WINDSOR, Ont. – Former escort Valerie Scott has a message for those who believe prostitution should be criminal on moral grounds: Get over it.
On Monday, the University of Windsor’s law school held a panel discussion on how Canada’s Criminal Code endangers the safety of sex workers.
"This really can’t keep going on," Scott said at the faculty of law building.
"If people have a moral problem with . . . the commercialization of sex – sex as a commodity – you need to get over that. Because your moral problem is killing people."
The panelists were: Scott, who is executive director of Sex Professionals of Canada; sociology professor Jacqueline Lewis; lawyer Alan Young; and professional dominatrix Terri-Jean Bedford.
Last fall, Scott and Bedford, represented by Young, launched a constitutional challenge of Canada’s prostitution laws, arguing that the laws deny the security and liberty of those in the sex trade.
Exchanging money for sex is not illegal in Canada. However, doing so in a fixed location is illegal – the offence of running a bawdy house. It’s also illegal to communicate in public for the purposes of prostitution.
The result, Lewis said, is a "de facto form of prohibition" that makes it criminal for sex workers to take measures to protect themselves.
According to Scott, the laws do "the opposite of protection" by pushing sex workers to be "always on the run," plying their trade in "unlit alleyways and streets," making them easy victims for predators.
Scott said the trade would be much safer if the law allowed sex workers to bring clients to a fixed location.
"When I go to his place, I don’t know what I’m going to," Scott said. "I don’t know if there are three guys hiding in the next room."
When the Superior Court of Ontario held a hearing on the constitutional challenge in October, groups such as the Christian Legal Fellowship, the Catholic Civil Rights League and REAL Women of Canada argued that protecting public morals is a necessary part of the Criminal Code.
At Monday’s panel discussion, Young said such groups "have got to grow up a little bit."
"Understand that the law can’t possibly protect every one of your moral preferences," he said.
"There’s a horribly ugly side to the sex trade. I’m not naive. But I don’t see things in black and white."
According to Young, criminal law is a "blunt instrument" that is too cumbersome to deal with a social issue such as prostitution. "If you want to solve problems in the sex trade, you don’t use criminal law."
Young said the current laws did nothing to protect sex workers from the likes of Robert Pickton, who was convicted in 2007 of murdering multiple women on his pig farm in Port Coquitlam, B.C.
Comments