Hey, this post may contain adult content, so we’ve hidden it from public view.
Only a tiny percentage of all women in prostitution are there because they freely choose it. For most, prostitution is not a real choice because physical safety, equal power with buyers, and real alternatives don’t exist. These are the conditions that would permit genuine consent. Most of the 1% who choose prostitution are privileged because of their ethnicity and class and they have escape options. Poor women and women of color don’t have these options.
“We want real jobs, not blowjobs,” said a First Nations survivor of prostitution in 2009. Prostitution exploits women’s lack of survival options. Research conducted in nine countries found that 89% of all those in prostitution said that they were in prostitution because they had no alternatives for economic survival and that they saw no means of escape. In Indonesia another study found that 96% of those interviewed wanted to escape prostitution. Sex discrimination, poverty, racism and abandonment drive girls into prostitution.
In industrial nations such as Canada, more than 90% of prostitutes are under the control of pimps. According to a 2002 report published in Québec by the Conseil du statut de la femme (Council on the status of women), 92% of the female prostitutes would like to leave the underworld of prostitution if they could. “To get out of it”, says the ex-prostitute Agnès Laury, “requires the unwavering will not to return to the street, to get help and to totally sever the ties to the underworld”.
“
| — |
Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres (CASAC) By Élaine Audet & Micheline Carrier (via exgynocraticgrrl) |
