WUNRN
PROSTITUTION IS NOT ONLY A WOMEN'S
ISSUE: IT IS AN ISSUE OF CHILDREN, & INCLUDING NON-STATE TORTURE
CANADA - LEGISLATIVE PROFESSIONAL
TESTIMONIES
Jeanne Sarson, MEd, BScN, RN and Linda MacDonald, MEd, BN, RN
Persons Against Non-State Torture - http://nonstatetorture.org/what-is-nsat-and-rat/
Seeing Child
Prostitution through the Eyes of a Victimized Woman: Faceless and
Countless
Sara remarked that she
can still hear her father say to the johns who rented her, “Bring her back when
you’re done.” Sara says she was two years old.
Figure 3: Sara’s
drawing shared with consent
9. Sara’s drawing was her attempt to show how she felt and experienced being pimped, “rented” or prostituted for sexualized NST by her parents. Although only her father is present in her drawing she explained her mother dressed or “prepared” her. Note that Sara is faceless as are the johns. And there was no shortage of johns—they were countless. Facelessness has significant meaning. Firstly, Sara and many of the women who have spoken to us of such victimization share how they were so dehumanized and destroyed by the terror, horror, and overwhelming torture pain that they felt nonexistent and nonhuman. Sara, for instance, described her-Self as an “it” when we met her when she was almost 30. She spoke of being “trained” from her earliest of memories to withstand torturing, particularly sexualized torture and torture “parties”. She said there was a demand for children who could withstand sexualized NST. The johns are faceless—they were too many. The countless numbers are too traumatizing to remember. Only Sara’s pimping father had a face—pleased he was benefiting from controlling, pimping, trafficking, and prostituting Sara.
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The women and girls multi-victimizations was
perpetrated and organized within the context of intimate relationships (i.e.,
parent, family, spousal); for most their multi-victimizations began primarily
when very young children. In the conversations about the prostitution of
persons, our Canadian experience is that seldom is the reality expressed that
prostitution involves a continuum of ages and children, primarily girls, must
be placed on that continuum of prostituted persons. Prostitution is not only a
women’s issue it is a issue of children. This is the reality in Canada.
Globally, children are considered a vulnerable social group in need of special
protection. The lack of discourse on the prostitution of children, girls mainly
who are being pimped, rented or bought, has been our concern with the Bedford v. Canada
ruling. We expressed our concerns about the continuous NST and prostitution
harms suffered by prostituted women and girls in our verbal evidence to the
House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights studying Bill
C-36. The link is: http://www.cpac.ca/en/jwplayer/?params=ZXA9MzQxNjc1ODMmcD1odHRwJTNBJTJGJTJGd3d3LmNwYWMuY2ElMkZ3cC1jb250ZW50JTJGdXBsb2FkcyUyRkNQQS05NjB4NzIwX0luQ29tbWl0dGVlLUhPQy1FTi5qcGVnJnNoYXJlPWh0dHA6Ly93d3cuY3BhYy5jYS9lbi9wcm9ncmFtcy9pbi1jb21taXR0ZWUtaG91c2Utb2YtY29tbW9ucy9lcGlzb2Rlcy8zNDE2NzU4Mw==&time=129.39
Prior to this verbal evidence we also submitted
a brief to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights
studying Bill C-36 linked here: http://nonstatetorture.org/files/1614/0555/9142/BriefJusticeHRcommittee.pdf
And prior to the House of Commons Standing
Committee on Justice and Human Rights studying Bill C-36 we expressed our
concerns about the prostitution of children to the federal and provincial
Attorney Generals and Justice Ministers, and to Members of Parliament, readable
here: http://nonstatetorture.org/files/1113/9709/1543/Prostitution.pdf
It is my experiential conclusion after 21 years
of grass root support to the horrific suffering of women who were so harmed
that if we are to understand prostitution we need to comprehend its violent dimensions
of women and girls of all ages.
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