Prostitution in Vancouver

I have long been an advocate for legalized prostitution; I think that it's important to acknowledge that the ignorance by police departments locally equate to a sanctioned activity that generates a significant amount of untaxed income. It's not just that prostitution can be passively ignored in Vancouver; it can only be true that it is actively avoided. You can't actually believe that the back of every newspaper in the city is littered with the ads of legitimate massage parlors and prude escort agencies. A quick trip down Cordova Street between Campbell and Main Street after 9 PM is not paraded by girls who just really like chatting to passing men. You can't quite say the same about Hastings Street's broad assortment of the drug riddled, mentally ill, and poverty stricken. East Cordova is loitered only by the prostitutes here.

Even those with the most strict morals, in terms of what these girls do, should be able to agree on a few things. I hope that any good person can believe that people have the right to the protections of the police. I believe that even the most hardened of them should be allowed to wake in the morning without a looming threat of death lingering about them. I believe that what we do in our sexual lives should be a choice. I believe firmly that even those opposed to what some of these people do, would still believe that all sexual acts should be of mutual consent.

In the world that we've fostered for prostitution to live in, this is not the case. Prostitutes are so wildly more vulnerable than any other occupation I can imagine. Picture a job more dangerous than one in which you are very likely a woman, work with strangers in the nude in (very) close quarters, and your customer base wants a fairly accessible product that, for one reason or another, they can't acquire for free. They want something that someone else in their life will not commit to doing uncompensated. Imagine working undocumented, with no regards as to where you are, or who you are with, at any given moment. No list of staff, no time clock. Imagine working an areas that are intentionally as private as possible. In the same sense that a failure to defend one's trademark equates to abandoning it, I believe that a consistent failure to defend the laws set equates to an annulment of those laws.

The limbo that prostitution lives in has allowed some atrocious consequences to those who reside in it. It has allowed gangs to profit from these operations and allowed them to funnel an untaxed and undocumented revenue into their coffers. It has allowed pimps, essentially bosses, to charge their workers with violence, rape, and unimaginable stress. It has prevented Canadian Revenue Services from collecting considerable sums of money in exchange for the rights and freedoms guaranteed (in writing) to every Canadian. It has given gangs an incentive to target young girls and lead them into drug habits. It has allowed anyone the possibility to murder without consequence. It has also come to light that it has allowed Vancouver Police to exchange their duty to arrest these girls for free sexual favours. 

Wherever people stand morally (and legally) on prostitution, it's worth noting that this state of purgatory is the most damaging to society. The police don't act on arresting the prostitutes because they are well aware of a few things; they know that (like marijuana) they would not receive overwhelming support from the general public. They know that prostitution is a massive industry and would require an incredible amount of resources not available to them and an attempt to cease the industry would likely only result in the workforce being pushed further underground. Shutting down Craigslist's "personal services" section only pushed somewhat more discreet ads to the personals section. They also know they like freebies. Prostitution's illegal status is absolutely as unwieldy as prohibition was, and as it can't be ceased, it should be legalized. We can take these girls off the streets and offer them the protections (and taxes) provided to every citizen of the United Nations. We can take gangs and drugs out of the equation. We can take underage girls out of the equation. We can save families. We can save lives.