"Hi!" "Want a lap dance?" "Deceit" "I planted a flower for Melinda." "Melinda Sheppitt was 15 years old." "She was one of the youngest and the third one to end here." "Men used and abused her a lot." "She was... she was strangled, strangled by... they never found the perpetrator." "But it was a man she knew." "They're all customers, very close, Carrie Lee was a customer," "Sherri Lee was a customer." "Stacey was beaten here in Ottawa." "Yes, Stacey, I knew her." "But what they did was take her to Gatineau then they beat her with a rock." "I had known her for at least 15 years." "Oh yes, we were all close." "It was at the end of Gladstone, we saw each other every night." " I lost many girlfriends in Montreal, over 6 months." "I think that Montreal police have found six girls." "They were strangled and raped in the street, thrown into St-Laurent River." "It really touched me because they were close friends." "I started with the man I was going out with." "He was the one to bring me my first customer." "I was 27 years old." "But I did it when I was younger, after my teenage years." "But my pimp would threaten me, would make many threats... and if I didn't go to work, I would get slapped in the face." "It's hard to get by because there's no help for prostitutes." "No help for women who want to get through this." "I come take a look around in the morning because people come here to get their fix and they get stoned at night." "The owner doesn't want to put bars." "They put their needles right here." "When I came down last week, my feet got caught up in the rug and I almost fell on the needles." "There was a whole lot of them, covered in blood." "I've been living here for 4 years." "I've also put up with my owner for 4 years but I've had enough." "I can't wait to leave this place and I only have one week to pack everything up." "I started going in bars when I was 10 years old." "I used to sing in clubs before." "My grandparents had signed me up for amateur competitions then I started drinking then." "It was easy at the time," "I was with my grandparents, they bought me drinks, it was accepted." "I'm a social service recipient." "I have one child," "I got pregnant when I was 17." "I didn't graduate," "I had to drop my studies, it was too expensive." "I'm presently preparing to go, in 5 days, to Jacques-Cartier Centre." "It's a centre for young people, aged between 16 and 30, who are looking for a better environment, for a community." "It's mostly to help take us out of the solitude we're in and help us find a life project." "It's perfect, I'm going to change my entire way of life." "There will be people to support me and some people will help me in taking the necessary steps to go back to school." "Dolphins?" "They are like me - calm and soft." "And they know how to defend themselves very well against sharks!" "There are sharks everywhere!" "I used to give erotic massages but it was time for me to stop because I'd have died in the cold." "You have to do everything." "The only thing I didn't do was the full-up because... no." "Some drink your urine or you piss on them, there are lots of other affairs." "It's not always pleasant." "But as they pay more, you have to give more." "There's absolutely no limit." "In the sex world, there's no limit." "Giving erotic massages made me feel sick, seeing men and all the things associated with them made me feel sick." "That's why I said " ""I'm going to start dancing."" "It was my way out." "Seeing as I already knew that world," "I continued in that direction." "I wanted to follow in my mother's footsteps." "My little squirrel is right there." "Peanut, I call her Peanut." ""Come get your peanuts!"" "At the beginning, when I got her, when she came to my house to get peanuts, she was pregnant, I had three babies on the balcony." "Now I know it's a female squirrel." "I have enough experience, I've seen enough and I've experienced enough." "After 25 years of experience, the good life isn't waiting for you behind the curtain." "I had to give them sex... at the rate they wanted to pay and the way they wanted to do it." "I didn't do things my way, I had to do it their way." "I had problems facing these predators," "I had to be..." "first of all, getting stoned cost me a lot and I needed to drink." "And my clothes, I wanted to have a nice outfit, and I had to pay for the motel." "So I took each day as it came." "At one point in my life, I was addicted... to drugs, to affection." "I loved my spouse and I didn't want to lose him." "I didn't want him to have a record and to go to prison." "I risked my life... to support myself financially." "But my addiction was no choice." "No, I didn't choose to be addicted." "This is my daughter's bedroom." "We've put the bed together but we have to put her clothes in the drawers as well as her toys." "I bought bookcases, we can assemble them and put them against the wall." "It's going to be very pretty after." "I like this flat, it's very bright, there are big windows, the sun comes in through them." "It's wonderful!" "One thing is for sure - if I hadn't got this grant and this flat, I would have stayed in my old flat and I would have gone back to dancing because I couldn't have afforded it." "You can't say, from one day to the next, you can't wake up and say - "I feel like dancing and getting naked in a bar." That's impossible." "That can't happen." "Men touch your most private parts, you have to build a kind of shell and disconnect from your life." "You're leading a double-life in the end." "You have your family life, your daily life but when you go to that place, you're a different person." "You have to make them dream, you have to look pretty and shut up." "Sometimes, I'm