Often times, even in countries that permit prostitution, brothels will be outlawed. You have to ask yourself whether the people who make the laws are actually going out of their way to get prostitutes beat up, raped, and killed.
According to Fast Forward Weekly, Vancouver prostitute, Susan Davis has been raped fifteen times in her twenty four years n the business.
Despite the violent encounters, Davis doesn’t intend to abandon the trade. “It’s a great job,” says the Vancouver-based prostitute. “There’s lots of freedom and it affords me the time to do the political work that I like to do.”
Emphasis is mine. According to the anti-prostitution folks, any woman who claims to be in the business voluntarily is obviously confused. No woman would voluntarily do anything where they faced such danger. They simply refuse to acknowledge any perspective outside of their own.
But, we don’t dismiss a professional soldier’s claim to want to be a soldier, arguing that no one would voluntarily be a soldier knowing they could be maimed or killed. We’d be laughed out of the room as should those who make the same ridiculous claims about prostitution.
While prostitution is technically legal in Canada, the government throws up so many obstacles that the business is tough to engage in safely without breaking the law.
Canada’s prostitution laws are merely “symbolic,” which in essence has resulted in the murder of hundreds of street prostitutes across the country, says Simon Fraser University criminologist John Lowman, who has studied prostitution for almost four decades.
In other words, they can’t just legalize it outright. No, they have to maintain that image of shame and distrust to appease the prostitution opponents.
Davis wants to establish a national industry association to protect workers. “We have the right to form a trade association,” she says. “We have the right to choose employment over poverty and work at jobs that we choose. We have the right to be given tools to make safe decisions in that job.”
Not if the anti-prostitution “women’s rights” organizations have anything to do with it. The last thing they want to see is for sex workers to have the political clout that comes with a high profile trade association. And they sure as hell don’t want a bunch of hookers publicly claiming to like the work.
Co-operative brothels would support localized groups of sex workers and prioritize their needs, says Davis. “I appreciate that no one should be forced to do sex work because of poverty, but people do choose it so we have to ensure they are safe while they are working.”
Prostitution is here to stay. It employs thousands of women who should have the right to exercise their choice to be in that business without fear from crusaders who want to kill them to save them. And make no mistake, those who enlist the power of government to force a woman to work independently, without the protections that come from association with others in their profession, are killing women.
Personally, I wish Susan Davis success with her mission because nothing would do more to counter balance irrational attitudes about prostitution in the U.S. than a successful loosening of laws in our neighbor to the north.