Thank you.
One of CATHII's priorities is to examine demand. It must be understood that prostitution and trafficking are organized, developed and directed on the basis of demand by clients, who are increasingly called prostituting clients. I am starting a research project at the University of Ottawa as part of a post-doctoral fellowship funded by CATHII. It's a project on prostitution clients in Quebec.
Many researchers agree that prostituting clients are the driver of the sex industry. Without that demand, the increasing entry of women and young girls into prostitution would not be necessary. It's from this standpoint that trafficking in human beings for purposes of prostitution must be understood.
The express demand by Canadian men for so-called exotic women and young girls, particularly Asians and Russians, who work in massage parlours and escort agencies of the major Canadian cities, explains the organized importing, not only internationally but locally as well, of women and young girls into the Canadian sex industry.
I said local organization because the demand for what is called exotic women is also one of the reasons why Quebeckers go to strip bars in Ontario. This is what's called domestic or internal trafficking. The lack of visibility of prostituting clients in the debate on trafficking in human beings for purposes of prostitution and prostitution is surprising. They represent at least 90% of the prostitution world.
This silence and lack of visibility, however, are relative. In the many forums conducted on Canadian Web sites promoting prostitution, prostituting clients exchange advice and experience about their purchases: breast size, firmness of buttocks, skin colour, diligence on the job, techniques used, eagerness to please. All the women's “qualities” are discussed, then carefully given a dollar value. In these e-mail exchanges, racial stereotypes are legion: Thai masseuses are the best, Asians are the gentlest but can also be cheapskates, and the Russians love it. The arrival of new products, that is new women, is always good news that prostituting clients are quick to spread through these forums.
The presence of women and young girls recruited and transported from outside Canada to meet Canadian demand is one aspect of the sex industry. In our view, it is incorrect to believe that decriminalizing prostitution would put a stop to trafficking in human beings, quite the contrary. In all countries where the sex industry has been given the green light, trafficking in women has increased. The more you trivialize the buying of women, the more normal the merchandising of women becomes; the more the sex industry advertises in the newspaper classifieds, on the Internet or in the yellow pages, the more Canadian society in general, and men in particular, learn to think that paying for a woman to submit to their desires is normal, indeed even desirable.
The act of prostitution cannot in any case be considered an exchange between two consenting adults. In Web exchanges between prostituting clients, women are rarely mentioned as full-fledged individuals, but rather as body parts or an ability to please. What clients are buying is the opportunity and the right to subject a woman to their own desires. They're paying for someone to tell them yes. However, women's right to say no has been and still is a major demand of the feminist movement.
It therefore seems false to draw a distinction between voluntary and forced prostitution, the latter being trafficking in human beings and the prostitution of minors. Women victims of trafficking for purposes of prostitution find themselves in the sex industry in Canada. They're in contact with Canadian women. Whether they come from Montreal, a native reserve or China, these women all wind up together in the sex industry to meet the demand of Canadian men. It's pointless to claim that these are two separate realities. Some international experts whose work concerns trafficking in human beings for purposes of prostitution sometimes go so far as to say that trafficking victims are treated better than the women of the destination country. On this point, we recently learned that Quebec women, for example, could be chained in rooms, living in situations similar to slavery. And yet here we're talking about Quebec women.
Drawing a distinction between voluntary and forced prostitution is tantamount to focusing all the analysis and understanding of prostitution on women, without every questioning what clients want, express and do when they base their sexual desires on submission and violence.