MPs want to see solicitation legalized
CTV.ca News Staff
Updated: Wed. Oct. 5 2005 11:30 PM ET
It's been talked about for years, but now a parliamentary committee is recommending that Canada legalize the soliciting of prostitutes.
The Justice Subcommittee on Solicitation Laws spent the summer touring Canadian cities, looking into the troubles surrounding the world's oldest profession.
They're now drafting their report and have concluded that legalization would make street prostitution safer and crack down on pimps.
"It should be legalized and regulated for the sake of people who are working in the industry," says committee member and Vancouver Island Liberal MP Keith Martin.
Prostitution is already legal in Canada but actually soliciting sex is illegal. The committee wanted to know what that distinction meant for prostitutes themselves, and so talked to them, as well as police and community groups, to find out.
Martin says it's time to scrap the current solicitation laws and punish pimps, "who are really engaging in abusive and incredibly exploitative relationships."
But there's already intense debate among MPs over what direction any new laws on prostitution should take.
Vancouver NDP MP Libby Davies says Parliament must also offer services to prostitutes, "so that women can get out of the sex trade, so they are not being forced into it through lack of choice because of poverty or drug addiction."
And the federal government must also make sure that girls under 18 are not allowed into prostitution. "We have to have a zero tolerance of the sexual exploitation of children in the sex trade," she says.
Davies told CTV News earlier this year that she got involved in the issue of prostitution because of the dozens of sex trade workers who disappeared from her Downtown Eastside riding in recent years.
She said she came to the conclusion that the current laws were contributing to the problem.
But Conservatives say legalizing solicitation would be tantamount to legalizing violence against women.
"You can't get rid of it, so let's curb it as soon as possible and crack down on those who exploit women," says Calgary Conservative MP Art Hanger.
For now, it will be a few months before MPs complete their study. That means there's no chance the law will be changed before an election, expected in the spring.
CTV.ca News Staff
Updated: Wed. Oct. 5 2005 11:30 PM ET
It's been talked about for years, but now a parliamentary committee is recommending that Canada legalize the soliciting of prostitutes.
The Justice Subcommittee on Solicitation Laws spent the summer touring Canadian cities, looking into the troubles surrounding the world's oldest profession.
They're now drafting their report and have concluded that legalization would make street prostitution safer and crack down on pimps.
"It should be legalized and regulated for the sake of people who are working in the industry," says committee member and Vancouver Island Liberal MP Keith Martin.
Prostitution is already legal in Canada but actually soliciting sex is illegal. The committee wanted to know what that distinction meant for prostitutes themselves, and so talked to them, as well as police and community groups, to find out.
Martin says it's time to scrap the current solicitation laws and punish pimps, "who are really engaging in abusive and incredibly exploitative relationships."
But there's already intense debate among MPs over what direction any new laws on prostitution should take.
Vancouver NDP MP Libby Davies says Parliament must also offer services to prostitutes, "so that women can get out of the sex trade, so they are not being forced into it through lack of choice because of poverty or drug addiction."
And the federal government must also make sure that girls under 18 are not allowed into prostitution. "We have to have a zero tolerance of the sexual exploitation of children in the sex trade," she says.
Davies told CTV News earlier this year that she got involved in the issue of prostitution because of the dozens of sex trade workers who disappeared from her Downtown Eastside riding in recent years.
She said she came to the conclusion that the current laws were contributing to the problem.
But Conservatives say legalizing solicitation would be tantamount to legalizing violence against women.
"You can't get rid of it, so let's curb it as soon as possible and crack down on those who exploit women," says Calgary Conservative MP Art Hanger.
For now, it will be a few months before MPs complete their study. That means there's no chance the law will be changed before an election, expected in the spring.
