The Olympics was great for business in Vancouver. Read more at The New York Daily News…

Winter Olympics’ boost for Vancouver sex trade as business triples at brothel
By Megan Taylor

Vancouver’s estimated 1,000 sex workers agree: The Olympic Games are good for business.

Business at a brothel near downtown Vancouver tripled during the Winter Olympics, AOL News reports. But instead of the expected foreign visitors, Sexy Nina, who owns the house of ill repute, found local clients excited by the competitive spirit.

“The Games gave us the desire and willingness to connect, the energy to move,” she told AOL News. “What an amazing two weeks!”

Despite fears that out-of-town sex workers could make work riskier, some street workers reported that business was slow, said Kerry Porth, the executive director of Prostitution Alternatives Counseling & Education Society (PACE), which offered nightly outreach sessions during the Games.

Porth said the increased police presence may be to blame for some of the slowdown in street business.

“There were police on foot and in cars, all over the usual sex worker neighborhoods,” she said.

Although sex work is legal in Vancouver, some associated activities are not, such as running a brothel. But the Vancouver Police Department usually leaves sex workers alone.

Read the whole story at The Edmonton Sun…

Edmonton prostitute uses Craigslist to find clients
By Cary Castagna

She goes by the name “Jessica” and says she just turned 18.

Her ad on Craigslist bills her as a “sexy Asian knockout” living in downtown Edmonton.

“I’m really 18,” she tells Sun Media early yesterday afternoon with a laugh.

It’s a busy day for Jessica, whose “true companionship” and “erotic service” costs $200 an hour.

“Lots of people call,” she says in broken English, noting she’ll be booked for the next four hours but has an opening at 4:30 p.m.

Jessica works from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., and accepts five to six appointments per day.

She explains that she’s headed back to Vancouver in a few days and she only resorted to Craigslist because she needs the fast cash for college.

Jessica is just one of countless teens advertising sexual services to Edmonton men on the popular classifieds website.

Dozens of “erotic” ads — mostly from women claiming to be between 18 and 25 — are posted daily in the Edmonton section.

Several ads, accompanied by nude photos, didn’t mince words about the sexual services for sale.

“FeiFei,” who claims to be a 22-year-old Japanese student living in downtown Edmonton, says she likes to shower with nice guys and offers an hour of “full service” for $200.

Another look at the prostitution business as it will impact the 2012 Olympics in Vancouver, by someone who calls herself ‘Joyce Arthur.’ Read the whole article at Straight.com…

Facts and fictions about sex trafficking and Vancouver’s 2010 Olympics
By Joyce Arthur

With the 2010 Winter Olympic Games only seven months away, there is growing speculation that trafficking in women will increase significantly in Vancouver. A major new report lays these fears to rest by debunking the alleged link between a boom in sex trafficking and large sporting events.

The 150-page report, Human Trafficking, Sex Work Safety and the 2010 Games, was commissioned by Vancouver’s Sex Industry Worker Safety Action Group (SIWSAG). Warning that ill-informed assumptions about 2010 and trafficking may actually endanger sex workers, its recommendations focus on the real concern: that Games-related street closures and the planned security regime risks displacing sex workers into more dangerous and isolated areas. The report also notes community fears that street-level sex workers may be moved in an effort to “clean up the streets”.

The report echoes the 2009 Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women report on sex trafficking and the 2010 Olympics, which found that “an increase of trafficking in persons into forced prostitution does not occur around sporting events”. Further, the RCMP has stated that there is no evidence to suggest an increase in human trafficking during the Games (Vancouver Sun, January 7).

In the moral crusade against prostitution, trafficking is often wrongly conflated with sex work, a position first argued by the Bush Republicans who refused American funding aid to sex-worker and anti-trafficking organizations that support the decriminalization of sex work. However, trafficking in persons involves the coerced movement of a person into a situation of forced labour, while sex work is the consensual exchange of sexual services for money.

The great majority of sex workers are not trafficked or controlled by “pimps”. Most are in business for themselves or work through an agency, and most work indoors, not on the street where it’s far more dangerous. Conflating trafficking with sex work is wrong and, worse, can mask the real issues of violence and exploitation that occur within both trafficking and sex work. For example, trafficking victims in other economic sectors, such as construction or farm work, are ignored in the moral panic over sex trafficking.

