Thank you.
Good afternoon. My name is Katarina MacLeod. I would just like to thank all of you for having me here to speak, especially Joy Smith for her fight to bring this here, not only for women like me but also for our up-and-coming generations.
I am a founder of Rising Angels. Rising Angels is an organization that helps women who want to exit the sex trade by offering support and mentoring them. I was trapped in the sex trade for 15 years. In those years, I was subjected to all kinds of different abuse. I was anally raped, spat on, had my jaw dislocated and my hair pulled, was punched, and the list goes on.
I feel it is important for you to know that I was 21 years of age when I entered. I was attending a support group for women who were being abused. In that group, I met a woman who owned a massage parlour. She offered me a job. At the time, I believed I was making a free and conscious decision, but now, on the other side of it, I realize that because of my life prior to entering the sex trade, that just wasn't the case. I had been sexually abused as a child and abused by many men as a young woman, something that clouded my judgment and ability to make healthy choices. I had no sense of self-worth and was used to being taken against my will, so getting paid seemed like a good deal.
I have known and worked with hundreds of girls in the industry, and have not met one girl who did not suffer some form of abuse before entering into the sex trade. If you grow up in a good home where morals and self-worth are instilled into you, or where, if there are forms of abuse, you do get help for dealing with the trauma, you would never choose to sell your body to a man for money. It just doesn't make sense.
I know there are some who claim that this is a choice for them to prostitute. I get that. Five years ago, I would have said the same thing. Because my prostitution was my livelihood, it was my normal. It was all I knew, and I felt I could not do any better. If I had admitted to myself or anyone else that what I was doing was wrong and that it was destroying me, the shame would have taken over and I would not have been able to do what I felt I needed to do to survive and to feed my kids.
I am excited that, for the first time in Canadian history, women in prostitution will be looked at as victims instead of criminals, and that Canada is recognizing that prostitution is violence against women and it's the most vulnerable women who enter into the sex trade. Proposed section 286.1 of the bill will, for the first time, hold the buyers accountable. They will be subject to fines or jail time for buying sex. I support this, because I know that prostitution is about supply and demand, and when the demand is taken away, the supply will follow. I do believe, however, we need to be consistent in the consequences for repeat offenders, and the punishment should be jail time. A person who knows that their actions could cause them to lose their freedom will think twice before committing the crime.
I do believe that in conjunction with the fine for first-time offenders there should be a mandatory john school. I have taught in john schools across Ontario for many years. I can tell you that this fight is about changing the mindset of men. Men truly believe that prostitution is a case of two consenting adults. They have no clue why or how women enter to begin with, or the domino effect it has not only on the woman and her kids but on the john and his family. After I speak in john schools, I have men coming up to me and apologizing, some of them even crying. John schools should be key in educating the men who buy sex.
Proposed section 286.2, “Material benefit from sexual services”, I am very pleased with, because nobody would be able to benefit from selling off another human being. I am concerned, though, that Terri-Jean Bedford has brought forward allowing women to hire bodyguards or drivers. In my experience, these so-called drivers or bodyguards have always been pimps. I'm concerned that this bill will allow an exception for these kinds of services.
There is no way to make prostitution safe. This is what needs to be understood. No panic button, no amount of time, will be able to screen your client beforehand: nothing. Unless you are going to hire a third party to be with you at all times while you are turning tricks, ensuring safety is impossible.
My concern with this is that I have worked in legal brothels and massage parlours. Every time a client came in, I had to pay a fee to the house. To me this is pimping. If you pay someone any moneys for sexual services, they are getting a material gain. I would like to see these owners and operators held accountable.
In the bill, proposed subsection 213(1.1) makes it an offence to communicate for the purpose of providing sexual services for consideration in a public place that is or is next to a place where minors might reasonably be expected to be present. This law will protect our children, because where there is prostitution, then pimps, johns, and traffickers are not far behind.
I know that one of the big arguments against the communication law is that if women could screen their clients beforehand, they would be able to protect themselves better, as if in a short period of time women would be able to determine if their potential client is a psycho or not. This is ludicrous. As children, we are taught about “stranger danger”, but most often the monster isn't a stranger you have to watch out for. Clients I have seen have been stand-up people in the community, but that didn't mean they were not capable of hurting me. It's only when you are alone servicing them that you will truly know their intentions. It was inside legal brothels where most of my abuse from customers occurred.
My only issue with this section of the bill is that, again, the most vulnerable are at risk, and by that I mean the prostitutes who work on the street, because this is how they do their business. You have to understand that these women will not move inside and that most of them have huge addiction and mental health issues. A lot of them are homeless or just doing a trick for the next fix. These women will not be hired or able to work indoors because a lot of them are too far gone. My fear with the way the bill is written is that these women will be criminalized and given fines that they will only have to service more men to pay.
There has to be a diversion program. This is mandatory. It has to be mandatory, like a jane school, which lasts longer than a day. These women don't see the dangers or don't have the ability to care because they are in survival mode. We somehow as Canadians have to help them without criminalizing them because that would just hinder any progress they may have later in their lives. If they are able to exit this life, a criminal record will make it harder for them to return to school or get a job.
In the advertising of sexual services, this section of the bill is a huge success, in many areas. We live in a world where everything is sexualized. You can open the back page of a paper or a magazine and see all kinds of explicit content, not to mention the media and how they play a role in minimizing sexual exploitation of women.
We need this not to be accessible. We need to make a shift in not only society's view of women, but of the up-and-coming generation. The only issue I have with this is how you are going to know it's an independent woman who is posting and not a pimp or a trafficker. You won't. Some of us have been trained on what to look for, like the lingo, the wording, and the pictures. My fear is that if no one is constantly monitoring these sights, no one will truly know.
Lastly, I am encouraged by the government's commitment to allot $20 million for education and exiting programs. If there is one thing I have learned in my journey, it is that it is really difficult to leave prostitution and go back into mainstream society. You need help to relearn things that have been taken away from you. I myself had to learn self-worth, how to speak properly, education, even the simplest way of knowing how to dress. This so-called profession changes your whole makeup, and who you once were is lost. Women who exit need our help and support in relearning who they are and how to be.
Thank you.