The Missing Women Commission of Inquiry opened on October 11 and continues in its inquiry as to why so many women have disappeared from Vancouver’s Downtown East End and why the police took so long to find the man responsible. This man, of course, is deranged murderer Robert Pickton.
The inquiry also set out to investigate how these women were treated by the police and legal system. The inquiry, despite many advocacy groups pulling out due to lack of funds, continues to reveal much about the the Vancouver Police Departments’ misconduct. 1
A recent finding from the inquiry has revealed that members of the Vancouver Police Department, the VPD, forced many of the women they picked up on the East End to perform “sexual favours” in order for the women to avoid arrest. In a study conducted by Kate Shannon, it was disclosed that the VPD treated these women with “apathy, indifference or outright harassment.” The study included interviews with 255 people involved in the sex industry in Vancouver’s East End. 237 of those interviewed were women and 48% of those women were First Nations women of Canada. Furthermore, Shannon found that such incidents of police harassment and abuse made the women highly unlikely to report crimes. In her study, Shannon also found that 87% of the women interviewed said that they have experienced “absolute homelessness” at least once in their lives while one and five were living with HIV. An unsettling one in four were raped and 30% experienced violence by johns – 57% of them at least once in a 19-month period. 2
Despite such alarming findings, Shannon claims she believes that the only solution to such violence committed against these women by johns (mostly men) and now by the Police (mostly men) is to decriminalize prostitution and move it indoors. Shannon told the court during the inquiry hearings that,
"The current criminalization results in enforced displacement, which as we've seen, both pushes people away from health and support services and increases the risk of coerced sex and violence." She continued, "being able to allow sex workers to work indoors and in safer indoor spaces would be really important, both for allowing sex workers to have some measure of safety, access to services and reduced exposure to violence." 3
While I agree that criminalizing those within the sex industry may restrict their access to health services and support, decriminalizing the johns and pimps will not further women's access to health services or physical safety. Moving people indoors to be purchased by predominately men will not solve anything. Also, if we know that police officers are now playing the role of the john and the cop, then who will protect these women, indoors or outdoors? How will this prevent the extensive violence committed against them by johns and pimps? Will the police suddenly begin to care and respond appropriately to the concerns of these women if they are indoors? It is doubtful and Shannon’s report suggests this. In this same report there is even a direct quote from a woman regarding her fears. She is quoted stating that she feared “police, pimps, dealers, strangers, and partners.”2 Another interviewed woman warned, “once buddy’s got you in the car, you’re fucked.”
Moving women indoors may prevent them from getting into cars, but who will protect them while inside? Will it be the pimps or brothel owners who protect them from violent johns? My proposition is that rather than simply relocating these women, why don’t we challenge the men who feel entitled to purchase them? Why not challenge the racist, sexist and colonialist implications that come with nearly half of these women being First Nations women? We cannot continue to ignore the intersections of class, ethnicity, and sex when discussing prostitution. We must realize that really terrible, disgusting things are happening to women because we live in a society that thrives on exploitation, greed and male-dominance. Let us create opportunities for all, put an end to poverty and see how well prostitution survives in such a humane and compassionate climate. It wouldn’t survive in that sort of society because there would be no demand.
Prostitution has been a recent spot of interest for Canada with these inquiries as well as the hearings from supporters of decriminalizing johns. More recently there has even been several political speculators who think the recent allowed continuance of the safe-injection drug sites in Vancouver may lead to a change to Canada’s prostitution laws. However, I am unsure how women being bought like commodities are the same as providing safe needles for heroin users. Nevertheless, I stand firmly on my support for the Nordic Model regarding prostitution laws, which decriminalizes those “selling” and criminalizing those “buying.” It also provides opportunities and support services for women who want to exit safely. This whole “decriminalization of johns will prevent violence” notion is a mere mirage in that it promises those in authority, like police officers, will “protect” these women. We now see that they are not being protected by the police, in fact, they are being coerced and harassed by the police.