Read the whole article at The Star….

Prostitutes in training for Vancouver Olympics
They’ll learn how to talk to the media

Vancouver sex-trade workers need to know their rights when dealing with cameras and reporters and will be offered media training ahead of the 2010 Olympic Games, an advocacy group said.

The Prostitution Alternatives Counselling and Education Society, located in Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside, will hold the session in November.

“We just want our members to feel safe. … Media attention to the area can be a little less than compassionate and we don’t want them to feel like animals in a zoo,” said spokeswoman Kerry Porth.

“We just want (the sex-trade workers) to be aware of what their rights are around media, including the fact that it is legal for (media) to take a picture of them on a public street,” Porth said.

The society held a similar training session at the onset of the Robert Pickton trial. Pickton was convicted on six counts of second-degree murder in December 2007.

Sue Davis, a Vancouver sex worker, said that during the trial “some workers reported up to nine reporters a day trying to film them,” she said. “And people asking them things like ‘Do you feel safe? Did your friends die? Are you on drugs?’ And then ‘Thanks for the story, see you later.’ “

Porth said the response from those who received the training at the time was positive.

I didn’t know theaters like this even existed anymore, now that we are comfortably in the era of home video. The last of these types of joints closed down in NYC’s Times Square years ago. Read the whole story at CBC News…

Undercover officer alleges XXX activity at porno theatre

An undercover police officer says that casual sex, prostitution and drug use are making Vancouver’s last XXX film theatre a health risk.

This comes as Vancouver’s licencing department prepares to debate the future of the pornographic establishment.

The Fox Cinema near the intersection of Main Street and Kingsway in East Vancouver has been showing pornographic films for about 25 years, but recent changes in the neighbourhood have prompted complaints from people in the community who want it shut down.

CBC News obtained a copy of an email to the city’s licensing department by Vancouver police Const. Mark Jarvie, who revealed that he went undercover at the Fox Cinema earlier this year.

As the movie screened, he watched men perform sexual acts on one another, female prostitutes with clients, and was himself approached and propositioned.

During a series of visits by police in uniform in 2008, Jarvie says officers witnessed sex acts, an overwhelming unpleasant pungent odour, puddles of body fluids and excrement, and even patrons smoking.

Jarvie called the Fox Cinema a health concern and alleged it was in breach of city bylaws, as well as provincial and federal regulations.

He also forwarded to the city a series of personal ads on the website Craigslist, in which men tried to arrange to meet at the Fox Cinema for sex.

Jarvie noted a community centre is scheduled to open across the street and he had received 19 complaints from local community members who want the Fox Cinema closed.

Vancouver’s licence department will review Jarvie’s report on Tuesday morning at a hearing that could decide the theatre’s fate.

The owner of the Fox Cinema, Lisa Huang, has told CBC News that because of the neighbours’ complaints she’s become more vigilant, and refuses to allow prostitutes inside the theatre.

Vancouver needs to take steps to accommodate the prostitution-related business.  Read the whole story at CanadaEast.com…

Vancouver prostitutes say consulting business would pay for brothel

A group of prostitutes has moved a step closer in their efforts to open a brothel so women involved in selling sex in the Downtown Eastside can get off the violent streets.

Sue Davis, a prostitute who has been a driving force behind the goal of opening a brothel, said proceeds from a consulting business launched Wednesday by the West Coast Co-operative of Sex Industry Professionals will enable the group to eventually open a brothel.

“Everybody is going to go crazy and think it’s the brothel (that’s opening),” she said, adding that won’t happen until several commercial enterprises have been developed to help longtime prostitutes find alternatives to working the streets.

The sex workers’ co-operative hopes to open a brothel in time for the 2010 Olympics and envisions a site similar to the plethora of massage parlours that now operate essentially as fronts for paid sex.

Their alternative work initiatives include the arts, publishing, catering and consulting.

Davis said a client and worker would rent a room for a sum that’s privately arranged between them at the site and that money would go towards its operating costs.

“If younger women are worth protecting (by working off-street) why aren’t the girls in the east end allowed to be in those environments?” Davis said.

