By Gudrun Schultz
TORONTO, Ontario, July 13, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Canada should legalize prostitution, decriminalize brothels and make sexual solicitation an acceptable activity, one of Canada’s top national newspapers has suggested.
“Prostitution is like any other industry. Make it illegal, and you give criminals a monopoly. Legalize it, and you give law-abiding enterprises a chance to compete,” wrote John Turley-Ewart in an editorial published July 7. Previous editorials in the Post calling for legalized prostitution were published unsigned.
Pointing to Germany as an example of a “liberal” approach to prostitution—the country legalized the sex trade four years ago—Mr. Turley-Ewart said bringing commercial sex into mainstream society would benefit women in the industry by giving them access to health services and legal protection. “Canada would do well to follow suit,” said Mr. Turley-Ewart.
”[T]here will always be men willing to pay for sex and women willing to sell it. We may not like that fact, but it is not something that can be willed away.”
The fact that prostitution exists should not make it more acceptable to society, vice president of REAL Women of Canada, Ms. Gwendolyn Landolt, told LifeSiteNews.com.
“There will always be people who kill, should we legalize that? There will always be people who steal, should we legalize that? There are valid reasons why prostitution is prohibited.”
Physical and sexual abuse, dependency on drugs and alcohol and a rise in violent crime are some of the obvious results of prostitution, whether legal or illegal, said Ms. Landolt.
“In fact, when you legalize prostitution, more women get involved. It encourages the men, as well, to get involved in trafficking. There are more street-walkers, even when you have brothels set up, because it is a legal activity.”
Ms. Landolt referred to Sweden’s history of legalized prostitution as an example of the social problems that follow decriminalizing commercial sex. After Sweden made prostitution a legal activity thirty years ago, the sex industry spawned a flourishing drug trade and drug addiction became rampant among Swedish prostitutes. The situation became so volatile that in 1998 the country completely reversed the law.
“Prostitution is an abuse of women,” said Ms. Landolt. “Women are reduced to sexual objects, to be used and pushed aside. Human sexuality was intended for the context of love, in a marriage relationship. Prostitution is a denigration of human sexuality.”
Dave Quist is executive director of Focus on the Family’s Institute of Marriage and Family Canada. He took issue with the Post’s assumption that women in the sex trade choose to be there.
“I wonder if women in the sex trade industry would say they have been forced into it through drug use or exploitation by pimps and others,” Mr. Quist told LifeSiteNews. “I think anyone who has been around the sex trade, even just passing through a prostitution area, would question that the women or young boys working there are willing to be on the street.”
He believes legalized prostitution would be “terribly destructive” for families.
“The concept that ‘mom’s job’ is having sex with strangers sets the wrong tone for family life. It hurts the woman, it hurts the children; that is an exploitative situation,” Mr. Quist said. “If prostitution is legal it affords men the ‘excuse’ to go find sex outside of marriage, when things in the marriage are difficult. That does nothing to enhance the relationship between a man and a woman.”
”[Prostitution] runs opposite to what relationships are supposed to be. Intimacy and love are not involved; it’s just a purely physical act. It lowers both people to the lowest common denominator.”
See related LifeSiteNews coverage:
Victoria Microbiologist Slams National Post Bias Favouring Embryo Cloning
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/apr/06041908.html