Winnipeg moves step closer to cutting ties with body rub parlours and escort agencies
The city could soon cut ties with adult-oriented businesses operating in Winnipeg.
winnipeg.ctvnews.ca
Winnipeg moves step closer to cutting ties with body rub parlours and escort agencies
- Thread starter Claudia Love
- Start date
winnipeg.ctvnews.ca
I think what it means is some cities have been licensing escort agencies like in Barrie Ontario you need a license to escort ...but people are arguing that the city is acting like a pimp and exploiting the workers so now these cities that made by laws for licenses are trying to undo the licensing aspect so the city isn't profiting off licensing fees.
Terrible.
First off Joy Smith is a nightmare for consenting adult sex work. Her religious nonsense has no place in the debate of the legitimacy of adults who choose sex work as a profession. She has been a problem for a long time.
2nd, in many ways, licensing reduces trafficking, underage, and non-consentual sex exchange. Again, nonsense arguments as a reason to rid licensing.
If the city doesn't want to be the guy who collects fees from adults who choose sex work, lower the fee to a dollar. The same backwards logic could say then that all licensing fees are pimping. Alcohol license? Zoning permits? Endless, and ridiculous.
This is a typical ploy by the evangelical right, to pressure politicians, and claim it's in the name of good. Because once they remove the licensing, guess what...magically everyone working legally under said licensing is suddenly illegally operating. But licensing requirements include age restrictions, criminal background checks, medical clearances, and security measures. Wipe those out, and guess who can then infiltrate? Traffickers! Make one arrest after that and the Joy Smiths of the world say "See! Told you! Bad dirty sex workers! Aiding trafficking! Shut it all down!"
This then will push workers into much more dangerous working conditions. And increase the harms they will be exposed to.
They need to band together, and lawyer up, and place equal pressure on policy makers. Lobby. Speak out. Full force.
Terrible Terrible possibility for our fellow province workers.
First off Joy Smith is a nightmare for consenting adult sex work. Her religious nonsense has no place in the debate of the legitimacy of adults who choose sex work as a profession. She has been a problem for a long time.
2nd, in many ways, licensing reduces trafficking, underage, and non-consentual sex exchange. Again, nonsense arguments as a reason to rid licensing.
If the city doesn't want to be the guy who collects fees from adults who choose sex work, lower the fee to a dollar. The same backwards logic could say then that all licensing fees are pimping. Alcohol license? Zoning permits? Endless, and ridiculous.
This is a typical ploy by the evangelical right, to pressure politicians, and claim it's in the name of good. Because once they remove the licensing, guess what...magically everyone working legally under said licensing is suddenly illegally operating. But licensing requirements include age restrictions, criminal background checks, medical clearances, and security measures. Wipe those out, and guess who can then infiltrate? Traffickers! Make one arrest after that and the Joy Smiths of the world say "See! Told you! Bad dirty sex workers! Aiding trafficking! Shut it all down!"
This then will push workers into much more dangerous working conditions. And increase the harms they will be exposed to.
They need to band together, and lawyer up, and place equal pressure on policy makers. Lobby. Speak out. Full force.
Terrible Terrible possibility for our fellow province workers.
Joy Smith is a nightmare I agree wholeheartedly. The only thing I dont agree with is in Barrie they expect an escort to pay 3k for the licences and and 150 to have your ID card. its set up for agencies which is perfect no escort minds paying 150 for her license card. But in order to be indy barrie has set it up that you must buy the 3k license also. I think no massage parlours should lose the licensing . but I do not agree with an indy getting into the biz in barrie needing 3,150 to start.Terrible.
First off Joy Smith is a nightmare for consenting adult sex work. Her religious nonsense has no place in the debate of the legitimacy of adults who choose sex work as a profession. She has been a problem for a long time.
2nd, in many ways, licensing reduces trafficking, underage, and non-consentual sex exchange. Again, nonsense arguments as a reason to rid licensing.
If the city doesn't want to be the guy who collects fees from adults who choose sex work, lower the fee to a dollar. The same backwards logic could say then that all licensing fees are pimping. Alcohol license? Zoning permits? Endless, and ridiculous.
This is a typical ploy by the evangelical right, to pressure politicians, and claim it's in the name of good. Because once they remove the licensing, guess what...magically everyone working legally under said licensing is suddenly illegally operating. But licensing requirements include age restrictions, criminal background checks, medical clearances, and security measures. Wipe those out, and guess who can then infiltrate? Traffickers! Make one arrest after that and the Joy Smiths of the world say "See! Told you! Bad dirty sex workers! Aiding trafficking! Shut it all down!"
This then will push workers into much more dangerous working conditions. And increase the harms they will be exposed to.
They need to band together, and lawyer up, and place equal pressure on policy makers. Lobby. Speak out. Full force.
Terrible Terrible possibility for our fellow province workers.
For those of you unfamiliar with Joy Smith, she is a former Provincial Member of Parliament in Manitoba and a Former Federal Member of Parliament, (Conservative), retired from politics since 2015. She is 74 years old, and currently runs a charitable organization named The Joy Smith Foundation Inc, which focuses on human trafficking in Canada. I think all of the information she knows about the Sex Industry is from The Globe and Mail and the CTV late night national news.
Here are two eye-opening 'facts' from her website:
Is there any rule that would prevent all of the Indy Escorts in Barrie from acting collectively and calling themselves an Agency, with no principal owner? Make one website, and each lady could link their own Indy ad to it. The entire site could be composed of banners; setup would probably take a few minutes.
If a sexworker chooses not to register to maintain privacy or because it’s only a temporary gig then licensing isn’t helping anyone.
