BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to 'Barrie escort agency operator convicted of human trafficking,' published Feb. 14.
As I read the story on Feb. 15, it felt necessary to applaud Marg. Bruineman for reporting the facts of this court case. It is a significant victory for these women.
Unfortunately, the abuse they suffered was not that different from the abuse that any woman endures in what is known as the sex trade.
Opinions differ on whether or not prostitution should be legalized. California recently passed legislation that decriminalized loitering for the purposes of prostitution.
The result? Increased sex trafficking of minors and vulnerable women, and fewer methods that police can use to intervene.
While the women in this story were not turned out onto the street to solicit customers, they were controlled in the same manner any pimp would use: intimidation, manipulation, coercion.
It has become politically fashionable to defend prostitution as just another job, but it is anything but normal, and certainly not safe.
If anyone is reading this, I would ask you to think about the young girls you may know. Does prostitution seem like a good future for them?
The thought should unsettle you and the answer should be an emphatic "No!" If you don't want your daughter, niece, sister, or friend to be exploited, addicted, threatened, violated, traumatized, or killed, why is it acceptable for any woman?
There was a time when I thought that "sex work is work," but over the years I have lived next door to prostitution on three separate occasions. What I witnessed changed my perspective.
What these local women have been through, and the circumstances that brought them there, should dent the hardest of hearts. I wish them well.
Daisy Oliveros
Barrie
Barrie
