[VIDEO] Prostitution in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean: “I want more clients…”

Valérie Fortin

Thursday, 22 march, 2018 21:20

UPDATE
Thursday, 22 march, 2018 21:20

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SAGUENAY | so Who are the clients of prostitution in the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean?

We tend to believe that it is men desperate or disoriented, but you would be wrong. Several are married men, fathers of families, and professionals.

“You come across frequently… You walk in the street. Him, he acknowledges you. […] I’ve had so many. Of all the areas. A lot of army guys, guys of construction. It is always people who have money, power,” said Roxanne, a former prostitute who has agreed to confide in VAT News.

Some of his clients were even professionals in the justice system, and is therefore very aware of the laws.

Since December 2014, sex workers are considered legal in Canada. However, the clients, themselves, are not. They are the ones who are in the cross hairs of the justice, which is a paradox, according to the criminal lawyer Julien Boulianne.

“The sexual services, that is, to my knowledge, in Canada, the only area where you can legally sell something that it is illegal to buy,” he said.

And in fact, since these legislative changes, the police find that it is much more difficult for them to intervene, both against clients and pimps.

“When we have complaints, we will work on the folder of course. But these complaints are very rare,” said the spokesman of the public Safety of Saguenay, Bruno Cormier.

In effect, the advocates of the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean confirmed that the records of prostitution are very rare in the palace of justice, and this, despite the fact that the phenomenon will grow in the region.

“The police officers working on the tip of the iceberg”

The conservative senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu, urges the federal government to act, by amending the criminal Code to allow police to lay charges without the testimony of the victims.

“I don’t blame the police. The police officers working on the tip of the iceberg. They don’t work on the phenomenon in full. So they are trying a lot more to mitigate it than to eradicate it because they don’t have the tools to do so. They do not have the resources”,-he said in an interview with LCN.

Those who blow the whistle are rare. But Roxanne finally agreed to do it. Despite his sense of shame, she told police.

“Me, I want more clients we have treated like that. This is not because you buy a sexual service that you have the right to treat people like nothing, like a meat, an object,” said this ex-prostitute who claims to have been assaulted and attacked on multiple occasions.

The police discover that the tv series “.” released this winter to the antenna of VAT has had effects up to the police station in Saguenay. “I can tell you that it has certainly helped the young people who are involved in these records-there to come and speak to us, to come tell us their story,” says Bruno Cormier.