Justice Committee on July 8th, 2014

[Casandra Diamond]

Certainly not. As a matter of fact, their needs are what is important. That's what the purchase of sex is about. The johns are purchasing one hundred per cent of what they want and purchasing zero per cent of what the other participant wants.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Chief Hanson, can you make a comment?

[Chief Rick Hanson]

Our experience is that they will occasionally ask because they know the significant consequences of having sex with an underage woman.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you for those questions and answers.

Our next question is from the Liberal Party, Mr. Casey.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome and thank you, witnesses.

Good afternoon, Mr. Mendes Bota. I'd like to start with you, sir.

In the law we are presently examining, there is a provision that allows for a criminal sanction against those communicating, in most public places, for the purposes of selling sex. Based on the work you've done in Europe, what's your view of criminal sanction against people communicating for the purpose of selling sex in most public places?

[José Mendes Bota]

Hello, Mr. Sean Casey. It's also nice to see you on the other side of the Atlantic.

Well, as you know, in my report I have to attend to the different situations in different countries. I have to assume that the sovereignty of a state decides which kind of prostitution policy it wants, and I have to respect that. But if you ask my opinion and my feeling and my conviction, after all I have seen and heard, I think that all types of advertisement should be criminalized—all types, direct or indirect. On the communication of offering sexual services, of course, if we go with the sense to criminalize all aspects of prostitution, that has to be criminalized. If we go with the sense that we only criminalize the purchase of sexual services, then we are criminalizing only the clients. So that depends on the situation.

Is that what you wanted to...?

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Not really.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

One of the things that you said in your report was that you:

...do not think that criminalising the sale of sex is a valid approach: it risks sanctioning those who are forced into prostitution by others or their personal circumstances, and dissuades victims of trafficking and exploitation from reporting it to the authorities.

That's in paragraph 28 of your report.

The recommendation in your report sets forth best practices not just for member states of the Council of Europe but also for observer states, of which Canada is one. There is nowhere in your recommendations where you suggest that a best practice is to criminalize those who are selling, and that's what we're being asked to approve.

Could you comment on that, please?

[José Mendes Bota]

Yes.

In my recommendations I take the position very clearly in favour of the Swedish model, which criminalizes the purchase of sex. That means an option. I'm not criminalizing the offering of the sexual service. At the beginning of my statement I showed the map of Europe. I showed the countries where it's criminalized. Those are the countries that have more prostitution, that have more trafficking. So it's some kind of hipocrisia. If you go to many of the eastern countries in Europe, you see it's criminalized prostitution, but in every corner, in every hotel, you have sexual services being offered freely, so nobody controls. When you criminalize the women who is a prostitute, you are also putting her in danger.

I believe the best approach is to criminalize the purchase of sex. That was an option, it was a political option, for my part, and that is translated in the resolution. I am suggesting that every member state from the Council of Europe, if they want, and if they decide by their own will and by their own political bodies, should follow the Swedish model.

In case they are not following the Swedish model, of course I have other suggestions. For instance, it was spoken a few minutes ago, and I think it's a very important issue. The minimum age for a prostitute in a legalized system, I think, should not be less than 21 years old. If you legalize prostitutes at a very early age, you are destroying the future of a girl who, some years later, may regret making that choice. The more time they have before entering that activity, the better. I believe that is also important if a country decides to go for legalization, which is not my opinion, but if they decide...later is better.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

One of the things that you talk about in you report, and that you mentioned earlier, was the importance of data collection. What would be your view of a country that is reviewing its legislative regime for the social problem of prostitution that makes no mention, no reference, to data collection in order to be able to measure the effectiveness of the measures in the statute? What would be your view of that?

[José Mendes Bota]

My view is that in either prostitution or trafficking we need more research and we need more data collection. The data collection requires a coherent system of data collection. It's not like a country where every municipality is entitled or not to have data collection so you cannot compare and it's not reliable. So I believe it's important that this research is done and also that the official bodies have the same standards of data collection regarding these types of figures.

But let me tell you, and I think it's important and I profit from your question, that some very important academic research was done recently by the London School of Economics and Political Science, the University of Heidelberg, and the German Institute for Economic Research of Berlin. They studied the available data in 150 countries regarding prostitution and the trafficking of human beings. They came to the conclusion that you have the scale effect. This means that if you legalize prostitution then you have an expansion of the sexual business and then you need more people to be trafficked to supply that scale effect.

But the substitution effect is also true. If you legalize prostitution then you don't need any more of the illegal and trafficked ones. So this would be apparently in contradiction. They came to the conclusion that the scale effect prevails. This means that if you legalize prostitution you will have more trafficked people to supply that industry.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Mendes Bota.

Chief Hanson, do I understand you correctly to say that one of the best ways we can help people involved in prostitution is to give them a criminal record so that will help them out?

[Chief Rick Hanson]

I don't think you're necessarily giving them a criminal record. If it's a summary conviction offence there is no criminal record. Now there is no criminal record. If you're convicted of a summary conviction offence, they do not have the authority under Canadian law to fingerprint or photograph. Without the ability to fingerprint or photograph you don't have any identification of criminals. So in other words, it is a very low level and you still have the criminal conviction but no record.