"Laws" created by the ruling class aside, I also support the notion of radical change to society. This change would allow a society where we would see others as valuable and worthy of respect. A society where women are not systematically raped, murdered, purchased, traded, devalued, or despised. Prostitution simply would not exist in such a world. This is because prostitution and the sex industry at large, is in and of itself , an institution. It is a product of a domination/submission paradigm that has been sustained by a laissez faire global economic system as well as a laissez faire
Her conclusions make absolutely no sense. Melissa Farley has done at least four studies in over nine different countries and found that indoors prostitution is just as harsh, if not more so, than street prostitution. On the street women can at least have some say in who they go with, indoors they are not allowed to turn anyone away. This whole situation is really just domestic violence on an extreme level. How come no one talks about that? How come no one shows how coercive and abusive these pimps are in women's lives? Yea, let's legitimize the coercion of women and make it a job.
ReplyDeleteRidiculous. Shannon is a fool.
Taking prostitution indoors just hides the abuse from society so everyone can forget what happens behind closed doors.
Prostitutes if they were allowed to operate legitimate businesses could hire armed guards. They could own a brothel and have security. Much better than being in a car on a deserted street. Just like with abortion it is more dangerous for these things to be done in back alleys
ReplyDeleteIf they were able to operate legitimate business, do you think they'd stay in prostitution? Most people are there because they don't have legitimate business opportunities, let alone job opportunities. Also, I agree, they would be out of stranger's cars, but why would the violence committed by johns stop? Will the brothel owners take it upon themselves to create safe places for men to purchase women? If we are seeing cops becoming johns, why the hell would brothel owners care? Why would Johns who are violent men be willing to treat these women better if they are inside?
ReplyDeleteI think it is a bandage approach to a larger system that sustains the oppression required for a sex industry to flourish.
"but why would the violence committed by johns stop?"
ReplyDeleteCrimes of opportunity requiring being alone where no one can help the victim. The johns that wanted to abuse them probably wouldn't dare if they were not able to do so in a secluded spot where nobody could hear the cries for help. Where there were no witnesses. Plus if the prostitutes were performing a legal job they would be less hesitant to report crimes.
"a larger system that sustains the oppression required for a sex industry to flourish"
Some people want to make money by having sex with someone and some people are willing to pay money to have sex with another person. Those are the conditions that require or allow for sex work. Not sure how you will change that. Can you eradicate someone wanting money or somebody wanting to have sex and not being good looking enough to do so without paying someone?
"why don’t we challenge the men who feel entitled to purchase them?"
Paying someone for a service is not purchasing the person. They are not your slave or property after the transaction. You do not then own them nor can you trade them. So the use of the term "purchase them" is clear rhetoric. As is your use here of the word "entitled". It's not really considered entitlement to think one shouldn't be prohibited from paying someone to do something for you or in this case to you. I guess if I pay someone to fix my tv you could phrase it as me "feeling entitled to purchase a tv repairman". It wouldn't really be honest though and neither was your description of the supposed entitlement of the john.
Now that isn't to say I am ignoring the reality of women who are really forced into the work. But we have to maintain that there is a distinction between pimped women and those who choose sex work. Often because they prefer it over other types of work as a way to make money. Instead you lump it all together. You lump all people who pay fr sex as abusive or as purchasers of persons ignoring how many are just lonely guys who want someone to have sex with them and are willing to spend big money for someone to do so. You constantly ignore half of the picture in order to support the narrative that suits the rad-fem case.
"Paying someone for a service is not purchasing the person. They are not your slave or property after the transaction. "
ReplyDeleteSo a vagina is not attached to a human being? We are not talking about an oil change here.
The purchasing of humans is gendered.. Does that mean nothing? Are we saying it is ok to see women as commodities?
Rhetoric?! Pimps don't own prostituted women?! What is sex trafficking? I would really love to know your definition of sex trafficking. 80% of women who are trafficked are sold (SOLD) into prostitution with clear owners.
How is it you wish to differentiate between slaves and those who "choose" or do we legalize the entire thing for the minority of women who do "choose?"
