High Heels & High Courts! Hookers Arise.

Ottawa : Canada | Mar 31, 2011 at 11:55 AM PDT

By Andy Mathisen

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Views: Pending

Sex workers from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside will be representing the interests of Canada's prostitutes as they get a hearing from the Supreme Court on the ambiguity of the law. The group was turned down this appeal last fall...but have now won a hearing with the aid of the Attorney General's office of B.C.

Prostitution is NOT illegal in Canada. However, running a "bawdy house", living off the avails of prostitution or communicating for the purpose of prostitution are all illegal. The women believe these conflicting statutes hinder the ability to keep women safe from "working the streets". Too often they fall prey to sexual predators. The women feel that it would be a safer and more controlled environment if they could establish brothels.

They feel the present laws run counter to a constitutional right to both protection and safety and have issued a constitutional challenge on those grounds.

I, for one, wish them luck in this challenge. For too long have they been abused and "disposable" entities making a dangerous living on the fringes and backstreets of our society!

Rather than add a video to this article...perhaps a revisit to my VERY FIRST Allvoices article from over 2 years ago is in order?

It's about the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, Police, Prostitution and Springsteen!

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/2506074-boss-helps-hopeless

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Hooker hard at work?

Andy Mathisen is based in Smithers, British Columbia, Canada, and is an Anchor for Allvoices.

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Post a Comment Comments: 15

Posted By

Nathaniel Hines | about 2 years ago

As a defensive mechanism, I quote Chris Rock. I do not condone prostitution, but I am not against it. Good luck girls. Lawyers will be next.

Reply By

mrspleats | about 2 years ago

I love this Nathaniel,

This covers it all.

Well said.

Reply By

Andy Mathisen | about 2 years ago

The law certainly needs some clarity..and the women deserve some protection under the law. Many countries have accepted the vocation as a social vice not unlike gambling etc. Better to have some health control and regulation rather than moral indignity that leaves women to the anarchy of the dark and mean streets of the night!

Posted By

RobertWeller991 | about 2 years ago

I see little difference between prostitution and journalism, except that writers can’t be ordered into the closet by Charlie Sheen.

Reply By

Andy Mathisen | about 2 years ago

I'm sure there are some pay differences..depending on where (and how) you ply your "trade"?

Posted By

RobertWeller991 | about 2 years ago

Yes, there can be differences in pay. Writers are almost always safer.

Posted By

slicknick | about 2 years ago

Slydog (Andy) its an old profession, but a sad way of life for most of them, in the end. Unless your the "Mayflower Madam".. LOL

Reply By

Andy Mathisen | about 2 years ago

I don't deny it is a hard way to make a living and fraught with perils. Perhaps a return to the "old days" of cathouses and Madams (ala Steinbeck's Cannery Row etc) would be better than plying their trade in alleys and dark streetcorners?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannery_Row_(novel)

Posted By

Billie Greenwood | about 2 years ago

It has to be a sad life--not only to provide prostitution services, but also to have to seek them out.

Reply By

Andy Mathisen | about 2 years ago

Hiding it in the "dark" doesn't make it go away Billie?

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/predators/robert_pickton/1.html

Posted By

BMcPherson | about 2 years ago

That's got to be the hardest way possible to earn a living. Surely the bright lights can come up with a zoning solution that everyone can live with. Noise, parking etc, seem like easy fixes to get the men and women off those really dangerous streets.

Reply By

Andy Mathisen | about 2 years ago

I remember doing the Coal mining play in Nanaimo in 1982 based on Lynne Bowen's "Boss Whistle" book. We had a lovely song called "Fraser Street" that sang of the 5 or 6 cathouses that existed there to help ease the sore muscles of many a single (or married?) miner in the early years of the last century?

"Here on Fraser Street you've started your shift
Here on Fraser Street we've a shift of our own.

Some toil in the darkness
Some live in the light
You toil in your beds of coal
and we? On sheets of white!"

Here on Fraser Street..etc

Great song

Posted By

mrspleats | about 2 years ago

"High Heels & High Courts! Hookers Arise." Love it!!!

Rated up

Have a Timmies Day!!Love their new smoothies (lol)

Posted By

aymaan30 | about 2 years ago

Well Writen...Prostitution, beleived to be the oldest profession on earth till date is viewed as a sullied and the sex workers looked down upon..it's time we give these people a life of dignity..at least a safe place to earn thier livelihood....RATED UP.

Posted By

Brigid Jean Primrose | about 2 years ago

Prostitutes are such interesting people to have a conversation with. They see the world from so many angles that we never do. I think they also do a great job in protecting the more protected of us by having the courage to satisfy the peculiar needs of many who would never suggest such things to their mates.
Rated up - article and comments.

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