So what you have is this ability to use criminal contravention to leverage that into assistance for that individual. It's used for all kinds of criminal court processes now, alternative measures, which allows the laying of a criminal charge in such a way that when it gets to court there are many options available that will preclude any kind of a criminal record. That's why we're saying to take the supply side and use this law to assist in extracting those who we know need additional help or assistance or are looking for an opportunity to get out, who we know that if you provide support services to them you are giving them an option to extract themselves from something that's inherently dangerous and unhealthy.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Chief, I'm shocked that you would say a summary conviction offence does not result in a criminal record. It takes five years to get a pardon.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

That's the question and answer period.

Our next questioner is from the Conservative Party, Ms. Ambler.

[Chief Rick Hanson]

A summary conviction doesn't.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses for coming to see us today.

Let me begin, Mr. Bota, by welcoming you and saying that it's nice to see you again. I attended the presentation of your report in Strasbourg, at the Council of Europe. I appreciated that and it's great to see you again and hear about your work and what's going on in Europe, and the comparison. We really appreciate that and it's very informative for our study.

I do want to point out—just to continue with something that Mr. Casey was asking about, just to let this committee know, and those who are watching—that data collection on the numbers with regard to human trafficking are a strong part of the national action plan on human trafficking that was recently passed in this Parliament. Absolutely, we agree that's something very important. In order to be able to understand the issue and to properly legislate, we have to know what the numbers are.

I'd like to ask you, Mr. Bota, about Germany, and the German example, in particular. I wonder if you believe that less regulation in prostitution leads to more or less underground.... I do hear from proponents of legalization. They believe that if it's legalized the government can then tax it and regulate it, and that having it all above board and visible is a result of legalization, and that's what happens when we legalize it.

Do you agree, or have you found, in the German example, that it's the other way? Is it more visible and better for prostitutes? Or is it driven underground and there is more organized crime? Which one is it?

[José Mendes Bota]

Hello, Mrs. Ambler. It's also very much a pleasure for me to see you there. I hope we will see you in the next session in Strasbourg.

About your question on the German case, let me tell you the following. In Germany it's estimated that they have about 400,000 prostitutes working and one million clients a day. These are the estimations. Of course, there is no data that we can be assured that those are the right figures, but one figure is correct. It is that only 44 sex workers are covered by social insurance. That means that they are registered on the official social insurance.

So you see the difference is that according to the law, they should be covered with a lot of health assistance, with social security assistance, to be treated as a business as any others. But the reality is totally different.

The problem in Germany, or one of the problems, is that the regulations should depend on each Länder, so every Länder in every municipality deals with the problem of prostitution with only one concern, which is where they put that activity to make no social effects on the community. Let's say they are choosing the best place where they cannot see, where they cannot hear what's going on there. This is one of the problems, and that also affects the collection of data.

But in reality—and this is also from that study and the research I mentioned some moments ago—it's also proven there that the situation of sex workers decreased in quality, in assistance, in all ways after the legalization. So it was totally the opposite, and the result is that there are 44 female sex workers who are registered on the official social security in Germany.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Thank you very much.

I have what I think will be a quick question for you, Emily. I want to ask you how many sex workers you represent, and if they represent all ages. We've heard the Calgary chief of police tell us that the average age that girls get into prostitution is 13. We've heard Casandra, from BridgeNorth, tell us that there is no safe place to be a prostitute.

I wonder how many you represent and what age range they cover.

[Emily Symons]

I'll start with the first one, how many. It is really difficult to say because a lot of people transition in and out of sex work. We have sex workers who will do sex work when their oven breaks down and they need a new oven, or they might do sex work just at the end of the month when they have bills to pay. So it's very difficult to say.

I will say that we are extremely involved in the sex industry in Ottawa. We have numerous members who are working indoors and they're active on the boards and in “sex worker only” spaces. We have street-based workers, people who do outreach at different drop-in centres in the Ottawa area, so we are very knowledgeable about the sex industry in Ottawa.

I'm not sure what research you were referring to, but when I looked at the research in the factums filed in the Bedford case that showed the average age of entry into prostitution was 13, I actually looked it up in a little bit more detail, and that was research on underage sex workers, so the sex workers who are underage entered at age 13.

Underage prostitution absolutely happens, and I think it happens because of social issues, lack of support for underage workers, poverty, and drug use. These are all social issues that need to be addressed in addition to sex work. As I mentioned at the beginning, we don't want anyone to do sex work when they don't want to do that, and this is where sex work intersects with other issues.

I think often the number of people working in sex work underage is grossly overrepresented.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

If there were 10 in Ottawa, would you want them to be represented, or would you just want that number to be zero?

[Emily Symons]

I'm sorry, I'm not understanding the question.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

I would say that I'm not worried that underage sex workers are not represented by an organization. I'm worried that there are any, that they exist. So while I appreciate that you want to help sex workers do their work safely, I guess I would represent the line of thinking that believes I wish it didn't, that it weren't there. I do understand, and we've heard that this problem will never go away. I think we should work to eradicate it.

I'll ask you the same question I asked another organization yesterday. Is your end goal eradication of prostitution? Or is it more just believing that it will never go away, so let's make it better?