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| News: Working girls tell tales of torture |
SHANE HOLLADAY, EDMONTON SUN
Amid tales of horror and degradation, Edmonton's sex-trade workers told a special committee on prostitution they need help escaping the business - not legalization. "What I heard was nothing less than torture in some cases. They talked about what it does to your soul," Kate Quinn, of the Prostitution Awareness and Action Foundation.
More than a dozen former and current male, female and transgendered prostitutes told their stories Thursday to the House of Commons committee.
The committee is criss-crossing Canada to gather opinions from social workers, prostitutes and community groups, and will then recommend legislative changes aimed at ending the recent tide of prostitute murders in British Columbia and Alberta.
Behind closed doors, Quinn said one woman told of how she was forced to turn her first trick when she was 12 years old to get money to feed her brothers.
"So they spoke about the reality," she said. "They all asked for more resources to help people get off prostitution."
Prostitutes said those who seek out sex for sale, and those who profit from the trade, have to be targeted, Quinn said.
"They said go after the johns, go after the pimps, go after the drug dealers. Help us get out of prostitution."
Kathy King, mother of murdered prostitute Cara King, said Canada must follow the example set by Sweden.
There, legislators have targeted the consumer side of the sex industry, King said. The body of her 23-year-old daughter was found dead in a canola field in 1997.
"Prostitution is a consumer-driven activity," King said. "And there seems to be a conspiracy in the world to protect the consumers and persecute the women."
Former prostitute Dawn Hodgins said local prostitutes didn't care about decriminalization or legalization.
"That wasn't the problem," she said. "The problem was that they are homeless, addicted."
Origionally published Edmonton Sun, April 4, 2005
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