Thank you.
Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the opportunity to speak to Bill C-36.
My name is Brian McConaghy, and I come to the issue of prostitution with 22 years of experience in the RCMP and 24 years of directing Ratanak International, a charity that assists Cambodian youth to recover from the abuses of the sex trade.
While in the RCMP, I was assigned files that involved both domestic and international prostitution. So grave were the abuses visited upon both women and children in these files that I was compelled to leave the RCMP in order to serve such victims full time. It is now my challenge and my privilege to do so. I continue to assist Canadian law enforcement in international investigations associated with prostituted children and youth.
Bill C-36 seeks to address some very complex issues, and I would like to commend the government for its efforts to identify those prostituted as victims rather than criminals. I would also support criminalizing those who purchase and benefit from the sale of Canadian women.
I need to begin by stating that I judge human trafficking and prostitution as inseparable and simply different elements of the same criminal activity, which exploits vulnerable women and youth. The separation of these elements I view to be largely academic.
I should also indicate that while there are clear distinctions in law regarding the treatment of minors and adults in prostitution, I view this as a seamless continuum of abuse that runs from the prostituted child, who by virtue of age is deemed incompetent to consent, and progresses into the abused adult, who by virtue of conditioning, addiction, and trauma is frequently rendered equally incapable of informed and considered consent. Thus the issues of minors, while not directly associated with the Bedford ruling, are clearly material to these deliberations.
I would like to address several contextual issues to which Bill C-36 applies.
First is harm reduction and legalization. Those “harm reduction” principles frequently verbalized by those seeking to legalize the prostitution industry are, I believe, misguided. I have not seen any convincing evidence to indicate that women in prostitution will be safer if regulated. If anything, legalizing the sex trade will, if we consider Germany and the Netherlands, increase the size and scope of the trade, leading to more human trafficking, more involvement of organized crime, more prostitution, and de facto more violence.
It is in my opinion foolish to presume that the introduction of regulations to an industry such as prostitution will lead to compliance and cooperation. This is particularly true given the number of minors manipulated into the trade and the number of women struggling with addiction, mental illness, and financial vulnerabilities who are not necessarily in control of their own lives. If prostitution is legalized, I would anticipate that many of these women will fall through the regulatory cracks.
I do not believe that legalization and regulation would have protected the women Willie Pickton picked up who ended up dismembered in my RCMP freezers for forensic analysis. What we learn from the Pickton file and the analysis of their body parts indicates that Pickton was only the last in a long line of predators who had over the years subjected these women to traumatic abuse and injury.
Let us be under no illusion as to the brutality of this industry. Defenceless Canadian citizens are being routinely subjected to great harm in prostitution, and their vulnerabilities are being exploited to the full. I have watched too many evidence videos involving profound violence, degradation, and abuse. I have listened to women and children as they have pleaded for the torture—I use the term advisedly—to stop. I would not wish such videos on any of you.
In this context, the issue of consent looms large. Tragically, some of the victims consent to such bodily harm and physical injury at the hands of johns simply because they are so desperate for their next drug fix. Let us not presume that what passes as consent is actually full, informed consent free of duress.
It is this peripheral violence that the practices of harm reduction would seek to address. However, harm reduction in the context of legalized prostitution would do nothing to address the violence inherent in the central sexual activity of prostitution. It is my belief that such central activity, which is the career of prostitution, does in fact represent violence against women. Harm reduction practices will not protect women from violence if the job, itself, represents violence.
The purchasing of women's consent by males and subjecting them to thousands of paid rapes does violence to their bodies and is profoundly destructive to the psyche. Young women exiting out of enforced prostitution frequently feel suicidal, and they do attempt suicide.
It is interesting to me that I have never encountered a young woman in a transitional program who has attempted suicide because of her memories of beatings, being held at gunpoint, or being stabbed. Invariably, the source of their distress is a profound sense of worthlessness resulting from the repeated sexual assaults that are central to the job, along with constant dehumanizing verbal abuse that undermines their self-esteem and shakes their identity to the core—this is the central violence of prostitution.
If, then, violence is central to the life of prostitution, the only clear way to reduce violence is to reduce the size of the trade. Experimentation in other nations teaches us that legalization will not reduce the harm but rather, by growing the trade, will increase it. In addition, I believe we are naive if we assume the creation of a legalized Canadian industry of sex abuse would go unnoticed by the very large source of demand south of the border. Simple economics will dictate that the demand will be filled with increasingly vulnerable “product”, which will be found within Canadian society. Providing such a market is potentially catastrophic.
On the issue of choice, it is my belief that the law needs to target those who clearly have choice in regard to such harm. Those vulnerable women, both minors and adults, the majority of whom have experienced abuse as children, who are frequently drug-addicted, manipulated, and extremely vulnerable, do not have that choice. However, those with money, careers, and a reputation to maintain; those who kiss their kids goodnight, say goodbye to their wives, get in the car, drive downtown, and choose to abuse a vulnerable woman or girl—these are the ones our laws clearly need to be directed towards. Bill C-36 does this, for the first time, targeting johns and those who would pimp. This represents a major step forward.
As one who has spent far too much time picking through the dismembered body parts of prostituted women, analyzing the nature and circumstances of their brutal deaths; as one who knows first-hand how many years it takes to rehabilitate systematically abused youth; and as one who has devoted his life to the recovery of such victims, allow me to assure you this is not an industry of choice for the vast majority of those prostituted. It is neither lucrative nor empowering for them. It is fundamentally coercive and manipulative. It is abusive, violent, and destructive on every level, and it is deadly. Prostitution and its end game of psychological damage, physical injury, and even death should never be celebrated or legalized, only condemned.
One of the key indicators of a mature democracy is its ability to look past the superficial and move to create legislation that protects the most vulnerable and abused, irrespective of their circumstances or standing in society. In creating this legislation, Canada has moved to protect victimized women, who are frequently not recognized as victims by virtue of their circumstance and appearance. This, in conjunction with a concerted effort to prosecute those who would victimize them and capitalize on their misfortunes, is both honourable and appropriate.
I have two recommendations.
First, I am supportive of Bill C-36, but I'm cautious about provisions outlined in section 213 regarding communication. While I understand the principle of seeking to protect minors in locations where they are apt to be found, I am concerned that under this provision those who are clearly identified as victims elsewhere in the legislation become criminalized for activity over which they may not have control. This provision appears at variance with the rest of the bill and needs careful scrutiny.
Second, the success of the Nordic model appears to be contingent upon the clear commitment to appropriate exit strategies and an equal commitment to their associated budgets. I urge the government to remain focused on this vital element.
To finish, I wish to reiterate my support for the bill and offer my thanks to Minister MacKay and member of Parliament Joy Smith, who have worked so hard to bring justice and dignity to those who need it most.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.