Saint John police, groups seek federal help to fight sex trade
Police and community agencies in Saint John are asking for federal funding to help get sex workers out of the trade.
The federal government has made funding available as a complement to new prostitution laws that came into effect in December.
Saint John Police Chief Bill Reid said the new laws will not change the way his department polices prostitution.
But he said the funding can help groups, such as the Coverdale Centre for Women, AIDS Saint John and Housing First, and the work they do with people in the sex trade.
Reid said at a meeting of the city’s police commission on Tuesday that housing is a big part of getting people to leave the sex trade.
"I have to have a place to live," says Reid, adding there are few safe options for someone without housing.
"Maybe that truck, maybe with that person."
Reid estimates there are between 30 and 50 people working in the city's street sex trade.
In January, the federal Department of Justice announced funding to assist both non-profit groups and law enforcement agencies that want to provide or enhance programs that will help people leave the sex trade.
Among the programs that can be funded are those that offer, "the use of emergency safe houses and drop-in centres for those contemplating leaving prostitution as well as mid-term and long-term safe transitional housing"
The new prostitution law is controversial. Called the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, it makes the purchase of sex illegal but not its sale.
Critics, including Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, have raised concerns that it will not protect sex workers.
Staff Sgt. Jim Fleming, who is in charge of the city's community policing unit, said says prostitution in Saint John is not what people imagine.
"We call it the survival sex trade," Fleming told members of the city's police commission on Tuesday evening,
"They're horribly addicted, mental health, chronic abuse cases. There's no glamour to the prostitution scene in the city of Saint John.”