awake all night and I mull things over," "I think about the time from when I was as a child and now, it always comes back to mind." "It takes a lot of courage, sometimes I feel like giving up but I think of my daughter." "She's my one and only reason for living today." "If she weren't here, I would have..." "I would have hanged myself and I'd be dead." "Okay, call your lawyer now to make an appointment." "Okay, bye!" "Hi, are you well?" "I'm freezing, I didn't put a thick jumper on." "Yeah?" " I'm going to catch the flu, when I start shivering." " Put your coat on then!" "No, inside is fine." "It's outside..." " Do you want a hot drink, a hot tea?" " No, just had coffee." "Like for old people." " We're fine." "We could make a hot tea, like for old people." "Do you want sit here?" " Concerning my therapy, if you leave, who will help me pay for it?" "Rest assured, your therapy will never be suspended." "You can be sure of that." " It's important for me." "Don't you think I know that?" " It's physically exhausting but it's important because I feel I need it." "This week, I will succeed in... accepting the fact... not accepting the fact men have touched me so much." "I can't accept that." "I can't because normally, if I'm sober, it's not something I would do." "What do you think of men after all this experience?" "It will take someone who comes looking for me, someone who will look deeper inside of me." "Most importantly, someone who accepts me for who I am, with my experience and everything." "That's what's important." "All the good guys I've met got scared and closed the door in my face." "I think it's a shame." "At this point in time, my relationships are quite limited." "Oh, it's the laundry!" " Sorry." "No problem!" "Thank you!" "Oh it's you!" " Yes, it's him!" "Thanks François." "A pleasure!" "Bye!" " Many thanks!" "Thank Isabelle and the children." " No problem." "We're sorting summer clothes." " Okay." "Many thanks!" "There are lots of nice clothes." "Oh, wonderful!" "We'll have to check to see if there are summer clothes." "Then you can look at your list and we'll go shopping to buy what's missing." "I've been working as a Public Health anthropologist for 35 years." "I was stunned when I saw the consequences that prostitution had on these women." "No social policy exists to come to the aid of women who work as prostitutes and who want a way out." "The Maison de Marthe fills this void where nothing exists to help women find a way out of prostitution." "The least would be to come to their aid and that's what I'm trying to do in any way possible, in all the steps involved in making their way out of prostitution." "To do so, long-term therapy is needed, in terms of problems with drug addiction." "They need sex therapy, a help group is necessary, like the one with peers." "That means that women who have known prostitution and who wish to find a way out now have a support group which is called 'Help yourself'." "As for me, my life story is the reason" "I'm here today." "The fact we can gather and not feel judged or feel disgusted." "I come from a little village and when I was young, people pointed fingers at me and said my mother was a whore." "I think the objective is really to help each other." "That's what's important." "Talking about your experience, what hurts you." " Coming here just to talk about your issues helps, of course!" "But you have to leave with a way of life to regain control." "Of course!" " To stop lying to ourselves, becoming aware that selling ourselves is a real problem." "A reasonable person never does that." "What woman would sell her body, suck anybody, or even have sex with a complete stranger?" "You really have to be disconnected from real life." "I realise how disconnected I was." "Me too." ""Claiming ownership of my body, my existence, my destiny."" "I live at Maison Charlotte, a house that comes to the aid of women in difficulty." "I've been here for 4 months." "We're not alone, the house can welcome up to 18 women." "That means you don't live all alone or in isolation..." "Compared to before." "What led me to prostitution was pain that I didn't accept." "I experienced sexual abuse when I was young, when I was a baby in fact." "We were three children at home, all three of us were sexually abused when we were very young." "That pain led me to..." "I was immensely ashamed of myself." "I didn't feel like a woman and it made me feel like trash." "I rejected myself." "I needed drugs in order to keep this pain inside." "But I didn't accept the suffering in particular." "That's why I needed money and the only way to get money fast was to sell my body." "I was very insecure at the beginning," "I didn't like my body, I felt bad." "But on the other hand, I went looking for a kind of ... recognition from men who said I was beautiful, who said I was thin and that I was nice." "All of that flattered a person who had lacked affection her whole life." "When I did all of that," "I was completely oblivious." "I just wasn't there." "I feel as though I fainted when I was little and I woke up not too long ago but I really woke up." "On September 15, I took two boxes of pills so that I'd stop suffering." "I did this so I would die." "Then I woke up 3 days later and I was still alive." "I was lying down on the stretcher... and I heard a voice that said - "Let go."" "From that moment on, I saw a white light, very, very, very white, inside of me." "Then I don't remember anything." "I woke up in the psychiatric ward 3 days later." "That really was a turning point in my life." "As if I'd been touched by a greater force, a force that now enables me to love myself and not destroy myself." "I grew up around here, I spent the first 