a bad experience. Some gross ones. But thankfully nothing scary.”



Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/me...y+face+bill/10026329/story.html#ixzz37MmL937f
 

GPIDEAL

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Not sure how that would work as they are all independent contractors. What could this union really accomplish? You can't exactly do what unions typically do and ask the owners for higher wages. And the market is so varied between high class spas and low end hollistics. And not all women who work at the low end hollistics can work at the high class spas.
Being independent for now, but they can still try to organize them.

If cash compensation isn't an issue, then fees paid to the owner could be an issue, work hours, or even benefits (force owners to fund pensions too). They can try to organize MPAs using any grievance(s) to galvanize support.

Bill C-36 is an issue that the union can use to garner support for organization.
 
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canada-man

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He offered an ‘honorary’ Medal of Military Valour to Bridget Perrier, co-founding Member of Sextrade101, who supports Bill C-36, with or without amendments to the communicating provision, because of her history as an exploited youth.
that femihag Bridget recently attacked OliviaSP in twitter. i posted the screen shot in a another thread.
 

MPAsquared

www.musemassagespa.com
Justice Committee on Bill C-36 ignored sex workers

http://www.pivotlegal.org/justice_committee_ignored_sex_workers

Written by Kerry Porth on July 14, 2014

On July 8, I made a brief presentation to the Justice Committee hearings on Bill C-36, The Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act. The bill is the government of Canada’s response to the historic Supreme Court decision last December that struck down the three most harmful laws governing prostitution in Canada.

I co-presented with Elin Sigurdson, a lawyer who has been involved with Pivot’s sex worker rights campaign for more than 10 years. Chris Bruckert, a University of Ottawa professor who has researched the sex trade for many years, was on our panel as well.

From the very first day, current and former sex workers and others who spoke out against Bill C-36 have been dismissed, ridiculed, subjected to hostile questioning, and heckled in what should be called the “Shame and Loathing Hearings.” On our panel, Chris Bruckert spoke first from her recent research on third parties in the sex industry—drivers, managers, receptionists, and others. While she was speaking, Elin and I watched the Conservative members as they typed on their Blackberries and gossiped amongst themselves. They behaved in exactly the same way when I read my statement to them.

In my statement, I explained that I am a former sex worker who worked in circumstances of profound addiction, poverty, and occasional homelessness, and that I have worked with hundreds of women in similar circumstances. My voice, and those of other current and sex workers who appeared, should have been prioritized as we have direct experience and expertise to share with the committee about how Bill C-36 will affect sex workers.

Yet not a single question was asked of me.

When my colleague Elin tried to defer a question that was more appropriate for someone with experience in sex work to answer, Conservative MP Stella Ambler looked me in the eyes and said, “We don’t have time for that.”

Those appearing before the committee to speak against Bill C-36 were out-numbered approximately two-to-one by those who support the bill. A full quarter of the witnesses were members of the evangelical community. For a country that is as diverse as Canada, with a long history of respecting a variety of religious and spiritual beliefs as well as respecting individuals who are agnostic or atheist, it is disturbing that one set of religious beliefs were given priority over all others. Furthermore, I question the value of permitting religious- and morality-based arguments when it comes to gathering information on the effects of criminal law in Canada.

Anti-prostitution campaigners, along with victims of human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of children and youth in commercial sex, told disturbing stories of violence and abuse. The tactic of conflating sex work with these human rights abuses is intended to convince Canadians that all sex work is exploitation and all sex workers are victims in need of rescue. It’s a very deliberate distraction from the issue at hand—Canada has good laws prohibiting human trafficking and sexual exploitation and none of these laws were challenged in Bedford v Canada.

Current and former sex workers who do not identify as victims were subjected to intense questioning—during the few times the committee addressed them at all—designed to undermine their testimony. These were witnesses describing the violence and exploitation they had personally experienced as a result of the criminalization of their work, but who wanted to explain why the criminal laws proposed wouldn’t help improve the safety of sex workers. Committee members were dismissive, and our experiences were met by heckles and cries of “Shame!” from anti-prostitution campaigners in the gallery. By contrast, those who support the bill were lauded for their courage in coming forward.

