You asked a lot of questions.
One of the things about the Netherlands is, for example, they said, well, we're going to better protect these women and we're going to have unions, and we will also put a program into place where women can go if they want to escape prostitution. Women did not line up to go into unions to be better protected. In fact, very few women are in any union, for a variety of reasons, but the largest reason being shame. They don't want anyone to know and they don't want to be registered on a government document as being a prostitute because of the shame behind it. They also are told by their pimps and controllers that they don't want them in any union because they don't want them to have any rights.
The safety issue became a bit of a joke in the Netherlands, for example, when health officials went to some of the brothels and said, gee whiz, you don't have pillows for these women on the beds. The brothel owners looked at the health officials and said, “Are you crazy? The johns might come in and smother them with them.” That was their concern. It wasn't about the comfort of the women, but the very fact that crazy johns could come in and smother them. The working conditions in these places have not changed whatsoever.
On legalization in Canada, if we were to go that route, we would end up with what is in place in Germany and what is in place in the Netherlands, where the communities are now saying, what did we do, why did we ever do this. This is nothing more than adding to the abuse and subjugation of women. That's all it has shown in Germany and all it has shown in the Netherlands. Women who want out cannot escape. The crime element still stays in play because the amount of money to be made on the backs of these women is incredible. The U.S. State Department, the United Nations, the International Organization for Migration in Europe have shown that it is a multi-billion-dollar industry. I think it's around $12 billion to $16 billion as a trade for the criminal element. They're not going to say that they're going to give this up, whether or not it's made legal or illegal. It's third only to weapons and drugs, and probably will one day surpass one of those as second.
On sex tourism in Canadian corporations, one of the things I learned when I was looking at my book coming out in Finland was that there were two corporations in Finland that, as a reward to their top salesmen, gave them sex tours into a very small town in Russia that was a major player in girls being trafficked. This was the reward for their best salesmen. Corporations need to know and need to understand that their representatives represent that corporation, and if they are caught doing these kinds of things, they should be fired. There should be a code of ethics, a code of morality, a code of how you guide yourself outside the country. Many corporations are basically not paying attention to that.
When I was in Costa Rica, I was on the street there, just a basic guy with a hidden camera--the guy didn't know I had a hidden camera--and he asked me what I wanted. Did I want Viagra; did I want some dope; and did I want young women? I said, well, you know, yes. He said, well, the young women are in that club right there, and they were all 18, 19, and 20. I just looked at him and said, well, you know, I want younger, and he looked at me and he looked around--and of course he didn't see the cameras--and he said, what do you mean? I said, I'm into 13, 14, and he went, oh, I'll do it, I can make that happen. Now, I'm a Canadian guy or an American guy, and he just said, I'll make it happen, and he was setting it up. We didn't go, but later we went to a rescue mission in which I talked to 9-, 10-, and 11-year-old girls who were brutally sexually abused and raped by Canadian and American men repeatedly. They're just basically sold out there and there was nothing to protect them.
Sex tourism has really exploded, again because of the Internet, and because there's very little in the way of protections.
We have a law in Canada that says if you go overseas and abuse a child, you can face consequences here. Unfortunately, we don't have any RCMP in those countries to investigate.
They had a very, very terrible case of these people who were going over for sex tours in Finland, and they let all the guys off because the girls couldn't come over from the little town of Dubi to go and testify, so there was no one to testify against them.
Canadian men and American men make up huge numbers of sex tourists going over to places like Thailand, the Philippines, Costa Rica, Ukraine, Germany, or to wherever there are huge sex venues. Somehow we have to pass a message on to corporations to say this is not acceptable behaviour; if you're there on business, this is not acceptable behaviour and you can lose your job.
This will take a real turn of thinking in the minds of men, because this is driven by men. Men have a choice. Men have a choice to say they're not going to do this. Impoverished women and women who are forced into this--by the way, lots are forced into this by intimidation and fear--don't have a choice. They don't have a choice.