11 years of my life here so there's a real connection." "We used to play here because there were many rocks." "We played with the little..." "I played with the little fish, the little minnows, that was my habit." "I walked around on the rocks while my father went fishing." "He had his boats, six of them, a little further down." "I'm recovering from my past." "Our childhood years weren't easy, due to alcoholism and also the violence we experienced with our father." "That's the reason why my mother left him, he was a violent alcoholic." "She was a victim during their 17-year marriage." "We also experienced incest, the family was... we were abused by..." "I'm speaking for myself." "I was abused by my grandfather, my uncles and cousins, as well as my father." "It stopped when my grandfather died," "I was 7 years old then." "People in the family believe me because it happened to them too." "I feel more sure of myself because it was too much... it happened to me in the dark, in my grandfather's house, in the basement, in the dark." "I could just hear his voice." "Since the book was published in 2005, tonight is my 80th or 82nd conference." "No one will ever be able to silence me and I can no longer keep quiet because what I discovered is too tragic, too dreadful, too horrifying for me to keep quiet." "Everything I know about prostitution involves women, women who came to selling their bodies and who told me about it." "By assisting them, I'm able to understand what they experience, what they do, their lives and so on." "That's what I use as research material." "Based on their life stories and family tree structure, and data analysis, I've succeeded in updating six social systems that are generators of prostitution." "Four of them are linked to family." "Sexual abuse, incest and so on, linked to family in 90% of cases." "Model of a prostitute mother, linked to family." "Gigolo or procurer husband, linked to family." "Young people running away from home and poverty also linked to family because if she's on the streets when she's 11, 12, 13 or 14, it means something is wrong in the family." "They can escape prostitution in no way because of their social destitution, because of the absence of protection, because of their dependence on men, because of their closeness to prostitution, as vulnerable as they are by repetitive incest" "and sexual abuse that contain an inherent message concerning their sexual value." "The only value they are admitted is a sexual value." ""Can we be anything else?"" "What we see, what you're finding out, is that they didn't choose to sell their bodies but their environment had an impact on them in terms of a person's identity." "I have a photo here." "It was Christmastime." "I was 15 years old." "That was the last Christmas I had at home." "I started dancing in a club soon after." "I rented a room and I found a job as a waitress." "I dropped out of high school, I was in Year 10." "I met a girl who was a stripper." "She told me - "You can make money faster."" "I didn't have much self-esteem then, so I decided to follow in her footsteps and I started dancing in a club, with her." "For almost a year and a half." "I took an audition, and oh my God, I was so embarrassed but everyone was applauding and I felt loved." "As if I were a star, you know." "I thought everyone in the room loved me." "There were only men, of course!" "At the beginning, I thought this was the good life." "It was like "Wow!"." "But with all the exploiting and all the parasites that hovered, who then ate away at you," "you're no longer a human being, you're theirs, you're their robot." "And you owe money even though you haven't earned any yet." "What are you up to now?" " I'm out now." "I've come out of the intensive part." "I go out on weekends, I found a legal job here during the week." "When I gave massages, it was..." "I really didn't want to be doing it and sometimes," "I sold my body but I came out wanting to cry." "I was like "Ew!", it disgusted me, I wasn't proud." "But ever since I've been dancing, I don't have to sell my body anymore and I just have to shake my butt and I make money." "Okay." " Yeah." "Then I met another guy in a club." "It was dope, I..." "Why was it dope with him?" " His attitude..." "The way he was, the way things turned out." "And everything about him." "He's really unique." "I've met guys but he was THE guy." "He taught me how to walk, talk." "Basically how to operate." " In that circle?" "Yeah." "He said I was his girlfriend." " Okay." "He saw the other girls as 'bitches'." "You say he's your boyfriend but he introduces those girls as 'bitches'." "Who are they?" " They're the ones who bring money in, the ones who dance for him, the ones who make money for him." " The pimp, the procurer who looked after you, gave you money?" "No, he gave me nothing." "But I'm underage, it's not that I don't have a choice to be with someone but..." "That's how it works." " That's it, it's better." "Like fake IDs for example." " Did you have a flat?" "Did you have..." " Yes, I had a flat but I didn't have a car." "Basically, they drove me around." "They look after you but must work." " Yes, I'm the one who's working but I'm too young to have all this." "Let's say that he dresses me up, he does my nails." "He often takes me to the restaurant and we do things together." "He's my man, I mean, it's not..." "He looks after you." " He's not just my pimp." "Our concern at the Youth Centre, we've often told you this, is for you to find something that isn't that worrying or not that scary." "Are there times where you think, "Okay, they're collapsing"" "but in the end..." " I'm used to this world, which means I don't really feel scared," "I know