When people start weighing in on prostitution legislation, prepare to hear a lot of GARBAGE. Case in point: Sandeep Prasad penned a Huffington Post article, this week, demanding of the federal government “sex work law reform that culminates in the decriminalization of sex work”. He would have us believe that making it legal to buy sex is the reasonable “EVIDENCE-BASED” response to bringing safety to the so-called “workers” of the sex trade.
Most men are in Sandeep’s corner; they like the idea of easier access to women’s bodies. Most women aren’t comfortable with that. But the men who are onside with him might have a valid position if there was EVIDENCE to suggest the “workers” would be safer. Well, there is no such EVIDENCE.
Mr. Prasad simply polishes up the old pro-prostitution rhetoric, and tells us that laws protecting exploited persons are the source of “oppression impacting sex workers’ experiences”. No mention of the men who assume the right to abuse them, by the way.
Internationally, the abundance of academic studies on human trafficking, and related violence in the sex industry, shows a correlation between legal purchase of sex and exploitation. The EVIDENCE only makes a case for discouraging sex trade activities; not encouraging them.
While the EVIDENCE does not work in Mr. Prasad’s favor, it does support a statement by former Canadian Justice Minister Peter MacKay that called prostitution “inherently dangerous”. Even Alan Young (Bedford vs Canada lawyer who challenged Canada’s old prostitution laws, and won) denies Mr. Prasad’s assertions. In 2013, Mr. Young told the Supreme Court of Canada that legal prostitution has not worked in any other country in the world, and we shouldn’t expect it to reduce violence and exploitation, here. Whether or not Mr. Young actually cares about sex trade violence, what he said was, in fact, EVIDENCE-BASED.
Either Mr. Prasad has little concern for vulnerable women and children in this country, or he’s been duped by the proponents of the dark industry that exploits them. Regardless, his argument is GARBAGE. The truth is, violence against prostituted girls and women ends when men stop buying sex.