NCJ Number
101765
Date Published
1986
Length
54 pages
Annotation
The Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies (CAEFS), a national voluntary organization assisting female offenders, critiques the 1985 Fraser Report on Pornography and Prostitution in Canada, focusing on report recommendations pertaining to prostitution.
Abstract
CAEFS supports the Fraser Report recommendations that address the socioeconomic conditions that influence women to become prostitutes. These recommendations include the elimination of sexual discrimination, the establishment of social programs to help meet juveniles' needs, and support for the instruction of school children in human sexuality. CAEFS agrees with the Fraser Report that prostitution per se should be decriminalized. CAEFS, however, opposes the recommendation that prostitutes or prostitution establishments be licensed by the government due to the potential for corruption and abuse in such a system. Also, CAEFS does not favor limiting prostitutes to their own homes as places of business nor the criminalizing of small-scale residential prostitution. The prosecution of prostitutes' clients is opposed by CAEFS, unless a client's treatment of the prostitute violates a criminal law. Rather than creating new sexual offenses pertaining to the victimization of children, as recommended by the Fraser Report, CAEFS favors amendments to the Criminal Code that will protect all children from nonconsensual heterosexual or homosexual acts. Overall, CAEFS does not recommend using the criminal law as a method for reducing prostitution. 26 footnotes.