what I'm doing." "But if I did what other girls did, like pay for my drugs and staying with guys who beat them all the time, it would really be the end." "She's still very ambivalent." "She says she wants to start dancing again." "I'm scared for her, of course, because the guys from those gangs aren't soft." "And her pimp, who is a gang member, means that gangs will expand their networks more and more." "We hear they're in the area, they're expanding their territory." "In my 15 years at the Youth Centre, that circle has changed a lot." "There are more and more..." "the territory is getting bigger and they're using younger and younger girls." "Girls who are 12 or 13 and there's even a racial profiling to meet customer needs who want Black girls," "Asian girls or any kind of girl." "I came here when I was 15 or 16." "I'm 26 now and I'm still here." "I feel a little discouraged." "What subjects do you want?" "Did you finish Maths 436?" "Yes, I finished that." "At least!" " That's good!" "And your marks weren't bad." " Yes, I'm very satisfied." "Basically, you were at the start of Year 10 French." "Yes." "I'll finish my French course, then I'll have to finish my English one too." "I'm at a Year 9 level." "Our goal is the high school diploma but in the long-term, we'll try to keep the CEGEP in mind." "Okay." "I can only write at night." "It stops me from sleeping at night because I feel too much emotion and I have too many ideas in my head, all linked together, that race all the time - feelings, the past I experienced." "That's how I came to write a book." "My first objective was my autobiography, but when I met other girls who worked on the street, my circle expanded and so did my acquaintances." "They taught me a lot about that, things I didn't know because I never worked as a hooker." "I learnt a lot from them." "It compelled me to write a chapter about them." "Bascially, my real therapy is writing." "I can heal through writing." "I can write down my ideas, my fears, my anxieties, it's in what I write." "This is the PIPQ, Prostitution Intervention Project in Quebec." "This is like a second home for me." "This is where I came to get help, food, condoms and everything I needed morally and physically to be happy." "In terms of street work, there are key elements," "I have them right here." "Community mobilisation, social action, creating opportunities." "Others also talk about repression, too." "The reason for my interview is to get your ideas and to give this as testimony, in your name." "What message would you have for the police?" "The police doesn't realise we're human beings, we're not circus clowns." "We're human." "And we don't do this because we feel like it one morning." "Most girls in this group are badly caught up in this." "I'd like them to understand that we're humans, we want to be treated equally, like any normal citizen." "When I look at that street, it looks different to me now." "I used to be a hooker on that street corner." "I used to hate the flowers you see in that pot over there." "I look at it today and oh my God, I'm proud now, proud when I walk down that street." "I don't walk with my head down when the sun rises and workers look at me and I see "Look at that hooker on the street corner" in their eyes." "When I was at the CEGEP, we were waiting for student loans, we drank beer and smoked pot." "Nothing out of the ordinary." "Then at one point, a girl I knew, who'd already been a stripper, told me, "While we're waiting for our loans, this will pay for bread, milk and parties on weekends."" "So I said, "Let's try it." But being on the stage embarrassed me a lot, being naked on the stage." "They said, "We'll get you drunk!" so they got me drunk and I sniffed my first coke." "After taking that, I thought "It's wonderful, life is beautiful!"" "And then money, my God, I'd never seen so much." "I thought it would just be during my studies then that would be enough, it'd be over." "But that's not what happened, it didn't turn out that way at all." "I kept getting stoned a bit more, then I took a bit more." "So I needed a bit more money." "So much that stripping wasn't enough anymore." "In the end, I didn't strip anymore, I was only a hooker because I needed money fast." "I've been drug-free for 2 years but I completely stopped working as a prostitute just a year ago." "I was able, little by little, to find a normal job." "This is a little company that makes warm lunchboxes or a little snack." "'Des Saveurs de Caroline'." "Yes." "What led me to prostitution?" "Various factors." "First of all, a nervous breakdown." "I was in an extraordinary relationship and we separated." "It was unexpected." "I found that extremely hard." "I was a businesswoman, I didn't see myself..." "I had no time to go out, to meet people, I didn't have the energy either." "I was very sad." "So I thought to myself, "My God, you can't spend years... all alone with no physical contact."" "I need to touch too much, also to love and be loved." "I had already seen Pretty Woman with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere." "I'd seen this film and thought, "There must be men who want to spend time with certain ladies who are educated." "Not necessarily for sex but to guide them." "That existed in Quebec, not just in Montreal or big cities, or Hollywood." "I quite simply took the newspaper on a Sunday and looked at the classified ads." "That's how it all started." "Basically, I can say I was in a kind of honeymoon for about 2 or 2.5 years." "Then further down the road, I lost that, it was inevitable." "Playing like that, behaving in a seductive way," "I have to say I still have a long way to go." "I thought I had become emancipated