Canadian Prostitutes Need a Home

Prostitution is technically legal in Canada , but nearly everything surrounding the activity is criminalized, particularly where the service can be provided. Three Toronto women are hoping to change that.

Yahoo Canada reports that Terri-Jean Bedford, Valerie Scott and Amy Lebovitch, who describe themselves as feminist activists and "sex trade workers," launched a constitutional challenge against Canada's prostitution laws on Tuesday, arguing that decriminalizing some elements will make it safer for them to work.

Currently, Canadian law states that prostitution services can not be provided indoors, not in one's home, and not under a roof shared with a spouse, partner or bodyguard. The women say this has forced them to seek customers on street corners.

The women hope that decriminalizing prostitution will allow them to hire bodyguards and open brothels making their business safer for everyone involved.

Alan Young, who is representing the women, called the laws which were intended to get prostitutes off the streets a "sinister contradiction."

"We're not here to argue whether there should be prostitution or not. We're saying, it's here, it's legal and the government cannot put people in harm's way through their laws," Young said .

Over the past several years there have been several high-profile cases of prostitutes being murdered in Canada. Pig farmer Robert Pickton was charged with murdering 26 prostitutes and convicted on six counts at his first trial in 2007, and Marcello Palma was charged with shooting three Toronto sex trade workers during a manic, two-hour killing spree in 1996 and later claimed he was "getting rid of street scum."