My name is Trisha Baptie, and I want to thank you for inviting me to be a part of this process. I would also like to acknowledge the Algonquin peoples, who are the traditional caretakers of the land on which we stand.
I am here today as a representative of an organization called EVE, former Exploited Voices Now Educating. We are a volunteer, non-governmental, non-profit organization comprising former sex industry women. Our mandate is to have prostitution recognized as a form of violence against women, driven by the demand for paid sex. We seek the abolition of paid sexual access to women's and children's bodies, and participate in political action, advocacy, and public education campaigning in order to pursue this goal.
EVE operates under a feminist model, acknowledging that prostitution is born out of sexism, classism, racism, poverty, and other forms of systemic oppression. Since EVE was established in 2008, members have worked alongside of a wide cross-section of groups—feminists, grassroots, academics, aboriginals, faith-based/community-based groups, and government officials—to advocate for the criminalization of the demand for paid sex, and the decriminalization of persons selling sex.
I am not only here because of my group's vested interest in this topic, but also because I have a 15-year history in prostitution. I was prostituted from the age of 13 to the age of 28. The last 10 of those years were in Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside, the Downtown Eastside where I made many of my dearest friends, some of whom I would lose to Robert Pickton.
I entered prostitution when I was in my first group home after I was signed over to government care. I didn't call it prostitution at the time. I had no cognition that what I was experiencing was prostitution. I knew it was some form of inequality, as I was forced into the situation by a lack of alternatives. But no one stood up for me, no one told me that what was being done to me was not okay, and especially no one stood up to the men and said to them that they were breaking the law.
I had no idea at 13 years old I would be trapped in that world for the next 15 years, working indoors and outdoors, working licensed and unlicensed, preferring the streets of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside to working for someone else and giving my money away. At no point in time did I consent to the abuse I suffered. Consent was not freely given. It was bypassed because johns had the money I needed to keep myself and my family alive. Like so many other women and girls who find themselves in that circumstance, the choice of prostitute was one made under severe constraint. It was a choice between whether my kids would go hungry, or not. To me at that time there was no choice at all.
Money does not equal consent. It temporarily alleviates a dire need, the need to feed children, the need to feed addictions, the need to pay rent. Whatever the reasons, we had to be out there. Men took advantage of that desperation for their own sexual gratification, and used money to appease their guilt.
When Bill C-36 was released, I was encouraged when I read the first section of the summary that dealt with this exact behaviour. As a former prostitute, I'm aware that not every man is violent, but the threat of violence was ubiquitous in the sex industry, as it was impossible to discern which johns would attempt to cause physical harm, and when they might choose to do so. I feel justified in using gender language in this when I discuss my experiences because in 15 years of prostitution I was never bought by a woman.
We were particularly encouraged that the preamble of the bill contained statements like concerns about the exploitation that is inherent in prostitution, and the risk of violence, as well as recognizing the social harm caused by the objectification of the human body and the commodification of sexual activity. These statements are consistent with our experiences in prostitution. These words acknowledge that prostitution is a system based on inequality.
I want to make it very clear that it was never the laws that beat and raped and killed me and my friends, it was men. It was never the location we were in that was unsafe, it was the men we were in that location with who made it unsafe. We are glad to see that this behaviour will no longer be tolerated.
Some people want to make prostitution safer, but I know, we know, that you can't tell whether someone is a violent john until he deals out the first blow. This is true of unfamiliar johns as well as regulars. The claim that a prolonged screening time with potential buyers will protect women from physical harm allows society to wash its hands of the responsibility to take care of the most vulnerable and marginalized. What we demand is not safer, but safe.
The ban on the purchase of sexual services is an integral part of a movement towards real safety for women in Canadian communities. This is how we truly keep prostitute women safe. We do not allow men to buy them.
This policy sets a new tone for Canadians in how men treat and regard women. Canada, in passing this legislation, will be setting a standard for how men treat women. It will create a new social fabric for our young people to stand on, one that clearly says women and our girls are not for sale.
If we stand in agreement with prostitution we reinforce male privilege. We would effectively be saying that we will always have a demographic of women who will be offered up for sale. That notion contradicts the statements in the preamble of this bill that correctly note that prostitution disproportionately impacts women and children, particularly women and children of colour.
We do have concerns about this bill. We believe that section 213, the communicating provision, is redundant, as the culpable party—the sex buyers—would already receive criminal sanction. If, in fact, the government wants to encourage those who engage in prostitution to report incidents of violence and to leave prostitution, as stated in the preamble, the sellers of sex should face no fear of criminalization at all. A criminal record is a barrier to exiting from prostitution as it limits the ability for people in the sex industry to gain employment elsewhere.
We also fear this provision could cause prostituted women to be unduly targeted by their community, reducing them again to the category of public nuisance rather than human being.
In regard to the $20 million, we recognize this is a great start towards combatting prostitution, but we are very aware of how much this is just a drop in the bucket. We need funds dedicated to helping women exit prostitution, help support women until they feel they are able to make the transition to leave, as well retraining of the police about how to implement the new prostitution laws. We also need funds to do public education so the public can understand the changes made to the laws and explain how Canada is on a new trajectory for ending this form of abuse.
We resist the notion that men should be allowed to have sex exclusively on their terms at all times. We need to uphold the idea that mutual desire, comfort, and safety are a requisite component of sexual encounters. Anything short of this reinforces rape culture. For when men pay for sex, it is all about them, and has nothing to do with the person inside the body they are abusing.
We anticipate this law will have a normative function. Rather than give men free rein to ask women if they are for sale, rebrand pimps as businessmen, and attract organized crime, we will send a message that we value the women in our country and will not tolerate this gender violence.
If we want to build strong, safe, happy, and vibrant communities, we must put an end to this form of abuse and injustice. We rally to change male behaviour rather than accept women's subjugation. This subjugation causes physical, emotional, and mental harm for individual women and women collectively. A safe community for one and all is one that does not have prostitution.