sexually." "No, not at all." "Quite the opposite." "Basically, us prostitutes, we accept repetitive rapes." "We embrace it." "It isn't complicated." "We accept the fact we're raped, we get paid for it because what the man is doing isn't tempting." "It's because we just want money." "It's as if we froze everything but we're ashamed." "You feel low and cheap." "Yes, that's it." "You feel cheap." "The body is yours and you're forcing it to do things." "You don't have an extra one in your wardrobe, that you can force and then put it back while keeping the other one safe, inside, physically, mentally, morally, psychologically, it doesn't happen." "The last time we saw each other was 3 months ago," "I was 16, now I'm 17." "I ran away then I came back to the Youth Centre." "No, I didn't contact my pimp." "We had a fight." "Then I contacted another pimp, he took me to Toronto, and when I started working, he wanted me to work more." "15 hours a day." "When I didn't work 15 hours, I'd come back and he was violent." "Once, I finished at midnight instead of 3 a.m., when I arrived, he took me by the hair and he hit me." "I had never met a guy who had so much control over me." "That meant I had no idea what he was capable of." "I always asked, "When are we returning to Montreal?"" "and when we came back, I ran away." "Yes, I made a lot of money for him but I got none of it." "I realised I had to find another objective very quickly because anything could happen to me." "I've started my cosmetics course so that basically, I can have a career I love when I'll be ready to drop stripping." "She still thinks that stripping isn't that bad, that she just came across a bad pimp, that she'll be able to avoid violence and to continue doing it." "The problem with the girls we welcome at the Youth Centre is that they're very naive and they end up getting sucked in and that continues after their 18th birthday." "It's hard for us to balance, to match this sex industry that is omnipresent in our society, that's well established, that's on the Web, on the internet, present on television, and that captivates young people" "with money, everything that's sexy and glamorous." "We finally managed to make an appointment." "Yeah." "I've been coming here for 2 years, I'd never seen you." "Do you think it's like a family here or is it more individualistic?" "It's individual." "It depends on each individual." "Not everyone has children." "But 75% of the people who come here are still working as prostitutes, not many have stopped." "Not many are drug-free." " Yes, that's right." "Few of us don't take drugs and some of them haven't found a way out yet." "The reason I come to this place is because I like listening to people, it's very positive." "I can talk to people." "I can't talk about some things with my family but nobody judges me here." "I stayed in bed all day, until 2:15 p.m." "Then I decided to get up and to come here for a haircut." "I'm running away at the moment." "If I'm not taking drugs," "I'll stay in bed." " Sleep is an escape." "Yes, exactly." " I understand!" "I'm grateful for each minute I don't take drugs." "Does your drug problem sometimes stop you from working?" "I've stopped taking them." " Okay." "I don't know if I can say it stopped me from working because having my salon always kept me going." "Can I ask a personal question?" " Go ahead." "Answer only if you want to." "Did you work as a prostitute?" " Me?" "Yes." " Yes." "A kind of prostitution." "Okay." "Was it because of pain you experienced or...?" "No." "How can I put this?" "I have to be careful with what I say about prostitution because it's different from what most other girls say." "I chose to do it." "It was a lifestyle choice." "It's a funny story." "I come from a good family, who was well-off... and I got into it just like that, when I was 29." "I never thought I'd take dope." "I'd never had alcohol and I'd never taken drugs before I turned 29." "Everything changed dramatically over 3 years." "I lost everything." "Now I'm trying to make a fresh start." "Except that I'm really struggling, more than in the past." "I don't know why I ruined everything." "I'd hit the jackpot at Christmas - a dream job to start a second career." "I was on a high." "Then all of a sudden, I ruined everything." "Could it be related to the fact that you don't think you deserve to be happy?" " That's it, story of my life." "I don't understand what you did there." "Did you do that with that?" " I took the 2, then I put 3 back." " Yes but 3 is the denominator." "You put is as the numerator." "It won't work there." "I did it again but I'm not sure." "Okay, it starts here?" " Yes." "Where are you at now?" "Here?" " Yes." "The answer is?" " I hesitated." "Is that the correct answer?" " Wait a minute." "I've been a stripper, I've given massages," "I stopped 4 years ago but it's still there." "People judge me here at school, some people look at me with their head held high." "They see me as a whore." "Girls as much as boys." "I'd like for everyone to stop judging me at some point." "I'm feeling nervous because today is my last day, the last interview with my probation officer." "I've been living in Ottawa for a year and a half." "I was arrested 3 days after arriving, on the Chemin de Montréal." "I met a policeman, a double agent, and they gave me 18 months of probation for prostitution." "That wasn't the first time I'd been arrested for prostitution." "I've been on probation for 19 years!" "So today, we'll close my case and never look back." "I have one week left, one week of probation." "Yes." "Your probation ends on January 29." "But if the police harasses me, if I go to the Chemin de Montréal just for a walk, do they have a right