Topic > The need to make prostitution legal in Canada

Over the years, Canada has had many different views on prostitution as it relates to the law. Prostitution is the practice or occupation of engaging in sexual services in exchange for money and can take the form of many varieties including prostitutes, bar girls, massage parlor prostitutes, house prostitutes, rap session prostitutes, and prostitutes of escort services. Canada's first prostitution laws were based on British common law in the Nova Scotia Act of 1979 and were initially prohibited by vagrancy laws (Chenier, 2019). In the 2013 case of Canada (Attorney General) v. Bedford, prostitution was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada, and as a result, the federal government introduced Bill C-36, The Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act. His approach is known as the “final question” or “Nordic model,” which focuses on persecuting those who buy sex rather than those who sell it. According to this law, being paid for sex means being prostituted, that is, sexually exploited (Davies, 2015). This act aimed to criminalize people who buy sex, in an effort to reduce the demand for prostitution. Furthermore, Bill C-36's reforms target those who create demand for sexual services and those who profit from that demand. It is legal to solicit sexual services as long as it is in a place where no one under the age of eighteen is present. Public order crimes such as prostitution are often debated, as there is a fine line between good and bad behavior and it depends on who determines it. Criminal law protects society and condemns social harm, but it is more difficult to identify victims of crimes against public order because these people may be consenting. Power plays an important role in setting public moral standards, as people's opinions about right and wrong vary. Research shows that in most cases sex workers' perspectives are ignored when formulating policies, even though they have insider knowledge and are directly influenced by the policies that are implemented. That said, current laws are not the best way to respond to prostitution. These laws open sex workers up to greater safety and health concerns and ignore the experiences of sex workers. Prostitution should be a regulated profession with precautions to ensure the health and safety of sex workers, while allowing them to maintain their career as a sex worker. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayThe first reason why Bill C-36 and the current laws in place are not the best way to respond to prostitution is because it presents an increase in safety and risks for the prostitute. Prostitution can take place outdoors in the form of prostitutes, or indoors as massage parlor prostitutes, home prostitutes, rap session booth prostitutes, and escort service prostitutes. It has been argued that indoor prostitution typically involves less exploitation, less risk of violence, more control over working conditions, greater job satisfaction and greater self-esteem. However, because these indoor prostitution venues are illegal, prostitutes seek work outside where they will not be discovered during the exchange, making them further vulnerable to violence. Research shows that open-air prostitution hashigher rates of rape and sexual violence. Businesses such as a brothel or massage parlor can invest in locks, security cameras and security professionals to reduce the possibility of premeditated violence by customers. Without suggesting that these companies are not exploitative and violent towards sex workers in some cases, research has shown that they can provide sex workers with the skills, resources and knowledge needed to improve their safety, including screening clients before meeting them , and act as a guardian of street workers. CriminalLaw enforcement in Canada has been found to focus primarily on the street sex trade, as research shows that 93-95% of arrests occur at street level, although only 5-20% of sex work takes place on the street. Additionally, legal restrictions place sex workers at greater risk of infectious diseases. Research shows that street prostitution has higher rates of gonorrhea (Willcox, 1962; Wren, 1967; Dunlop, Lamb and King, 1971 cited in Cunningham & Shah, 2014), as indoor prostitution typically involves greater control over conditions of work, more job satisfaction and greater self-esteem. Furthermore, sex workers are more vulnerable to security issues due to their agnostic and alienated relationships with police services (Benoit et al., 2017). Benoit's research on sex workers shows that sex workers feel alienated from accessing police services and feel as if they have to make a decision between more dangerous working conditions or being criminalized if they are caught (Benoit et al., 2017 ). Pitts' (2016) study of sex workers found that there are limited avenues for sex workers to seek protection or support when their safety is compromised, due to fear of arrest or discrimination. Decriminalizing prostitution can reduce violence by increasing sex workers' willingness to cooperate with the police and report crimes committed against them. Another reason why Bill C-36 is not the best way to respond to prostitution is because it silences the various experiences of sex work and discounts the structural conditions under which a prostitute can enter the sex trade, in first, such as socioeconomic background and race (Galbally, 2016). Sex workers are seen as a homogeneous group, oppressed and enslaved by sex buyers and managers, in need of saving (Benoit et al., 2017). However, sex workers are a diverse group and come from all walks of life (Chenier, 2019). The sex trade is often considered the primary means of earning a living for prostitutes and is their job or occupation. Internationally, it has been observed that sex work often arises in situations of poverty and economic disadvantage, particularly in the context of human trafficking (Galbally, 2016). A “survival” prostitute is someone who turns to prostitution as a means to survive, and sometimes prostitution is the only way they can afford basic necessities. Bill C-36 prohibits the purchase of sexual services, making the transaction of prostitution illegal, thus taking away the livelihood of prostitutes. Furthermore, the law's ban on advertising has made the work of self-employed sex workers much more difficult as they have to look on the street and often encounter clients who are afraid of being targeted and criminalized because they are looking for sex workers. rather than implementing a law like Bill C-36 where purchasing sexual services is illegal and thebusinesses or people who profit from the transaction of prostitution are illegal, we should respond in a way in which the regulatory goal should be to prevent coercion without violating voluntary exchange. I believe that a law such as New Zealand's Prostitution Reform Act (PRA), which legalizes prostitution, but has provisions in place to ensure that workers are effectively protected by authorities such as the police against coercion, violence and exploitation (Bowen , 2013). The goal of this law was to improve the working conditions, health and safety of sex workers and allow adults to sell from their homes, in brothels, from the street and in other unregulated spaces. Mossman's (2010) study interviewing informants from the New Zealand PRA revealed that interviewees generally believed that violence had been reduced to some extent (Bowen, 2013). Additionally, 70% of respondents in the study reported that sex workers are now much more likely to ask authorities for help when needed. This is important in responding to prostitution because the function of the police is to maintain public order and safety. If sex workers are more willing to talk to the police and report incidents to the police, they will feel safer and maintain a positive relationship with the authorities, seeing police officers more as protectors than prosecutors. New Zealand was one of the first countries to receive feedback from diverse workers and people who experienced prostitution first hand, while with the construction of Bill C-36 and prostitution policy in other countries is driven by moral assumptions and not from empirical evidence. As stated previously, this is problematic because sexual deviance is a social construction and power plays an important role in determining moral standards and what is considered right and wrong (Chenier, 2019). Taking sex workers' views into account when creating policies will help understand whether a particular policy approach improves their health and safety. Considering the difference between prostitution and sex trafficking should be another response to prostitution in Canada. Prostitution and sex trafficking are not the same thing. In the legalization debate, however, sex trafficking and prostitution are often confused (Huisman & Kleemans, 2014). Human trafficking laws in Canada are completely different from prostitution laws and change from an agency situation to one of trafficking when force, fraud, or coercion is involved (Chenier, 2019). However, this conflation of human trafficking and domestic sex workers emerged in the debate over Bill C-36, reinforcing sex workers' victim status through the idea that they have been brought into the lives of domestic sex workers. anti-choice sex (Galbally, 2016). The consequence of this is that it establishes that criminal law is the only admissible legal solution and that rescue is the only possible response to combating the exploitation of victims. Rather, the policy should take into account the extent to which the sex worker can participate voluntarily. This reiterates how Bill C-36's response to prostitution does not take into account the experiences of the prostitute. Finally, I believe that regulating prostitution would be an effective response. One way to regulate prostitution is to continue to have serious laws in place of prostitution for those who buy and sell sexual services under the age of 18. This will help keep commercial exploitation of children to a minimum. Furthermore, even i.