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décembre 2007

NO Legal Brothel in Vancouver

par Ex-Prostitutes Against Legislated Sexual Servitude (X-PALSS)






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Abolish Prostitution
Calling former Sex Trade Workers







Statement by Ex-Prostitutes Against Legislated Sexual Servitude

We urge you to oppose any attempt to introduce a legal brothel in Vancouver.

As women who have been prostituted in Vancouver and in the light of these facts :

• That current discourse on prostitution would have the public believe that it is normal work that simply needs to be better regulated
• That there is currently a proposal to open a legal brothel in Vancouver
• That this proposal is said to speak for current and former prostitutes of Vancouver
• That this proposal promises to make the lives of prostituted women “safer” at best
• That none of us have ever met a prostituted woman who would not leave the “trade” if she had a real chance to do so
• That we are women who have been abused on Canadian soil, by Canadian men while all levels of our Government did nothing to intervene.
• That some members of parliament are now advocating to legalize that abuse.

We want you to know :

We are women who have been harmed by prostitution. We believe that no amount of changing the conditions or the locations in which we were prostituted could ever have significantly reduced that harm. We experience the normalizing of that harm by calling it “work” insulting at best.

It matters very little to us whether we were prostituted on the streets or in the tolerated indoor venues and escort agencies of Vancouver. Our memories are not of the locations but of the men who consistently acted as though we were not quite human. We remember the countless other men and women who daily averted their eyes. We remember the utter lack of services or options that made any sense and the blatant denial of access to any kind of help or justice. We remember the need to “dumb down” our sense of entitlement to a better life so we could bear the one we were in. And we remember too well the numbing despair that came when we finally lost faith that there existed in this world anything decent and good.

We oppose any measure that would put more power in the hands of the men who abused us by telling them that they are legally entitled to do so. This proposal does not speak for us, would not have affected our level of safety in a way that matters, and would not have spared us the harm that is inherent in prostitution.

We are not impressed with lip service proposals to make prostituted women’s lives “safer”. Safer is not good enough. We consider it a violation of our human rights that we were abandoned to years of situations that fit the definition of sexual assault under current law. But not only is this violence not recorded, not prosecuted, not punished. We are now being told that we chose it.

We believe that, where there is public and political will, lives can be changed for the better. We do not believe the lie that prostitution is inevitable. We believe it can be abolished.

As hosts of the 2010 games, we want our city, our home, to refuse to take part in the global flesh market that is sex tourism and send a message to the world that women will not be sold in Vancouver.

We believe that every sexually exploited woman represents a life wasted. We are greatly saddened for the lives of women lost in prostitution, as well as the loss of the sum of the contributions that countless women still living would have made had they not been abandoned to sexual slavery.

We urge you all to refuse to believe that prostitution is normal or that is an equal exchange ”between two consenting adults”. We urge you to oppose any attempt to introduce a legal brothel in Vancouver.

X-PALSS (Ex-Prostitutes Against Legislated Sexual Servitude), Vancouver, B.C.

E-Mail : xpalss@shaw.ca

December 9, 2007

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 Calling former Sex Trade Workers
 Abolish Prostitution



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Ex-Prostitutes Against Legislated Sexual Servitude (X-PALSS)



Plan-Liens Forum

  • > NO Legal Brothel in Vancouver
    (1/1) 26 juin 2008 , par





  • > NO Legal Brothel in Vancouver
    26 juin 2008 , par   [retour au début des forums]

    On June 4th, the seventh annual report on Trafficking In Persons (TIP) released by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was a shame to Canada’s law enforcement agencies. The report reveals that, compared to the situation of two years ago, Canada has made no progress in halting human trafficking of vulnerable immigrants, and even in preventing its own citizens from being bought and sold as sex slaves. The number of victims in Canada is as many as 800 to 1,200. Some activists put the figure as high as 15,000. Majority of the victims are women and children who are trafficked primarily from Asia and Eastern Europe for sexual exploitation, but victims from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean also have been identified in Canada. The report also singles out Vancouver as a hub sex trafficking. Rice concluded in the report, "Canada is a source, transit and destination country for men, women and children trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labour."

    I am thrilled to see U.S. slams Canada’s record on sex trafficking. I hope, to some extent, the confrontation from the report will warn BC government against legalizing prostitution for the 2010 Winter Olympics. In no doubt, any attempt to legalize prostitution will further open the door for the trafficking of women as well as youth and children. In Vancouver, Aboriginal women and girls living in poverty are especially at risk due to the nature and scope of the marketplace. Legalization of prostitution will also increase racialized, sexualised violence that has already led to the murder and disappearance of 3000 Aboriginal women across Canada. Prostitution is a form of violence against women and demands the criminal prosecution of all procurers and traffickers.


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