to harass me as they sometimes do?" "It's not supposed to be written on my forehead." "I worked on that street once and I was arrested." "Will that keep following me?" "I've paid my debt, I've changed my whole life," "I don't work in that area anymore." "I want to be left alone," "I want to feel respected." "Okay, we're here." "I've been working at the Prostitution" "Intervention Project Quebec since 1993." "Now I'm organisation coordinator." "The first question I always ask people is " "What's the definition of 'prostitution'?" "Exchanging sexual services for money?" "Does everyone agree with that?" "Is it a job?" "Is it a tragedy?" "Yes?" " I see it as a way to survive." "A way to survive?" " A last resort." "Okay, last resort." "Is it a choice?" "Do we wake up one morning and say - "I want to work as a prostitute," "I hope I'll make a career out of it, I hope my children will follow in my footsteps." "I want to become emancipated."" "I often say it's a choice made when you have no choice." "It is a bit like surviving." "It's hard work on the field." "It's not always easy to do with tact and also with respect." "Whilst never forgetting that they're human beings." "There have been 9 arrests this week." " In one swoop." "They trapped them." "That disgusts me!" " In the city centre." "I'm even disgusted by double agents." "For them to trap girls like that..." "If there were less demand, there would be no prostitution." "Customers are just as guilty as the girls but people point fingers at the girls but they should also point fingers at customers." "He's the one asking for it." "Girls are called 'whores' or this or that bad name but the customer is also a whore." "I'm sorry but he's as guilty as the girl who's arrested, the customer should get arrested." "I've had a talk with some girls," "I've met others and I'm kind of their spokesperson today." "The girls are human beings just like you - they have two legs, one heart, they are mothers and friends." "These girls suffer from a unease that I suffered from, seeing as I experienced it." "They suffer and get stoned to better hide their emotions." "That's what I did." "It is necessary to better manage these girls' crises." "They sometimes have withdrawal symptoms, no drugs for 24 hours, they shake." "I lived that." "Prostitution is the last resort, then it's death." "I always get arrested, all the time." "You can't fight against the police." "They have the power." "A couple of them are really mean." "I'm telling you, many girls get beaten by the police." "Oh yes." " There's nothing the others can do because they're scared." " That means if you need protection, you don't trust them so you don't call them." "No, I don't trust them at all!" " Last winter," "I experienced something." "Three policemen undressed me in the prison cell." "I wanted to file a complaint but they charged me with illegal street work, which wasn't even true." "But they often do that." "If they know you're a prostitute, they'll use that against you." "That's not right." "It's police power, that's what it is." "What do you think should be done to improve conditions, or what would you like to see regarding the police?" "Brothels!" " Brothels?" "That's your solution?" "I'm sorry but I'd like a brothel." "I don't know, I'd feel safer." "You mean legal brothels?" "Because there are some brothels, some debauchery houses." " Here in Ottawa?" "Yes." " I'd like to know where." "Honestly!" "I want to go out at night sometimes but I'm too scared." "I'm scared of the police, the police is what worries me." " I'm against the creation of whorehouses." "I know girls who have worked in other countries, in South America." "The government is the one that controls all your money." "There are five levels - some girls are sold for 2 dollars and you have 5-star girls." "So it isn't lifting as such." "There's no humanitarian value." "I think it should be treated then healed." "I think they should open more centres for these girls, so they can get help and moral support because we're pretty destroyed when we present ourselves as sexual objects." "It is possible to recover with the government's help - grants, therapeutic centres with experts who know this field." "That's my point of view." "We're in St-Roch, in Quebec's Basse-Ville." "We're in the aftermath of the recession." "A lot of people have no money left." "There's a lot of suffering." "Girls are so poor that basically, they have no choice but to work as prostitutes." "Who are the customers?" "They're often people with money, for sure." "They don't want girls hanging around in the streets but the girl 'consumers' are here." "I started working as a prostitute progressively." "It didn't happen overnight." "It started with me working over the telephone." "It was called phone sex." "Customers called us." "We had erotic conversations with them." "After that, I went dancing in bars, as a nude dancer but didn't work as a prostitute then." "I just danced, nobody touched me, there was no contact." "At the beginning, in the first year, everything was going very well, I liked it." "I felt good playing that part, being a seducer... trying to get everyone to like me." "That's the story of my life, bending over backwards so that people would like me." "That means I was in my element." "Having money felt great at the beginning," "I didn't spend much on drugs, it was fun," "I travelled a lot, life was very good." "I was independent, I didn't owe anyone anything." "When I danced, that helped me pay for my studies at York University." "I studied Psychology and Feminism." "I had a feminist point of view which claimed that women had a right to do what they wanted with their bodies." "I tried to defend the