Centretown residents want hookers off their streets – fast. But an ineffective system to deal with prostitution continues to create a result that’s less than edifying: raging residents and perpetual prostitution.
Last week, 27 women were charged in Centretown as the result of a prostitution sweep by Ottawa police. The event follows a disturbing societal precedent: “clean” the streets of these damaged women, and send their clients off to find more. In that respect, resident complaints (which were the cause of this police action), seem callous and naïve.
Eric Post’s been the community police officer in the area since 2002 and he knows all the Centretown sex workers’ names and birthdays by heart. He says there are about 20 regular sex workers who work the streets in the neighbourhood.
According to Post, the average Centretown hooker makes $500 a night, sees around 20 men in an evening, and deals with a serious crack addiction. Although the women vary in age and ethnicity, he says the one common thread between them is that they really don’t want to be working the streets. They’ve been sexually abused, degraded, marginalized — circumstances that often results in drug addiction. Resident complaints seem petty and callous until Post explains what people in the communities deal with.
He witnessed a two-year-old girl stepping on a needle. He said that he once needed to be treated for possible HIV and hepatitis infection. The fit 300-pound police officer said he lasted two days on the treatment drugs. After that, the drugs were simply too hard on his body and he couldn’t stop vomiting. One can only imagine what the experience would be like for a toddler.
So, you can’t blame the community for wanting the women and all the dangers that accompany them out of the neighbourhood. And you can’t blame the sex workers because they’re suffering from drug addiction and repercussions of abuse.
Although it is arguably the oldest profession in the world and will probably always exist one way or another, changes to the law would have an immense effect on the amount of prostitution in Centretown.
Again and again, the same women are being arrested, according to Post. When caught for the first time, a prostitute is given probation and a ban on working in the neighbourhood .Again and again they violate their probation because they need money to fuel their addictions and hooking is all they know. Sometimes, they move to another neighbourhood, sometimes they’ll be caught for the second time in the same area.
If they’re caught without a criminal record they do community service instead of a jail time. In that case, they’re put in jail for a short period of time. When they get out, they’re lacking drugs and money and often the most tempting thing is to go right back to what they know.
Instead of throwing the women into jail repeatedly, they should be put into serious rehab and therapy programs. This would dealwith the problem at the core: self-esteem and drug addiction.
Although it would be a long path to recovery for the women, giving them an opportunity to tackle the root of their problem and see the light would be far more beneficial than throwing them behind bars only to go back to strutting in the dark.