Lawyers and academics who testified against Bill C-36 were treated with disrespect as well, but my colleague Elin, fierce little Viking that she is, had no trouble fielding an intense and patronizing interrogation by members of the Conservative party. Remarkable Canadian academics such as Chris Bruckert and Chris Atchinson, who have researched the sex industry in Canada for many years, were regarded as people who are trying to “make it easier for pimps and johns to operate openly in communities across Canada,” rather than as academics providing their evidence-based comments to the committee about the dangerous effects of the bill.

Sex workers and our allies feel a bit battered and bruised by our experience during those intense four days of hearings, but we are a close bunch and messages of love and support have been flying across Canada.

We remain unbroken and the fight for the rights of sex workers is far from over.

Kerry Porth is the Board Chair at Pivot Legal Society
So much info is coming out about this. This is fucking awful! Our government should be ashamed!
 

shakenbake

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From Austailia

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-20/politicians-on-prostitution-study-tour-to-europe-asia/5333472

An excerpt;

Prostitution is legal in the ACT but Mrs Jones says changes like the Nordic model would not bring about the end of the industry.


"In the countries where this reform has taken place, the industry does not disappear, but it has been reported to reduce by up to 40 per cent," she said.
[h=2]'Nordic model would drive prostitution underground'[/h]But sex worker advocate and Sex Party convenor Fiona Patten says such a model would be a backward step for Australia and drive prostitution underground.
"Effectively you are making the industry illegal again," she said.


"How does that help people working in the industry, by pushing it underground, by making it easier for women to be exploited in this industry?"
Wayne Morgan from the Australian National University College of Law agrees the the Nordic model can be counterproductive.


"In fact criminalising either side of the transaction, so either the sex worker or the client, means that the industry is driven underground," he said.


"It cannot be regulated, proper health and safety standards cannot be put in place, and sex workers of course feel reluctant to go to police or other authorities."
 

GPIDEAL

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One of the associations supporting C-36, REAL REAL Women of Canada, which (in their own words) "is a pro-family conservative women's movement" released earlier today for the media a communique titled: "PROSTITUTION IS A COMPLEX ISSUE, July 14, 2014".

There must have been a problem with it because they took it down - it is currently not linked to anything: http://www.realwomenofcanada.ca/press-room/
http://www.realwomenofcanada.ca/med...-is-a-complex-issue-prostitution-is-an-issue/

However, it is still archived by Google, and here is what I found (which shows the disinformation going on):

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...tution-is-an-issue/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca

'to protect children from thinking that prostitution is easy money'? Where do they get that? Who the hell is trying to promote child prostitution? These are outright lies.
 

GPIDEAL

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Meggan Walker, who testified in favour of C-36, tweeted a statement from Stella Ambler, one of the Tories on the Justice Committee, about witnesses invited to testify by the Liberals and the NDP at last week's hearings:

Megan Walker
‏@meggiewalk
johnsvoice (concerned about johns not women) was NDP witness. #c36 #gocanadianmodel pic.twitter.com/Db4axrrcv7
7:41 PM - 10 Jul 2014


https://twitter.com/meggiewalk/status/487426497267789825/photo/1


She equates pimps with johns, and doesn't recognize voluntary sex workers.

Moralizing and scare-mongering. Might as well call yourselves the Tea Party.
 

DigitallyYours

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Meggan Walker, who testified in favour of C-36, tweeted a statement from Stella Ambler, one of the Tories on the Justice Committee, about witnesses invited to testify by the Liberals and the NDP at last week's hearings:

Megan Walker
‏@meggiewalk
johnsvoice (concerned about johns not women) was NDP witness. #c36 #gocanadianmodel pic.twitter.com/Db4axrrcv7
7:41 PM - 10 Jul 2014


https://twitter.com/meggiewalk/status/487426497267789825/photo/1

For some reason, this release doesn't appear on her website.
 

bobcat40

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Jan 25, 2006
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Well reading her background I question how someone so under qualified is on the justice committee...one would think you should probably have some kind of legal background and education.

She began working summers at the age of 12 in her father’s wholesale hardware business. After earning a degree in psychology at the University of Toronto, Stella worked as an advisor at Queen’s Park. She was a stay-at-home mother for nine years, maintaining her community and political involvement on a volunteer, part-time basis.
 