reasons why I was for sex work but at the same time, I felt the negative impact of it." "I remember having a nervous breakdown at one point, I couldn't see or talk to anyone." "At one point, I noticed that I had mannerisms," "I started doing this." "I was completely..." "A lot of girls go mad in this circle." "We don't really know why." "Everyone says dancers are mad but they have reasons to go mad." "Then different kinds of dances started, the ones where men could touch you." "Being fondled didn't tempt me at all." "I found it hard to deal with lots of people all the time in the evening." "So I convinced myself that working as a prostitute would be easier." "The more I worked as one, the more I got stoned." "The more I got stoned, the more I worked as a prostitute." "Money gave me the illusion that I was happy... because it was socially well seen." "I just had to say I was a businesswoman and it was accepted." "Would it be disturbing if I asked you if you remember the first time you did it?" "Oh my God, yes, I remember." "It doesn't trouble me at all." "It happened so quickly, my flatmate called me to ask me if I wanted to make some money over summer." "I remembered I had a cousin in Toronto, who was a dancer," "I called her." "She said, "Come at night."" "I'd already committed but I didn't know what to exactly." "What did you lose the first time you did it?" "Did you lose something?" " I lost a part of myself that I can't explain because it isn't physical, it's..." "What was inside." " Yeah." "I lost something..." "Something inside of me died." "I could almost say that a part of my soul died." "It was something physical but also... something deep inside." " Yes." "What's deep in your soul." "I've disconnected so much that I can't feel my body anymore." "I feel pain because I have fibromyalgia, but I can't feel anything on my skin." "Yes, that's right." "I didn't realise I had that." "I realise it now." "When I was stoned," "I thought it was normal but now that I'm sober," "I thought it would come back." "I started working as a prostitute on online dating sites." "Some men, who were a lot older than me, would start talking to me." "They basically wanted to pay to have sex with a young woman." "I always said no but at one point, the temptation for money became stronger." "Then after that, I went to agencies." "By being an escort, I was completely disconnected from my body." "It even got to the point where I was able to be like a computer." "I was able to get a part of my body to exist when I wanted it to exist at one specific moment." "I could just be a vagina, completely disconnected," "I could remove everything that was in the room and just be a vagina for a while." "I stopped working as a prostitute 4 years ago." "One year ago, I was in the shower," "I looked at my feet and I felt them." ""Oh my feet!" "They're mine!"" "Then I regained feeling from head to toe," "I was able to feel things." "When someone comes close to my bubble, it's..." "My body, I live in my body, it's my body." "If prostitution enabled a woman to fulfil herself and be fulfilled, we would expect to find women who are fulfilled in terms of sexuality and in full bloom." "That isn't the case at all." "Working as a prostitute is so uncommon that in order to do it, all women have to break away from themselves." "There's the body we have, there's the body that exists." "And what they do - "It isn't me, it's my body."" "They break away from their body." "Their sexuality is completely annihilated and there's a complete loss of their sensitivity." "The women I know, who I work with, sometimes touch their skin and say, "You can do anything to me," "I can't feel anything anymore." They have to learn to get in touch with themselves again." "The body, numbed by drugs, which they've broken away from, will scream, it will be in so much pain." "Prostitution is an erotic fantasy for the person buying the product." "He finds a character for himself which means it's a total stageplay in order to get to the ultimate aim, which is his ejaculation." "I think the price the woman has to pay in prostitution is losing her inner self... and having problems experiencing real relationships." "Coming out of this unscathed isn't easy." "My baby." "I'm so lucky to have you!" "Lucky we have each other!" "You're the best male on earth." "My dog is the love of my life." "He's my saviour." "My doctor said I had a major nervous breakdown." "I still have to do this out of necessity because I have no resource, apart from that." "I think there's something missing in Quebec and I think it would be valuable - a centre for women who want a way out of prostitution, where we'd go to recover, a kind of trampoline, you know." "I still have ..." "Sometimes I have to work." "While they're..." "how do I put this?" "While they're screwing me, I think of my electricity bill," "I do the math in my head." "That's how I get through it." "Or I think about tomorrow or I think about how much money" "I'll get when it's over." "I mustn't use that money for dope," "I have to go to the bank immediately and that's how I see it." "The fact that I'm at home will make the guy a little uneasy." "I'm in my own environment." "I feel safer." "Seeing how big my dog is, a Rottweiler-Labrador," "I don't think anyone will hurt mummy, right?" "Okay." "He wants to give it but he doesn't want to give it." "He's as strong as an ox." "I'll be back in 2 minutes." "My dog comes from the pound." "Right?" "He was broken too when I got him." "Just like his mummy, right?" "We healed each other's wounds, didn't we Sousou?" "Yes." "When I wanted new clothes before, I did a customer and that was it." "It was fast money in a way." "Fast money but