‘Prostitution paid for my daughter’s tap-dancing shoes’
St. John’s should have consulted sex workers before drafting new rules for massage parlours
“There were a lot of vulnerable youth in the community who were being exploited,” said Mary Fearon, who runs the Blue Door program.
Although it only started accepting clients about a year ago, the program now has 21 people enrolled.
‘I’m not a victim’
The inquiry, which is in the third day of hearings in St. John’s, also heard from Lanna Moon Perrin, an Anishinaabe woman from Sudbury, Ont. who describes herself as an activist and a sex worker.
Perrin described leaving home as a teenager and living on her own.
“I started with street-level sex work at 16 just so that I could buy things for myself,” she said. “A winter jacket, winter boots, decent food to eat.”
Perrin said sex work allowed her to provide for herself and her two children. She said she felt empowered by that.
“I’m not a victim because I chose to do that,” she said, “Prostitution paid for my daughter’s tap-dancing shoes.”
We want an end to this violence and we want our girls and our women to be safe.– Robyn Bourgeois, Brock University
Perrin advocates for the decriminalization of sex work. She believes laws against it endanger people who work in the trade.
“We have to hide from police, we have to go to places that are even more isolated,” she said. “We get victimized when we get pushed into the darkness.”
Robyn Bourgeois, a professor at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont., testified about the different ways academics and advocates approach the sex trade. Some want to see it decriminalized, while others want to see it abolished — but she said there is one common goal.
“No matter what, we all want the same thing,” she said.
“We want an end to this violence and we want our girls and our women to be safe.”
There has been a moratorium on adult massage parlours in St. John’s since 2015. Coun. Maggie Burton told CBC News the draft regulations for those parlours are still an internal document, with ongoing review.
“Once we complete the review process which is currently ongoing, we will have a new draft to release for consultation,” Burton said.