“People in Vancouver agree that something different needs to be tried,” she said. “Business owners, residents and neighbourhoods that are impacted by sex work are tired of having to deal with all these issues.”

Davis has already been involved in consulting work.

She has voluntarily spoken to many Vancouver police officers at police headquarters about how to deal with street prostitutes and has been paid $150 an hour to make similar presentations to other groups.

Looks like a john caught with this pants down is taking on the very prostitution laws themselves.  It seems that his argumet rests on policy grounds, rather than procedural grounds, so odds are he will flop when he gets his day in court. 

Ottawa Citizen reports…

British Columbia john challenges Canadian prostitution laws
Chad Skelton

A B.C. man arrested in a prostitution sting is challenging the constitutionality of Canada’s solicitation laws in what’s believed to be the first such case brought forward by a john.

The man’s lawyer, Ray Chouinard, said no john has ever challenged the law before because most would rather just plead guilty or attend “john school” to avoid attention.

But Chouinard said his client – construction foreman Leslie Blais of Maple Ridge, B.C. – believes prostitution laws put sex workers at risk and isn’t willing to back down.

“I told him if you (pursue) this case, you’re going to be famous,” said Chouinard. “He said that’s fine. He’s not embarrassed by this at all.”

Blais, 43, was arrested in May 2006 as he tried to pick up a female RCMP officer posing as a prostitute. He was charged with communicating for the purposes of prostitution.

When Blais’ case reached B.C. provincial court, Chouinard said he planned to challenge the law on the grounds it violates prostitutes’ Charter rights by putting them at increased risk of violence.

Chouinard said Blais told him he wanted to fight the case because he once worked as a waiter at a restaurant frequented by prostitutes.

“He began to know them as people, and he saw terrible things happen,” said Chouinard. “He’s seen women come back from dates beaten and bloodied.”

To help buttress his case, Chouinard asked Simon Fraser University criminologist John Lowman to testify.

Lowman has done extensive research on violence against prostitutes and has already agreed to testify in two similar charter challenges – one in B.C., the other in Ontario – in which sex workers are seeking to have the country’s prostitution laws struck down.

But Lowman refused to testify in Blais’ case, arguing he couldn’t spare the time to appear and that doing so would distract him from his work on the other two cases.

Continue reading ‘British Columbia john challenges Canadian prostitution laws’ »

Guys, pay your bills! BC Local News reports…

Seven Charged in Vicious Attack on Trail Man
By Willa Condy – Trail-Rossland News

A 52-year old man is lucky to be alive after being attacked and viciously beaten by seven men on August 13.

The male had allegedly used the services of a prostitute and had not paid for her services which led to the assault at the Groutage Apartments in Trail. During the beating his bankcard and PIN number were obtained from him. Money was taken from the man’s bank account allegedly to purchase drugs.

The victim did not report the attack to the RCMP. Members of the Crime Reduction Unit and the plain clothes General Investigation Section heard about the possible assault and conducted an investigation.

“The members just followed up and did a really good job by finding him as quickly as they did. They probably saved his life,” said Staff Sergeant Nick Romachuk, Commanding Officer at the Greater Trail RCMP Detachment.

The victim was taken to the Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital and received treatment for his injuries. He has since been released from hospital.

Seven people have been arrested and appeared in Nelson Provincial Court on August 19. An arrest warrant for one more suspect is being sought by the RCMP.

Some ambituious folks in the Great White North were looking to add indoor sports to the 2010 Olympic festivities. Read the complete story here…

No Legalized Brothels for 2010 Olympics – Canadian Justice Minister

The Canadian Justice Minister has rejected the notion of decriminalizing prostitution, a move that had been called for by a British Columbia organization leading up to the 2010 Olympics.

“We are not in the business of legalizing brothels, and we have no intention of changing any of the laws relating to prostitution in this country,” Justice Minister Rob Nicholson told the Commons Status of Women Committee on Thursday.

A group calling itself the B.C. Coalition of Experiential Communities was attempting to pressure the government to create legal brothels for the upcoming Winter Olympics in 2010. The move had the support of both Liberal MP Libby Davies and Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan.