It has come to our attention that there is a group of people who wish to legalize prostitution and set up a brothel in Vancouver. As the parents of Marnie Frey, who was murdered by Robert “Willie” Pickton, we believe that both these ideas are very dangerous recommendations.

Our daughter was forced into prostitution because of the need to feed her addiction to drugs. To think of prostitution as a ‘job’ and treat it as such is ridiculous. I am disgusted to think that anyone would think that prostitution is a job. It is not.

It is violence against women.

Neither legalizing prostitution nor having a brothel would have prevented the murder of our daughter. The women of the Downtown Eastside need meaningful solutions to their addictions.

We tried on numerous occasions to have Marnie admitted to drug rehabilitation facilities, but found that to be very difficult because of the chronic lack of beds and funding for such places. When an addict reaches out for help, the resources should be available immediately. To think the best we can do for these women is giving them a safe place to sell their bodies is a joke. There is no such thing as a “clean safe place” to be abused in.

For a man to think he can buy a woman’s body is insane, and should show us the attitudes that women have to fight against in society. Marnie did not choose prostitution; her addictions did, and any man who bought her body for their sexual pleasure should go to jail for exploiting her desperation.

What we need are facilities to get women off and away from drugs and keep other young girls from this horrible lifestyle by helping them when they are still young. Anything else would be a cop out and further fuel the abuse of women as playthings for men, who prey on sick, disadvantaged and hurting women.

My wife and I feel the legalization of prostitution and/or a brothel is not the answer. We ask that you IMMEDIATELY stop using the name and memory of our daughter to fight for a brothel or to legalize prostitution.

Marnie’s name CAN be used to fight for more detox beds, more recovery beds, funding for long term counseling, making it illegal for men to buy the use of women’s bodies and enforcing these laws. Her legacy CAN help in the fight towards women’s equality, which cannot happen as long as we keep our women for sale.

We know we have a lot of support from other families of Pickton’s victim’s, in the community as well as across our Nation, who feel as we do. Prostitution in no way should be accepted as normal or legalized.

Yours truly,
Rick and Lynn Frey (Parents of Marnie Frey)

Fine. But not entirely off topic. I contend that in relatively stable societies, for a mentally healthy human being, killing is so unnatural (except under the most extreme circumstances usually involving duress where life and limb are truely in danger) that cultures have had to create incentives to convince men and boys to fight wars. Besides ideas of duty and honor, many of these incentives traditionally have had to do with exploiting females, e.g. women as spoils of war, or the promise of heavenly virgins for the martyrs.*

*(images of virgins floating in the sky, in of itself isn’t exploitative, but cultures that place high value on virgin females creates further incentives to exploit young girls–as child brides, for example)

More on topic though, war also creates demand for prostitutes.

So if folks want to “go there” with comparisons to soldiers in a blog about sexual exlpoitation, we’ve got thousands of years of historical and anthropological evidence (and even zoological data, if you really want to get ugly) to back up the connection between male violence (including war) and female sexual mistreatment, of which prostitution is the tip of the iceberg. The only question is do you want to see human civilization go backward or forward?

Thanks for another great post about prostitution, charliegrrl.

Wahooo that Steve Wright has been convicted for murdering the Ipswich prostituted women!

I found the news coverage ok cos they kept reiterating how the women were normal women who became addicted to drugs- so not blaming them for becoming prostitutes.

The ECP though, they get everywhere!

It struck me as watching the ECP talk about decriminalising the sex industry, why don’t people talk about legalising heroin to be available to addicts on prescription as part of a welfare programme. Much better than decriminalising the sex industry. Then women wouldn’t need to prostitute themselves to purchase heroin. I know this practice is done by some GPs.

The founder of Black Poppy magazine, a mag by and for drug users, is a woman who was addicted to heroin, prostituted herself to pay for it, but being able to get her heroin off the NHS saved her from prostitution and a crime-ridden world

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3592877.stm

Man hater- what me..? Never!

Sorry I am in frivolous mood folks.

You can go back to your man hating and back patting in peace.