Canadian Store (CAD)
You are currently shopping in our Canadian store. For orders outside of Canada, please switch to our international store. International and US orders are billed in US dollars.
The Ottawa Sun
News alert to clients of juvenile prostitutes: She's not enjoying it. You likely disgust her. She'll mock you to her pimp — her "real" boyfriend — call you a geezer and a pervert.
You're destroying her soul. While you're busy thinking about yourself, she's busy thinking about your money. Because your money is all she wants. The quicker the better.
"The best client is a premature ejaculator," one prostitute told Patrice Corriveau, co-author of Gangs and Girls: Understanding Juvenile Prostitution.
Corriveau, an assistant professor of criminology at the University of Ottawa, did not set out to point fingers, but to understand how young men are drawn to gang life, how young girls become attracted and attached to the gang members who eventually sell them into prostitution and, ultimately, how it all can be prevented.
But there is one thing Corriveau wants to make clear — there is a fundamental distinction between juvenile prostitution and adult prostitution. In fact, he strongly believes all adult sex work should be decriminalized in Canada as it is in New Zealand.
What concerns him are girls under the age of 18 — too naive to make an informed choice — who are recruited into prostitution by street gangs and often passed around and abused.
When Gangs and Girls was originally published in French in 2006, it was second only to Harry Potter on Quebec's best-seller list.
Since then, Corriveau and co-author Michel Dorais have been contacted by social workers, police officers, a former pimp, parents of juvenile prostitutes and, of course, victims — mostly from Quebec but some from the Ottawa region.
All encouraged the authors to pursue their studies, many offered new information. As a result, when it was republished in English last month by McGill-Queen's University Press, it contained about 30% new material.
But one conclusion remained the same: It's a sad, dangerous life for an adolescent girl.
Corriveau shared his insights with Sun Media.
Q: What motivates boys to join street gangs?
A: It's always related to a feeling of exclusion or discrimination from society. And it's always related to protection, not to create violence but to be protected from violence. At some point it becomes a vicious circle. It's also the male identity, virility. A lot believe they can find a way to become a man or be perceived as a man.
Q: How do gang members recruit girls into juvenile prostitution?
A: The most common is "love bombing," a guy will try to get a girl to fall in love with him. These girls are what we call submissives, they think that they are in love with this boyfriend, and at some point they will be asked to help him earn money for the couple, and essentially they are going to do it for love.
Q: Are they always coerced, or do some girls choose on their own to join gangs and become prostitutes?
A: There are four main reasons girls get into prostitution. One is coercion, for sure. But for other girls it's to make quick and good money, for others it's thrilling for them — it's like their extreme sport — and then there are those we mentioned before who do it for love. And it could change. You could go for the money, and at the end of the day it could be for love or coercion.
Q: What is the status of a girl in a gang?
A: The guys use them for sex or easy jobs like bringing drugs from one point to another because they think it will be less suspicious to the police. It's very rare they have the same role as a guy. Gangs are created by guys, for guys.
Q: How can parents prevent their daughters from being susceptible to gangs and prostitution?
A: Listen and be aware. A lot of them go to gangs because they're looking for love. One way to prevent that is to give them love.
Q: How do parents react when they find their teenage daughter has been prostituted by a gang?
A: Some of them feel guilty. We don't have to blame parents every time. Instead of trying to find the guilty person, we should try to understand the entire circumstances. Some girls will go there anyway. There's no socio-demographic profile. They can be from rich families, they can be runaways.
Q: Who are the clients of juvenile prostitutes?
A: The only clients we know are the ones who get caught. But, from what we know about them, nothing seems to distinguish the clients of underage girls from the clients of adult prostitutes. They can be married, single, have kids, have no kids.
Q: If a girl doesn't want to be prostituted by a gang, why doesn't she simply get out?
A: Some are in love. They don't see it as prostitution, they see it as helping their boyfriend. We have seen girls who don't want to testify against their, quote, pimp. It's not that easy for someone who is in love.
Q: Do you believe adult sex work should be legalized?
A: Not legalized, but decriminalized. In Canada, it is not illegal, per se, but if you try to do it, it is. It's a very paradoxical legal situation and problematic for the women, which is why they are often victimized. Even if it was legalized, like in Nevada and the Netherlands, the managers still make most of the money and make the rules. It should be decriminalized, like in New Zealand. Remove everything from the Criminal Code. Then it's the women themselves who create the rules. Not someone like me who will decide for them what they have to do to be safe. They know more than me.
Q: Wouldn't the decriminalization of adult sex work only exacerbate the problem of juvenile prostitution?
A: No, it's completely false. Unlike adult prostitution, juvenile prostitution is specifically prohibited by the Criminal Code. It has its own law. Decriminalizing adult prostitution would not affect it.
By Shane Ross of the Ottawa Sun, March 8
Interview between Patrice Corriveau and Trish Crawford of the Toronto Star, March 3
No comments yet.