I want to thank the committee for giving me this opportunity.
I would like to convey quite a few thoughts, and I'll be speaking a bit fast, so feel free to tell me to slow down.
I sit here before you as a survivor of 15 years of prostitution from the ages of 13 to 28. For the first six years, I was viewed as a minor in need of support to transition to a healthier life. At midnight on my 19th birthday, I was an empowered woman choosing this, with no regard for my history or the fact that I knew nothing else, like so many others involved in this.
For the most part, you will not hear me use the term “sex worker”, as we do not believe it can be a job. Whether you call it “sex work”, “sugar baby” or “escort”, it all ends in the same thing: acquiescing to men's sexual demands. Men's role as the root problem of prostitution is often lost in all the other noise that goes along with prostitution, and that is the behaviour I want to focus on today, as that was the goal of PCEPA and why we support PCEPA. I encourage you to read the preamble. We find it encouraging and really a blueprint for our country.
I'm from Vancouver. In the nineties, I lost some of my friends to Canada's worst serial killer. We also dealt with other forms of physical and sexualized violence that too many in prostitution know intimately. I want to be clear here. It was not the law and it was not stigma that beat, raped and killed me and my friend: It was men. It was not the location we were in that was unsafe: It was the men we were in that location with that made it unsafe. It was not just one type of man: It was men from all walks of life.
The demand is not for a 40-year-old woman with a degree. It demands a steady stream of preferably naive young women. I know that human trafficking is not the focus here, but to ignore the connection does a disservice to the multitudes of women and girls facing that very real threat. We do not traffick young women for nursing or to be an MP; they're trafficked to fulfill men's sexual demands. If we fully decriminalize or legalize prostitution, we will always have beds that will need to be filled, for which young women are saying, “We'll do that.” If we choose decriminalization or legalization, essentially we are saying, “Yes, we'll always have a place for you to purchase sex.” Do we really want that for Canada, for our girls and our young women?
All this begs the question: How are men being able to pay for sex helping to create an egalitarian society? How does men purchasing sex foster a safer society for all women and girls?
How do I know women and girls aren't safe? Because there are parts of my city—every city—where men they feel they have the right to ask anyone on the street if they're working—grandmothers, teenagers, anyone. If we're even more honest, it's typically the poor and racialized parts of town.
I'm going to go over four quick points in PCEPA and then wrap it up. This is what it says:
Whereas the Parliament of Canada has grave concerns about the exploitation that is inherent in prostitution and the risk of violence posed to those who engage in it; ...Canada recognizes the social harm caused by the objectification of the human body and the commodification of sexual activity; ...it is important to protect human dignity and the equality of all Canadians by discouraging prostitution, which has a disproportionate impact on women and children; Whereas it is important to denounce and prohibit the purchase of sexual services because it creates a demand for prostitution;
This is not about hating sex workers or wanting them eradicated. This is about ending a practice that relies on inequality, sexism, racism, colonialism, mental health issues, addictions and other issues.
We are here to discuss the five-year review of this law, but this law has not been applied across the country in any uniform way. It has not been given an opportunity to create real change or benefit those who need it.
There is no way we can have reliable statistics on the effect of this law when there are some parts of the country that still haven't even heard of it. We need more time with this law to watch it grow, to have it fully take hold and to help change society.
Thank you very much for hearing me out.