A rchive Date
[ 23-02-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[Children deserve protection
Despite judge's ruling, a 12-year-old prostitute has already lost her liberty
By LICIA CORBELLA
Calgary Sun
August 6, 2000
If I gave my three-year-old twin sons their so-called right to liberty, they would be, well ... dead.
What's more, were it not for my and my husband's necessary meddling with their freedom ever since they started to crawl, they would have died a thousand times over - each.
Such is the case with all young children.
Let them stand next to a rushing river and they want to plunge themselves into it. Let them peer over the rail on a bridge and they want to jump off. Go for a ride on a ferris wheel and they want to stand up in the seat. Let go of their hand in a parking lot for one second and they're darting off into the path of a car. Let them eat only what they want and it would be candy, chips and more candy - every day at every meal.
Sure, that's freedom of a sort - but it leads to death or injury.
In short, restricting the liberty of children is an absolute necessity to ensure they grow up to be healthy adults. Heck, it's a necessity to ensure they grow up to be adults at all. What's more, society has fully accepted limiting the rights of children - that's why they can't vote and are required by law to go to school.
Protecting children from themselves and others was the intended aim and the actual outcome of an innovative Alberta law - the Protection of Children Involved in Prostitution Act. That law was struck down last week in Calgary by Provincial Court Judge Karen J. Jordan.
This law, which allows police to apprehend under-aged prostitutes for 72 hours without charge in order to protect them from pimps and johns, makes a lot of common sense. It also works.
Of the 367 child prostitutes detained in Alberta, seven were just 12 years old - 12 years old! Nearly a dozen were only 13. Another 58 of the children apprehended for selling their bodies across Alberta were 14.
"Children are dying, drug-addicted and in prostitution. We have to save them," said Tory MLA Heather Forsyth, who spearheaded the controversial law.
While in custody, the agencies that help these girls try to contact parents if that's appropriate, give the girls counselling and help them escape brutal pimps if they need to. Forsyth estimates that 62 children have been liberated from the sex trade in Alberta since the law came into effect on Feb. 1.
That's 62 saved lives.
Over the many years I have been a reporter, I have had the opportunity to chat to many prostitutes for various stories - both young and old. I have liked almost all of them, one even became a dear friend - though she's hard to keep in touch with.
At one point I was even assigned to pose as a prostitute in a seedy Toronto neighbourhood to try and determine if a residents' campaign attempting to scare away johns was working. (It wasn't.)
But it was an eye-opening experience for me. Peering into those cars of men seeking sex made me more fully understand the true horror of what many children in Canada endure on a daily basis.
Those Romeo's came by in all kinds of chariots - looking polished and scrubbed driving shiny new Jaguars; while others had rotten teeth, filthy clothes and drove broken down jalopies. Some even had children's car seats in the back of their vehicles, real Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde types with the plastic pocket protectors and undershirts by day and depravity by night. One of those men very well may have been the next sex killer, rapist or sado masochist.
I, of course, never got into any of those vehicles, I simply walked away. I was free to do so. But girls as young as 11 and 12 do jump into those cars and I can assure you it's not because they're exercising their freedom.
Children prostitute themselves on the world's mean streets because they are slaves - slaves to pimps and drugs, mostly - but they are also slaves to their lack of options and opportunities; skills and hope.
In short, freedom can be defined as the right to choose. These children often have two choices - get raped every day by men who at least pay for it, or get raped at home by your care giver. Sell your body on the street or get beaten by your pimp if you do not.
Children are forced into prostitution - they do not choose it - it chooses them. Children do not prostitute themselves to exercise their liberty - they prostitute themselves because they have no liberty.
After all, the more options and opportunities one has, the more freedom. What child is more free - a parentless street child with no adult supervision but also little opportunity, or my children living with structure and barriers and boundless experiences and opportunities?
When a 12-year-old girl sells her body to an adult for money, she is not exercising her freedom, she is acknowledging her lack of options.
A few weeks ago, one of our sons wanted desperately to ride on a big roller-coaster. I showed him the height line and told him when he was that tall he could ride the roller-coaster. He was disappointed but he understood. There are barriers that restrict our freedom for our own good.
Too bad the courts don't get that.
Licia Corbella, editor of the Calgary Sun, can be reached at 403-250-4129 or by e-mail at licia.corbella@cal.sunpub.com. Her columns appear Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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