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Last night a forum was held in Winnipeg's North End with area residents to talk about the problem of street-level prostitution in that area.
Residents said the worst area is near Parr Street. Johns can be seen around the clock, and condoms litter the sidewalks.
Jesse Fehr, who lives in the area, is angry her three young children are being exposed to those things.
Matthew Croft said he's called police many times, but the problems don't go away.
"You know, what can you say? They do what they can."
Only a few weeks ago the Winnipeg City Police busted a bawdy house that was being used for the sex trade.
So they kicked people out of a home, certainly a safer place with more controls, and they can't solicit in the streets, so where will they go? They will just move a few blocks over. You won't stop prostitution, you can just criminalize it.
If it was completely legal then it wouldn't be on the street, it wouldn't need to be, it would be at a place of business like other service orientated business are, with the health and safety controls that can come when consensual activities such as these are taken out of the black market.
3 comments:
on the off chance of being termed an idiot... would it not be morally correct to criminalize prostitution entirely?
we teach our children that we, as a society, do not truck in human flesh, but thats precisely what these women are doing. Selling themselves like meat at the store.
someone will say that these women are forced to it, they have nothing left and this is their only option. can stamping it out remove it as an option?
what kind of message is sent to our youth when we say to them that their body is precious, personal, and to be respected. but other women sell theirs for money.
i could never imagine my sister, cousin or neice becoming a prostitute, nor can i condone any behavior that might send the message that such behavior is OK. the whole point of criminalizing certain behaviors is to protect society from the damage that those behaviors cause.
I think legalized prostitution sends the message that somehow its ok.
if thats the case. i would say criminalize it. because its definatly NOT ok to sell your body
the moral issue is more important to me than the regulatory issue.
and of course this is only my opinion.
Anonymous, you may want to check out the late Lysander Spooner's "Vices are not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty" (1875). It begins,
"Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property.
Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another.
Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property.
In vices, the very essence of crime --- that is, the design to injure the person or property of another --- is wanting."
Be sure to check out the rest:
http://www.lysanderspooner.org/VicesAreNotCrimes.htm
Richard G.
Hi Anon.
My 2 main points to make would be that;
1. Criminalizing the behavior doesn't make it go away; it just puts it in the black market which makes it more dangerous for the people involved with. A person with compassion would see how this is not good.
2. While prostitution may be against the morals of you or me, those morals shouldn't be pushed onto people that don't share them.
Prostitution is in a victimless crime where people do it consensually. Streetwalkers addicted to drugs and taken advantage of by pimps are just one aspect of it. Escorts that aren't on the streets are in more control of their lives and have a safer practice.
There was a good documentary made about this in 2006 called "A Safer Sex Trade"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0909826/
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