Up to 95 per cent of prostitutes are vulnerable women who would gladly leave their tawdry profession if they could, an Ontario prosecutor told a landmark prostitution appeal Tuesday.
“It is not a voluntary choice, but a highly constrained choice,” Crown counsel Christine Bartlett-Hughes told a five-judge Ontario Court of Appeal panel that will decide the fate of the prostitution laws.
“We recognize that there are certain individuals that choose this activity,” Ms. Bartlett-Hughes added. “But nevertheless, Parliament is entitled to legislate to protect those who are most vulnerable.”
Ms. Bartlett-Hughes conceded that the laws can make it more difficult for prostitutes to protect themselves from violent customers. However, she told the judges there is no proof that decriminalizing prostitution and moving prostitutes off the streets into brothels will make them substantially safer.
In fact, she said, it is far from clear that legalizing brothels will have any effect whatsoever on the number of street prostitutes in the country.
The federal and Ontario governments are appealing a decision by Ontario Superior Court Judge Susan Himel that struck down the prostitution law’s provisions prohibiting communicating and living off the avails, and another that makes it a crime to run a brothel.
The three prostitutes behind the challenge – Terri-Lynn Bedford, Valerie Scott and Amy Lebovitch – claim the provisions violate their constitutional right to security of the person by compelling them to work under unsafe conditions.
Full Article
Source: Globe & Mail
“It is not a voluntary choice, but a highly constrained choice,” Crown counsel Christine Bartlett-Hughes told a five-judge Ontario Court of Appeal panel that will decide the fate of the prostitution laws.
“We recognize that there are certain individuals that choose this activity,” Ms. Bartlett-Hughes added. “But nevertheless, Parliament is entitled to legislate to protect those who are most vulnerable.”
Ms. Bartlett-Hughes conceded that the laws can make it more difficult for prostitutes to protect themselves from violent customers. However, she told the judges there is no proof that decriminalizing prostitution and moving prostitutes off the streets into brothels will make them substantially safer.
In fact, she said, it is far from clear that legalizing brothels will have any effect whatsoever on the number of street prostitutes in the country.
The federal and Ontario governments are appealing a decision by Ontario Superior Court Judge Susan Himel that struck down the prostitution law’s provisions prohibiting communicating and living off the avails, and another that makes it a crime to run a brothel.
The three prostitutes behind the challenge – Terri-Lynn Bedford, Valerie Scott and Amy Lebovitch – claim the provisions violate their constitutional right to security of the person by compelling them to work under unsafe conditions.
Full Article
Source: Globe & Mail
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