DigitallyYours

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http://www.torontosun.com/2014/07/15/prostitution-hearings-miss-mark

Prostitution hearings miss mark

And they say summers on the Hill are supposed to be boring.

We’re told that committee hearings are a place for lawmakers to drop the antics of the House of Commons and hear expert testimony. So when a bill on, say, financial matters is before a committee it should be the most boring affair. Picture a bunch of dusty experts rolling out charts that no one can make heads or tails of.

The sign of a properly organized committee hearing is that it’s so boring the rotisserie chicken channel gets more viewers and the journalists who show up are the ones at the office who drew the short straw.

Therefore the opposite rule must surely be that if there’s great public interest in committee hearings, something isn’t quite right about how they’re being done. This brings us to the current prostitution hearings.
After the Supreme Court struck down the main provisions against prostitution in December, the government tabled Bill C-36. The gist of it is that it shifts criminality from the seller to the buyer.

As I’ve previously argued, the solution should be simple: The legislative goal must be to decriminalize monetary transactions between consenting adults while honing the legal and enforcement tools used to double down in eradicating human trafficking, child prostitution and other such egregious crimes.

While clearly many people are forced into this line of work, since I’ve starting writing on this issue many prostitutes have also written to me to say they do their line of work by choice, wish to continue and don’t want their client base made into criminals.

It would be a failure of both conservative ideology and left-wing feminist ideology to say these women just don't know what's good for them. The former, because these are essentially small business operators saying they want freedom from government interference, and the latter, because these are women saying they should be able to do what they want with their bodies.

Yet rather than have a committee acknowledge that this is in fact a legal question about drawing distinctions between consent and abuse, the testimonies would have you believe this is about drumming up sordid tales – and there are many – to see how much it takes to summon a person’s disgust.

Three former prostitutes spoke at committee to weigh in on why they support the government’s bill.

As a QMI Agency story wrote of one, Katarina MacLeod, “Today, she is deeply Christian and says she regrets her past.” MacLeod wrote a column for Sun News Network explaining the sexual acts she engaged in.

It’s a compelling testimony to share with anyone thinking of entering that line of work. MacLeod can certainly play a role in persuading people to change their minds. But her testimony has little relevance legally. So some people didn’t enjoy doing sexual acts for money… well, not many of us would. But some do.

The point of a committee hearing on such a matter isn’t to get all members to agree that something is gross or disturbing or not within the realm of healthy sexual appetite. But that’s what this has become in the public eye.

So some politicians are so upset by all degrees of prostitution that they want to criminalize it entirely (likely making it worse by driving it further underground). But before they do that, they want to chat about all the shocking details in the public square.

This brings to mind when Samuel Johnson had finished composing his dictionary in 1755. A bunch of old ladies approached him to say “we congratulate you on not adding any dirty words,” to which he responded “and I congratulate you on knowing them all enough to look them up.”
 

GPIDEAL

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This is both stupid and ridiculous. How the hell would I know when I invite nude dancers to my home and they entertain me to what limit I can go without breaking the new laws. Do I have to find out in court? And more importantly how the hell would the government or law enforcement know to what extend we would go?. Do they install a hidden camera in my apartment or bedroom? Not sure I need to laugh or cry at the unlimited idiocy of the law makers we have elected. Idiots :(.
Watching a nude dancer or even jerking off to her is not a sexual service (it's not masturbation at a MP). Neither is making a porno, presumably between consenting adults (that's "art").
 

bobcat40

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Jan 25, 2006
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This is both stupid and ridiculous. How the hell would I know when I invite nude dancers to my home and they entertain me to what limit I can go without breaking the new laws. Do I have to find out in court? And more importantly how the hell would the government or law enforcement know to what extend we would go?. Do they install a hidden camera in my apartment or bedroom? Not sure I need to laugh or cry at the unlimited idiocy of the law makers we have elected. Idiots :(.
Well they need to prove you "paid" for the sexual service (i.e. lap dance) directly. If you just paid $300 for dancers to dance in front of you for an hour and the dancer decided to start touching and grinding up on you it would be considered an act between two consulting adults outside the context of a monetary transaction. So yes, this law is stupid and almost impossible to enforce effectively. The real damage is just the "fear factor" for many people that can't afford to even risk a criminal record, even if the change of it happening is 0.00001%.
 
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