TORONTO -- Closing arguments on a decades-old debate are set to start today, with two sides locking horns in the battle over whether prostitution should be decriminalized in this province.
It all started in March 2007 when Osgoode Hall law professor Alan Young filed a motion in Ontario superior court that challenged three key prostitution laws: Keeping a common bawdy house, communicating for the purpose of prostitution and living wholly or in part on the avails of prostitution of another person.
On one side is Young, representing the interests of sex workers who say by decriminalizing these sections of the Criminal Code, sex workers would feel free to go to police if they are assaulted and provide more security measures, thus making them safer.
On the other, represented by the attorneys general of Ontario and Canada, are those who think decriminalizing the trade would make it easier for pimps to victimize vulnerable workers -- the living on the avails charge is often used against pimps and human traffickers, and give the impression that sex work is safe when in fact it will always have its inherent risks.
While prostitution itself is not illegal in Canada, the bawdy house and communicating charges keep sex workers from working inside and outside, said Sex Professionals of Canada executive director Valerie Scott, on the pro-prostitution side.
Asked whether removing the avails charge would support pimps, Scott said: "Pimps want it (prostitution) to be illegal. The further underground, the more control they can have over a woman."
But Evelyn, 22, says decriminalizing prostitution would victimize children who live in bawdy houses as she did with her sex worker mother.
"I've been raped by probably over eight men, over 20 times," Evelyn said. "As a child that had to deal with it and as someone who lived in that bawdy house and living off the avails, I've had nothing but crap happen to me."
TAMARA.CHERRY@SUNMEDIA.CA
