“...forced sex workers onto the street and exposed them to violence.”
"...individually and together, force prostitutes to choose between their liberty interest and their right to security of the person as protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms."
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Exactly. This really is the crux of how anti-prostitution laws deny citizen’s human rights.
In the cases of violence, robbery, and other forms of vicious attack, the U.S. prostitution laws do NOT protect the life, liberty, and well-being of this sub-section of society. Should sex workers, individually and collectively, in spite of being U.S. citizens, have no rights to safety and "security of the person" solely based on the fact that their chosen work happens to be illegal? I mean, should it be OK to allow this anti-social behavior because, after all, the sex workers are committing crimes? Does this justify the means? Should U.S. citizens without health insurance be left to suffer and die? These are the same moral principals.
I do believe (in spite of my recent frustrated and angry comments directed to LE,) that many of these same enforcers would rather focus their energies on going after the BAD people - the abusers, traffickers, thieves. I’ve heard it said more than once, that privately LE really could care less about two consenting adults making sexual choices, including monetary arrangements to that effect. What they care about is going after the criminals - the ones who rob, beat, rape, kill. The atrocious trafficking of children and women. Trafficking is another name for torture.
In fact, I just posted a website response to excerpts written by a former teenage sex slave, who was held as a captive submissive prostitute for three years before her escape. This is a heart-breaking story, and she is only beginning to write about it. Can you truly imagine being homeless, penniless, on the streets with nobody to help you? And I mean literally. And then, out of desperation, you reach out to a torturer who is disguised as a ‘nice man’ who only wants to help you find a job, give you a place to sleep, and even buy you a steak dinner since you’ve been starving.
To be brought from a place of desperation, to a state of new hope, and then be tortured alive. And all within a couple of hour’s time? To be severely beaten, raped violently by one and many men, drugged, sensory deprived, tortured with whips, hangings, electrical shockings, burnings, repeatedly threatened with violent death, and actually be brought to the brink of death - - -
Can you really imagine? These cases are no less compelling than POW’s.
Realities like this would not be happening if our laws and priorities were set-up to truly intervene in the case of trafficking involving homeless girls and women. And getting them off of the streets and providing safe places to be. And that means precious resources committed to establishing those places of safety. Further, in the cases of trafficking victims, helping them to a level of security to reach self-sufficiency. Wouldn’t you prefer that’s where your tax dollars go?
Or, alternatively, busting men and women who are having a good time - who, in fact, are mutually benefiting from such arrangements? Trafficking and consensual sex work are not the same. However, the *morally upright* citizens want to continue to legislate people’s sexuality. They shamelessly use the ruse of the virtual enslavement involved in trafficking, to also further their agendas of finally wiping out prostitution for good.
This is America, the most powerful country in the world. Setting the standards and model of democratic living. But right now as you finish reading this, be advised that before the sun sets, many will have suffered horribly, hundreds of men’s careers will have been ruined and family lost, and the sex workers are gearing up for another night of silently praying that their next customers won’t turn out to be serial killers.
