September 12, 2000 07:25am
Canadians Use Web to Weed Out Prostitution
Source: Reuters
by: Susan Taylor
(OTTAWA) -- Across Canada, community groups are using one of the world's newest technologies to fight the oldest profession.
The Internet is proving to be a powerful weapon to drive prostitution out of neighborhoods, say residents who are posting pictures and partial license plate numbers of sex-trade customers, or johns, spotted on their streets.
Doug, a Calgary community volunteer who does not want his last name used to protect his safety, said he was compelled to take action after a pimp threatened him with a knife in the lobby of his condominium.
``It got out of control -- it wasn't safe. You certainly couldn't send your children out,'' said the self-employed consultant who works from his downtown home.
``You can't have your spouse coming home at night crying because on the way to work and on the way home on the same day some loser has been asking her for sex for money.''
Frustrated by bumper-to-bumper traffic pouring through its streets and the used condoms and needles that sex and drug trade customers left behind, a group of Calgary downtown residents began working with other community organizations and the police in search of a solution.
Residents decided the Internet would play a key role in their plan to focus attention on customers.
Prostitution is technically legal in Canada, however publicly soliciting is not.
``Focus on the 'john' and you will solve the problem. Focus on the prostitute and you're doomed, because they're just inventory,'' Doug said.
``We applied some technology to the situation. We've got a group of professionals here that are forward-thinking people who said here's a twist -- let's use the Internet.''
The Calgary community group believes it was the first in Canada to launch a Web site at http://www.calgaryhodown.tsx.org that posts license plates and descriptions of johns' vehicles used to pick up prostitutes. The site omits one number or letter from the license plates it posts to avoid lawsuits.
The site is called the Calgary Ho Down!, a play on words for the slang term of ``Ho'' for prostitute or whore and a hoe-down, which is a party featuring country dancing and recognizes the western city's cowboy roots.
The Web site has generated at least 39,000 hits since its August 1999, launch, Doug said, and spawned a string of similar sites representing communities across Canada.
Citizens in the Prairie city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, for example, decided such a Web site could help them reclaim a deteriorating west side neighborhood.
``The older beautiful area of senior homes, majestic churches, schools and museums became a cesspool of prostitution, john traffic, drug dealers, drug addicts, needles, condoms, break-ins, vandalism, theft and murders,'' said the Saskatoon ``Ho'' Train site at http://members.home.net/sk-ho-train.
``Renewing our Community committee went out on patrol last night, as we do several nights of every week to keep up the pressure on the sick johns coming into our neighborhood to pick up prostitutes. There were a few hookers out and some johns looking, but things are improving,'' the site says.
Today, such Web sites stretch from the West Coast, where activity in Vancouver's main red-light district is tracked at http://pub.anonymizer.com/dearjohn, to the nation's capital in Ottawa, where four sites report signs of sex-trade activity, including http://www.geocities.com/ottawajohn.
Publicity from the Internet does scare off johns, police say, but the end effect may simply be to move prostitution to different areas.
``I think everything helps, if it discourages someone,'' Toronto police Sergeant Robb Knapper said. ``(But) all it does is move it from one street to the next.''
Calgary volunteers say that if other neighborhoods are affected, residents there should join in the fight. Increasing surveillance will leave fewer pockets where prostitution can operate unhampered.
``It isn't about us moving the business, it's about education and it's about safety for all communities and that's why you see these Web sites cropping up in all these communities. No one wants this business,'' Doug said.
``The technology is so usable, once you get it built and once you add to it, it's really not that complex. We've seen 10 sites crop up in just under a year.''
In Toronto, a group of downtown residents run a Web site called the Parkdale John's Hall of Fame at http://www.crosswinds.net/parkdalejohns.
``We keep warning johns that their license plates are being recorded and, in many cases, they will be photographed or videotaped and all the information will be made available to the general public,'' Doug said.
The public posting of such information is not illegal, Knapper said, and organizers of the Calgary site said there have been no legal challenges.
Such sites don't represent an invasion of privacy, because they report activity in a public place, but they do raise questions about defamation of character, a lawyer said.
``Whenever you say something in public about someone that would cause reasonable people to think less of that person, you're doing something that's arguably defamatory,'' said Mark Gelowitz, who practices defamation law and is a partner in Toronto-based law firm Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt.
``There's a lot of complexity in the law of defamation, but the one thing that's generally the case is you can say defamatory things about people if they're true,'' he said.
While Doug's group forwards the information it gathers to local police, authorities say it cannot be used as the basis for criminal charges. Photographs and license plates do not prove that someone was soliciting a prostitute, Sgt. Knapper said.
Despite the limited criminal impact of the information, communities say they have seen dramatic improvements from their Web sites.
Volunteers say the rewards are well worth the unpleasant work of watching for sex-trade activity. There are about 100 calls to police reporting prostitution in Doug's neighborhood each month he said, a drop in half from last year.
``The people who live here, the residents and the business owners, own this community and pay taxes here. Not the pimps. Not the johns. This isn't a red light district and you're not going to treat it this way. And if you do, we'll ruin you -- we'll blow your cover,'' he said.
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