The job doesn’t need to be regulated in the way mechanics, real estate agents, doctors or lawyers need to.
The job doesn’t need to be regulated in the way mechanics, real estate agents, doctors or lawyers need to.
She reports $280K as the AVERAGE, not the upper limit.$280,000 annual profit from one victim? That's $765.00 a day, 365 days a year. Interesting math she's got going on there.
When the police department places a value on a weed bust, they assume that the entire volume would be sold on street corners in .4 of a gram dime bags when quoting a street value.
While it is possible that SOME girls are trafficked from age 12-14, That can't possibly be the AVERAGE age of entry into the Sex Industry. Those are 6th grade students. There aren't THAT many missing children in Canada, and most 6th graders aren't allowed out of the house after supper on school nights.
I would be interested in knowing how much coin she is personally pocketing from this farce.
I get the Cops street value drug bust calculation, but not sure how that applies in this situation. And by her calculation, that's $280K profit. How is that even possible?
And yes, I also question the 12-14 year-olds being the average age of those entering the industry.
Both the dollars and ages she's quoting is designed to draw maximum attention, even if they're not true.
And yes, I also question the 12-14 year-olds being the average age of those entering the industry.
My understanding is that this number came from a study that only included minors. Also it is likely that the meaning of average is the most common age, not necessarily the median or the mean.
My understanding is that this number came from a study that only included minors. Also it is likely that the meaning of average is the most common age, not necessarily the median or the mean.
Joy Smith is running a charity, which likely pays no taxes as an entity. It's funded by people who get a tax credit for the charitable donation. She is probably determining how much of the donated money will be her own, (taxable), salary. Her fabricated statistics are likely increasing the donated amounts, as opposed to if the information was true. Provincial government in Manitoba is contemplating legislation changes based on her consultation. I can't be the only one thinking WTF?
Here's simple math with fabricated figures that explain why her 'facts' can't possibly be true:
Let's say that there are 100,000 people working in the Sex Industry in Canada. If half of them started at the legal age of 18, and none began later than that age, that would mean that 50,000 people in Canada joined the Sex Industry at an AVERAGE age of 8.
I'm going to guess that the real AVERAGE age that VOLUNTARY Sex Workers join the Industry is about 23-25, if not older, which adjusts for the many who chose this career path after age 30. I don't think there are ANY women working in strip clubs who are under age 16, but have believable fake identification. I don't think there are ANY MPAs who are less than the same age. This would mean that, in Joy Smith's hypothesis, huge numbers of young people are being trafficked from about age 4 or 5, to come up with a age 12-14 AVERAGE entry date. If THAT were true, a huge percentage of police resources would be assigned to this.
In other words, she is defining the term 'Sex Worker' as any underage involuntary Sex Industry worker, and the government is trying to implement her recommendations for all voluntary workers as well.
I worked for a barrie agency for 15 years. When C36 came into play they shut down. One of the escorts called me and said we can do a collective using one number so there was like 5 of us ladies working together but there was one huge problem one of the ladies who answered the phones started taking all the calls for herself we were under the impression that we would take turns answering the phones and working as a group I was fair in it others were not so its harder than you'd imagine with no manager to set guidelines. Bottom line is this good agencies or good collectives keep the ladies safer than being indy. but in my experience the collective was poorly organized in my experience and it caused everyone to go separate ways. I truly wish c36 gets appealed so agencies have the law in there favour. Idiots like Joy Smith have no fucken idea that reputable agencies are so much easier to work for. I know there are shady places out there but im not talking about those ones. I happened to work for a very amazing agency. But I seee what your saying about getting a bunch of ladies together for a collective and that would cut the cost of 3k for one person if everyone put in there share.
I cant find the link but I read somewhere that majority of woman that start are in there late 20s. its not common at all for 12 to 14 year olds to enter the sex industry unless they are being coerced.
I saw a news story where a reporter challenged an anti sex work activist to tell where they got the statistic of the average age of a person entering the sex industry being 14. They referred to a study done by a university about the age when people have their first sexual experience, which included holding hands. It had nothing to do with the sex trade. This is where the 14 year old statistic comes from.
If the 'Agency' was just a website with banner ads for the members, there would be no phone number.
As far as the licensing fee is concerned, the PRECISE definition of the Word 'Agency' in the bylaw is important from a legal point of view. If the term is specifically defined, a collective would have to conform to the specific requirements in order to qualify. If the word is used in the bylaw, but NOT specifically defined, individuals could define what constitutes an Agency in their own opinion, within reasonable parameters, and the Courts would side with the individuals in a legal case. As Dragline says in the movie Cool Hand Luke, "When it comes to The Law, NOTHING is assumed". This is a big reason why lawyers are involved any time a binding contract or law is written; the EXACT wording is what matters, not the intended meaning. Vague words which can be interpreted to mean different things aren't used, or shouldn't be. A Judge's jobin Court is to allow what has not been legally prohibited.
All LAWS must be published somewhere where members of the general public have the opportunity to read them, if they want to. This aspect of law dates back to The Code of Hammurabi, from about 3,800 years ago, and has been part of every legal code requirement since. Hammurabi published his Code of Law on a large stele, (monument), in the city. Most people couldn't read it, but that didn't matter; they had a responsibility to find out what the laws were, from someone who could read.
I vaguely remember there was 1 or 2 agencies where the phonegirl was also an escort. Clearly, a conflict of interest.
My guess of 23-25 is consistent with the statistic in the researchgate link, which lists a median age of 19-24, (57%). The age 30+ entry group would increase the average more than the 18 and under group would lower it.
