OTTAWA — A Manitoba Conservative MP is petitioning her government to go after those who buy sex rather than those who sell it.
Kildonan-St. Paul MP Joy Smith tabled a petition Tuesday in the House of Commons with more than 2,900 signatures, asking the government to “decriminalize the selling of sexual services and criminalize the purchasing of sexual services and provide support to those who desire to leave prostitution.”
She also tabled a petition with more than 6,000 signatures calling for a national action plan to combat human trafficking.
“The girls on the street are the victims,” Smith said. “We need to target the market.”
Smith said the petitions were sent to her office but she did not start or solicit either of them. Smith introduced her own national strategy on human trafficking in 2010, and one of its recommendations was to go after the buyers of sex.
In June, she said she planned to introduce a private member’s bill to address decriminalizing prostitution and instead criminalize the purchase of sex. However, when she introduced the bill this fall it did not touch on that topic.
The federal government is appealing a ruling by an Ontario judge in 2010 that struck down all three criminal provisions related to prostitution in Canada — those being pimping, operating a common bawdy house and communicating for the purposes of prostitution. The judge said the laws increase the risk to prostitutes and it is too “high a price to pay for the alleviation of a social nuisance.”
The federal government feared having a bill on the order paper trying to decriminalize the sale of sexual services would hurt the government’s plan to appeal in the case.
Smith did not support the Ontario judge’s ruling because it struck down the laws against prostitution without also going after the buyers or providing help for women victimized by prostitution.
A spokesman for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said the government will be implementing a national action plan to combat human trafficking and will support organizations that support victims. However, there does not appear to be government support to change existing criminal laws on prostitution.
“We will continue to address the challenges associated with prostitution, including focusing on prevention, awareness and research, as well as supporting the enforcement of existing laws to ensure that those involved in prostitution are protected from exploitation and abuse,” said Mike Patton in a written statement.
Smith’s call is for Canada to adopt a law similar to what’s known as the Nordic Model, based on a law introduced in Sweden in 1999.
“The Nordic model is really gaining legs because it targets the market,” said Smith.
That law was based on a belief prostitution victimizes women by normalizing sexual exploitation. Being caught buying sex in Sweden can net you a fine of 50 days pay or up to one year in jail. The law also focused on providing help for women and children working in prostitution.
The hope is that the public shaming of buyers of sex would curtail their activities. A report from the Swedish government in 2010 reviewed the law 10 years later and said street prostitution had been cut in half, and there was no evidence the law had simply pushed prostitution off the streets and into brothels or onto the Internet.
The report also found Sweden was the only country in Europe where prostitution and sex trafficking had not increased over the previous decade.
Norway adopted a similar law in 2009 and in a single year one municipality in Norway reported a 20 per cent drop in street prostitution and a 16 per cent drop in indoor prostitution.
Posted on The Vancouver Sun, Wednesday, December 7, 2011