I am not even going to go into the rates of PTSD, TBI, and Dissociation amongst prostituted women.. When asked, research time and time again shows upwards of 90% of women saying their first need is getting out of prostitution.. It is mostly done for economic need, but we are supposed to legalize this systemic form of gross domestic violence and tax it?! Are we saying that we have given up on viable economic options for women?
Profoundly ignorant. I am sorry, this is just so profound. Shall we institutionalize women's degradation for a mere 10% who say they choose it?
As an aside: hiring armed guards?! Are you joking me?!
ReplyDeleteSo you see the fact that prostitution is such a dangerous "job" that someone would need to hire armed guards, but you don't see a problem with making something so dangerous for women a legitimate "job?"
What job do you go to where the risk of getting a traumatic brain injury from being beaten is 40 times greater than the rest of the population?
Legalization has been touted for years, not for the sake of women, but for the sake of the Johns, health industries wanted to reduce the spread of HIV and promoted legalization so medical checks could be enforced and condoms mandated. Guess what, it is a failure.
Check the research coming out of Germany, where pimping has been legalized - and because it has failed so direly, and because the connection between prostitution and trafficking has become so glaringly obvious that this statement has been released:
"As a result of the prostitution-trafficking link, the U.S.
government concluded that no U.S. grant funds should be
awarded to foreign non-governmental organizations that
support legal state-regulated prostitution. Prostitution is
not the oldest profession, but the oldest form of oppression"
Opinions are just opinions, it means nothing if it can't hold up to the empirical evidence coming out of research on prostitution and trafficking worldwide. Are your opinions backed up by evidence? NO. So who, exactly is spouting off rhetoric?
References for your viewing pleasure:
http://www.servingourworld.org/PDF/trafficking/dos-prostitution-sex%20-trafficking.pdf
http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/prostitution_research/000116.html
Violence in Prostitution and PTSD: http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/prostitution_research/000020.html
Swedish Model: http://vaw.sagepub.com/content/10/10/1187.short
http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/pdf/Prostitutionin9Countries.pdf
"So a vagina is not attached to a human being? We are not talking about an oil change here."
ReplyDeleteWhere does that indicate ownership of the person? It's paying someone to do something with their body.
"The purchasing of humans is gendered.. Does that mean nothing? Are we saying it is ok to see women as commodities? "
There are male and female prostitutes out there. Service does not equal commodity since the people themselves are not being traded. Not commodities and not gendered
"Rhetoric?! Pimps don't own prostituted women?! What is sex trafficking? I would really love to know your definition of sex trafficking. 80% of women who are trafficked are sold (SOLD) into prostitution with clear owners."
Arrest the pimps and charge them with slavery. Where did you get the 80% number? Sound a bit suspicious to me? I would suspect it is based somewhat on arrests which street prostitutes would make up the majority since they are the most visible.
"How is it you wish to differentiate between slaves and those who "choose" or do we legalize the entire thing for the minority of women who do "choose?""
Your proof that it is the minority who choose? The only option besides not assuming all prostitution is slavery is to indeed assume all of it is. Which would mean treating anyone who pays another for sex as a criminal. Which is pretty absurd. A person has the right to pay another person to do something if nobody else is harmed or has their rights violated. Any infringement would be a complete overstepping of the bounds of government. It would indeed be tyranny.
I will provide a helpful anylogy. Lets say 90 percent of the fruit trade is done through slavery. That the majority of the fruit for sale in the supermarket come from 3rd world nations in which the workers are eiter iteral slaves or that their choice is to work shit hours at an exploitive rate. That they suffer abuse from the corporations controlling the fruit trade and the governments they bought off in those nations. Needless o say the majority of them if polled want out.
Now do we solve this problem by banning fruit? By using the rhetoric that anyone who buys fruit feels an entitlement to the labor, the lives, and even the bodies of those who pick it? That because the workers who pick the fruit are in no position to choose a better life that they are commodities to anyone who wants t eat an apple? I don't have a number on what percentage of fruit workers re slaves (just as you have no real number on prostitutes who are slaves. But rest assured slavery is a big part of the worldwide produce market. And since the idea that fruit should not be banned comes from "Libertarian" white men who feel entitled to the labor and thus the bodies of those who pick them while being exploited it goes without saying that we must insist that there be a ban correct?
