Sex Trafficking Survivors United is a survivor-led international organization. Our 177 survivors urge the Canadian Parliament to take a stand against the exploitation of young, poor, and vulnerable by the richer, older, and more powerful. Pass Bill C-36.
As all survivors know, the vast majority of people end up in prostitution because they have no other choice, which only serves to stigmatize and further trap most of the sexually exploited. This empowers their traffickers and abusers while erasing the truth that the exploited are victims of multiple crimes. This is a statement made by our founder, Stella Marr.
According to the Toronto sex crimes unit, the average age is 14. My story, my truth, is a common story. I entered when I was close to 15 years old. I came from a middle class home in the Calgary suburbs. My father was a police officer. My mother managed bridal shops. My seemingly normal life suddenly became unsafe, and I hit the streets. Not knowing where to turn for help, I spent months couch-surfing from place to place, often hungry and scared. I began having sex at an early age, often giving myself away loosely for a place to stay.
I was first introduced to prostitution by underage girls, 14 and 15 years old, and eventually a man who posed as a manager offered me a business opportunity. I introduced my five underage friends into prostitution at that time. We sold sex independently for a number of months. We fought society's stereotypes that we were junkies, criminals, and sexual deviants. We tried hard not to feed those stereotypes by not using hard drugs or having pimps, but one by one each one of us ended up with a pimp and/or on drugs. My best friend was murdered. She was shot in the head by a pimp she only knew for three months who posed as a bodyguard.
While underage we easily gained work in escort agencies, by ads in papers, on street corners, in massage parlours, and while the geographical location in which sex is sold varies, what remains the same is the men who purchase human bodies. The power dynamics do not change. This is a business exchange based on lies and gender inequality and threats of violence. It is often referred to as “the game” because both parties struggle for power and control. For their survival the prostituted people need to feel they have power in the situation, the sex buyers for their own gratification.
Most violence we experienced in prostitution happened after the sex act was finished. Men spent their welfare cheques or their mortgage payments to have sex with me. They used money set aside for their children's birthday gifts or anniversary gifts. When I was no longer a fantasy image to them and the thrill was over, I was just a regular person and in some cases considered disposable to these men.
I met and I was sold with hundreds of underage girls in prostitution. I have counselled over 1,200 prostituted women, trans, and children. Most disclose that they entered into it as children. Child sex abuse occurs when an adult or an older child persuades, tricks, or forces a child into sexual activity. It includes sexual acts, inappropriate touching, showing the child pornography, or involving them in prostitution. It is considered child abuse when an adult has sex with a child or youth. When a child receives money for sex it does not change anything, it is still abuse.
Let's talk about the slippery slope of legalized prostitution and at-risk youth. In 2011 Youth Line website promoted a youth sex worker workshop facilitated by a pro-prostitution group from that you will soon hear from, entitled Hu$tle & Dough: Youth Sex Workers Build Power & Safety! Hu$tle is spelled with a dollar sign. This is a group for those underaged and those 16 to 24. Topics that were discussed included how to be in control while working. Children have little or no control in situations of abuse from adults.
Another topic was how to support yourself financially, physically, and emotionally. Teaching kids how to be sex workers is abuse. How to avoid arrest is teaching youth how to avoid police. How to avoid HIV. I can't tell you how many times I've had a condom pulled off by a john without my knowing, or a hole poked in it, or been offered $20 or $1,000 for a condomless blow job.
This workshop was facilitated by a current sex worker, who herself began as a youth. I have copies of it that I have submitted to the chair.
It is a basic human right for women and children to be free from being sold to men. No child or woman should have to resort to accepting violence for their survival, under any circumstance. It is crucial to note that all but one of the experiential affiants in this Bedford case entered prostitution as children. The other affiant admitted to being coerced.
Considering that most prostituted women and men entered as children, it's fair to assume that many have not had a healthy comparison apart from prostitution. That is why it does not surprise people such as me, with lived experience, that in July of 2012 the Adult Entertainment Association of Canada threatened to recruit high-school students, claiming to help youth pay for university. In reality, they were advocating for an industry that thrives off the male demand for younger flesh for their own personal gain.
Someone who greatly inspired me to be where I am today—a graduate of college and university, a college professor of police foundations for five years, the founder of an organization, and a board member of Sex Trafficking Survivors United—once said to me in my earlier years, when I first transitioned from the sex trade.... I had been out a couple of years, and I really struggled. I blamed myself for a lot of the experiences that I had endured. She said to me, “For something to be a real choice, you need to have another option of equal or greater value”.
There's no job description that could accurately portray my experiences in prostitution. I have sold sex independently, and I have been forced by so-called bodyguards. My pimp was shot while protecting me from another pimp. He also stabbed another man seven times, who had harmed me. He hung this over my head, making me believe that I owed him my life for this protection. My pimp burned me with cigarettes, broke my bones, and brutally beat me on a regular basis. I was trained not to call the police. I listened, out of fear of losing work, the only work that I knew.
It was not the laws that hindered me from calling the police. It was the pimps and the owners of bawdy houses, who did not want the police attention of their establishments that would chase the sex buyers away. We were labelled rats and snitches when we went to the police. Therefore, we dealt with violent matters internally.
A prostituted woman was killed in Germany in a brothel this month, and it was the 22nd murder since the complete legalization of prostitution in 2002. Whereas, in Sweden, where the Nordic model passed in 1999, the only murder of a prostituted woman was in 2013, and it is not clear whether it was prostitution related.
Sex Trafficking Survivors United recommends that the government raise the $20 million allocated to help survivor-led organizations such as ourselves help the people, our sisters, exit from this dangerous, dark, and lucrative underground industry.
We recommend that section 213 be revisited and all criminalization of prostituted people be removed. Women who are unable to adequately protect themselves or their own children are not in a position to protect children in the communities.
I have provided more details in our brief, submitted in partnership with the London Abused Women's Centre. You'll hear from the director there on another day.
I'd like to give thanks on behalf of all survivors around the world who are in support of this bill. We recognize the historic significance of the government in recognizing this form of male violence against prostituted people. It is clear from the evidence I have presented today that the government is on the right track to protecting our most vulnerable in society. For that, survivors around the world are most grateful.
I would like to personally extend my deepest gratitude to MP Joy Smith and Minister Peter MacKay for listening to survivors. There's a reason that so many of us are exposing prostitution.
Thank you.