AMID A serious push to decriminalize prostitution in Canada, a Winnipeg judge this week ordered a light sentence for a woman who ran a brothel in her home with her young children’s knowledge.

Justice Deborah McCawley accepted the middle-aged defendant’s claim that she ran a sex business, employing a dozen young women and an 18-year-old boy, for essentially humanitarian reasons. The woman said she wanted to provide a safe place for young people to practice the trade. She also asserted it had been the culmination of her girlhood career ambitions.

According to the Winnipeg Free Press, McCawley said, “[T]he reasons that (the accused) asserts she chose to break the law appear to be genuine.” There is no mention of the effects on her children.

Last month, a group representing Vancouver prostitutes appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada to argue on behalf of its suit case against prostitution-related laws, which the court has not yet decided to hear. Prostitution itself is not illegal in Canada, but it is unlawful to operate a brothel, live off the proceeds of prostitution and arrange a transaction in public.

The “sex-trade workers” claimed the laws make their work unsafe, forcing them to work outside or arrange hasty sales. The argument is so ludicrous it beggars belief. The government does not force anyone to sell sex.

The purpose of anti-prostitution laws is not to rid the world of prostitution but to make it invisible and contained. The CBC report includes this line:

Terri-Jean Bedford, a dominatrix, currently has her case at the Ontario Appeal Court.

Katrina Pacey, the lawyer for the Vancouver whores, said: “Sex workers deserve to be respected and their rights deserve to be respected.”

If that’s so, then who doesn’t deserve to be respected?

—Comments —

David S. writes:

“If that’s so, then who doesn’t deserve to be respected?”

Murderers and thieves, maybe? You do see a distinction, right? One group attacks unwilling participants; the other only involves willing ones. I’m not saying I agree that prostitution should be legal, but there’s a clear distinction between that and things like murder and theft.

Not that I’m religious, but it’s no accident that there are Commandments against murder and theft, but not prostitution.

Laura writes:

My question referred to a group of paid workers claiming their rights. The point is, if this group of workers deserves to be respected for their work, then who doesn’t? Prostitution is essentially illegal in Canada still. It’s like mobsters trying to decriminalize extortion by saying, “We deserve respect for our work and safe working conditions. Laws against extortion put us at risk.”

I haven’t the slightest interest in getting into the theological case against prostitution with you at this time. But this issue does ultimately involve the question of whether society should encourage or discourage prostitution. There is a reasonable medium course, almost a form of neutrality on the matter, and that is laws that make prostitution or prostitution-related activities illegal but do not impose severe punishments. That has been the widely accepted approach in North America for many years. This approach is not good enough for today’s “sex-trade workers,” some of whom undoubtedly have big-money interests behind them.

Lawrence Auster writes:

You write:

“The point is, if this group of workers deserves to be respected for their work, then who doesn’t?… It’s like mobsters trying to decriminalize extortion by saying, “We deserve respect for our work and safe working conditions. Laws against extortion put us at risk.”

That is essentially the argument of Falstaff in Henry IV, Part I:

FALSTAFF

O, thou hast damnable iteration and art indeed able
to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm upon
me, Hal; God forgive thee for it! Before I knew
thee, Hal, I knew nothing; and now am I, if a man
should speak truly, little better than one of the
wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give
it over: by the Lord, and I do not, I am a villain:
I’ll be damned for never a king’s son in
Christendom.

PRINCE HENRY

Where shall we take a purse tomorrow, Jack?

FALSTAFF

‘Zounds, where thou wilt, lad; I’ll make one; an I
do not, call me villain and baffle me.

PRINCE HENRY

I see a good amendment of life in thee; from praying
to purse-taking.

FALSTAFF

Why, Hal, ’tis my vocation, Hal; ’tis no sin for a
man to labour in his vocation.

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