The outstanding number of those involved in the sex industry, globally speaking, ARE women. It is a gendered issue. It is an issue of structure and power. This is a feminist blog - gender plays a pretty substantial role in critiques.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, did you check my references? They were posted at the bottom of my comment for a reason.
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to rehash because you are too lazy to read up on your shit and come at me with an intellectually sound argument.
Where are your references? Or are all of these fun stories of yours just thoughts jangling around in your mind.
I'm not interested in discussing opinions based in no solid research.
I am interested in a debate, but that means you need to hit the books.. Get back at me when you have empirical evidence.
I find Witchy Woman pro-sex industry rhetoric very hard to take that indoors prostitution is safe or lets say safe enough to continue without too much interference. Oh, that it will ok if it made legal.
ReplyDeleteAs an exited prostitute who only work indoors, and work in environments that were not run by criminals or considered to be underground - but it was extremely sadistic - rapes, sexual torturing and "disappearances"/murders were part of my norm.
I see Witchy Woman acknowledged that indoors prostitution is embedded inside male violence - by saying even in her idealise concept of indoors prostitution that they should have armed guards.
This would make me laugh, if my pain and grief wasn't blocking up my throat. The rhetoric of the pro-sex industry is that it will ok with guards, alarms, and other forms of protection. This does take into account that this may just be the veneer of safety - and there is little or no protection from whatever the prostitute is sold as - be that gang-rape, sexual torture copied from porn imagery, being made to perform sexual acts that endanger the prostitute.
In my experience, and the experiences of many survivors of indoors prostitution, so-called bodyguards are usually friends of the managers - and are given free access to the prostitutes. Most so-called guards ignore the regular violence, only to intervene when the punter money has run out.
It is wrong to believe that it is safer indoors, for it is not isolated. The sex industry is built on not caring about the violence - instead it frames it as the role/job of the prostituted to accept all forms of sexual violence. It not considered to be rape - just the demands of the "job". If there is physical, mental and sexual damaged done to the prostituted - that is just the risk of the job. Most violence done to the prostituted in indoors prostitution is dealt with in-house.
This means a reality that sexual torture and/or rape is made so normalised, that it becomes a non-crime. It is made that the prostitute is somehow so different from other women, that she eels no fear or disgust. It is not said that is because she is so deadened by constant violence and mental abuse, to accept the unacceptable.
How can it named as a crime, if the prostitutes does not even know she is being violently abused?
I find it laughable the concept that managers of indoors prostitution will come to the help of the prostituted as they are being raped or sexually tortured. Their major profit comes from supplying sadistic sex, not "normal" sex - so of course it is acceptable that punters can treat the prostitute in whatever way he wants. The mental, physical and sexual welfare of the prostitute is of no importance - for she is viewed as goods that are disposable and easier replaceable.
This is too long, but I end by saying indoors prostitution is highly dangerous - but it made invisible by those who support the sex industry.
Prostitution whether it is legalized or not, no mater how some people may try and glamorize it, it stays demeaning and degrading to women and girls and can never be justified.
ReplyDeleteObviously the ideal way to get rid of prostitution is to completely destroy and annihilate male supremacy. Sadly this is not an overnight exercise and still requires major work from all feminists and pro-feminists.
Until this is done, I believe the best way to protect prostitutes is to make it illegal for men to buy sex from women i.e. the johns and make it illegal for men to sell women for sex i.e. the pimps.
It will not however be illegal for the woman to be a prostitute. The advantage here is that male cops can’t blackmail these women into having sex with them as these women have done nothing wrong.
I know in some countries (very few) it has been made illegal for men to buy sex. The law may be good, but the punishment for breaking the law certainly does not put off most men from doing it any way.
Not only must it be illegal for men to be pimps and johns but the punishment must suit the crime. As far as I am concerned these men should be charged with rape and spend plenty of time behind bars where they cannot harm any more women.
This may not be a perfect solution, but based on the circumstances I believe it would be one of the better ones until we are able to destroy and outlaw male supremacy.