By Deborah Gyapong

OTTAWA (CCN) -- An alliance of pro-family groups has been granted intervener status, in a challenge by sex trade activists of Canada's anti-prostitution laws.

If activists' Charter challenge in Bedford v. Canada is successful, that would "make 'pimp' a legal occupation," said Joanne McGarry, executive director of the Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL).

Terri Jean Bedford, Amy Lebovitch and Valerie Scott want laws against prostitution declared unconstitutional because they violate their Charter rights to security of the person.

Their counsel has argued laws criminalizing aspects of the sex trade -- such as keeping a common bawdy house, soliciting, and living off the avails of prostitution -- have jeopardized their safety and forced prostitutes to rely on criminal elements for protection.

They have wanted to keep moral arguments out of the case, and view strictly the harms to prostitutes. But McGarry said the present laws prevent harm.

Keeping aspects of prostitution illegal is the best way to help girls, boys and women who are trafficked into the sex trade, McGarry said. Being able to prosecute pimps who live off the avails of prostitution is one of the few weapons those fighting to protect the exploitation of sex trade victims have.

"A lot of coercion that forces people into the business is pretty subtle stuff that wouldn't be covered by assault laws and trafficking laws," she said.

The recent court September 22 ruling by the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned Superior Court Justice P. Theodore Matlow's July decision that had denied the CCRL, REAL Women of Canada and the Christian Legal Fellowship from making arguments in the Bedford case as "friends of the court." The unanimous Appeal Court decision described Matlow's decision as "erroneous" and "flawed."

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Matlow had argued that treating the pro-family coalition as a "friend of the court" might give the wrong impression of the court having a special relationship with them, that would give them "a public platform to advance certain principles" -- which he described as "controversial" and held by only a small number of Canadians.

Because the sex trade activists want to restrict the case to discussions of harm and exclude moral arguments, Matlow said: "I cannot reasonably determine whether any issues of morality will properly arise in the arguments of the application."

"The Criminal Code is at its core an instrument of common moral purpose, a moral understanding of society," said CCRL president Phil Horgan. "That doesn't mean it's limited to sex trade workers and law enforcement officers."

He pointed out that groups like theirs have a right to intervene because Canadian society is much bigger than government, and includes a whole constellation of groups.

CCRL and its partners are prepared to argue about harm to the wider society as well. Prostitution hurts families and causes their break-up, and it causes hardship for the families of sex trade workers, Horgan said.

"There are inherent dangers in prostitution," McGarry said. "It doesn't bring out the best in people, or attract their best instincts."

Countries that have tried legalizing prostitution are rethinking that approach, she said. In the Netherlands, evidence shows that illegal aspects of the sex trade grow alongside the legal side.

Sweden has rethought its permissive approach to prostitution. Though prostitution itself is not criminalized, in recognition that most prostitutes are victims, the 'Johns' or customers and anything involved in trafficking or pimping are penalized, she said.

October 8/2009