at what cost?" "What's going to be hard is my rehabilitation... in terms of my sexuality." "I haven't had someone stroke me for something other than getting in my pants." "I'd like to let myself go." "If you knew how long it had been since someone had done that..." "Just like that." "I miss being stroked without sex being an ulterior motive." "I miss that, I miss it so much." "I so wish I could be in someone's arms and to let myself go." "I'm 22 years old." "I've had money problems ever since I was 18." "I've always moved around, taken from one place to another." "I took the newspaper and checked the ads out." "The ads mentioned 'hostess' and I had no idea what it meant so I called to find out - is it a dancer, a masseuse, an escort?" "What does it mean?" "So I called to get information and I came across the procurer who hired me for 8 months." "He didn't seem like a procurer on the first day." "He was very successful in making a good impression." "He noticed that I was on the verge of being evicted, that I needed money fast, that I had no support and no one who would worry about me." "He noticed that quite quickly." "He shows you he's the only one who has worried about you until now, though he doesn't know you, it must mean he really loves you." "I went dancing at the start." "I danced for two days straight and then I went dancing in a strip club." "Everything revolves around making money for him." "You have to make money so that he gets money too." "A month after meeting him, control, aggressiveness and the violence began." "Once, he beat me so hard... that he broke one tooth, my face was so swollen," "I looked like a watermelon." "He would strangle me more and more" "His power trip was strangling me until I passed out, waiting for me to wake up, beating me up and starting all over again." "Each time he strangled me," "I could see my life in a flash, I thought " ""Shit, it's over."" "The police found him, got hold of him 2 years ago." "The first night I spent alone really gave me a shock." "That's when you realise what you experienced, the fact you're still here and the hardest thing will be to fight to fix all this." "I come to the doctor's every month for medicine against chronic pain." "I have an injured spine, injured cervical and lumbar vertebrae, three crushed herniated discs in my neck." "I also take pills for my anxiety, antidepressants." "I'm also taking other pills for problems I have with my kidneys and my bladder." "These problems are old and they're further to events that occurred with bad customers." "I got those problems when I was working as a prostitute in Montreal." "I had to hide under the car on three or four occasions... because I had a bad customer, who was armed and who wanted to rape me or shoot me, I don't know." "In any case, I had to throw myself under a lorry." "I had no choice, I wasn't going to wait for him to kill or rape me." "There is violence in all forms, whether you're a dancer or an escort, your life is always at risk." "Violence is present everywhere, not just on the street." "What's hard is rehabilitation... flashbacks, nightmares." "If you see such car, flashback." "If you hear such song, flashback." "Such place, such smell, such word - flashback." "It's not just a reminder of what happened." "It's an emotional flashback, you feel as though you are back in that same place." "So if I saw a car in which I'd been beaten, a certain car model, whenever I saw it, I'd feel like I did when I was in the car." "My dream is to always keep possession of my freedom, never letting anyone take control over my life, whether it's by force, or by love or anything else." "I'll tell you how I feel this morning." "The hardest thing is to be a single mother, taking care of a child on your own." "My workdays are 15 hours long, it's very demanding." "Starting my studies again, going back to school reminds me of all the abuse that took place in high school, the sexual abuse." "It follows me around and it takes away my energy." "The reason I'm here today is to pick up my medication." "This medication is for people with dependency problems, dependency on morphine, heroin, basically opiates." "I tried to withdraw on my own but that didn't work." "I reduced the doses but it was too hard." "Things have been going very well since I began taking this medication." "I've had one relapse in a year and everything is very good." "Hi Nancy." " Thank you!" "I've given you enough to last until your doctor's appointment." "Your appointment is in 4 days, I've given you enough for the next 4 days." "You were in escort agencies, right?" "I had stopped for 7 years." "Just before I stopped taking drugs, I worked over the summer and it was hell." "I made 200, 300 bucks a day and I amassed a 1,500-dollar bill for drugs." "All my money went into drugs." "I didn't even have cigarettes or food," "I didn't eat, I was so skinny." "Did I show you my photo?" "Not this one, that one." "Take a closer look at that." "What?" "It had just been a month then?" " I'd stopped taking drugs, meaning it was worse than that." "As for the street, I've never worked on the street but in the end, I was on the verge of doing it because in order to work in agencies..." "Look at my arms, there were scabs in this area, there was a big scab." "So I had to hide all that, I had to put make-up here and there." "Also here and there." "It would take me an hour to do that." "Finding a way out was hard because every time I wanted to do it, there was always a kind of saviour." "It was always a violent man." "I had five violent husbands one after the other, it lasted 10 years in total." "But I didn't talk about these things in therapy." "It's complex because it touches all aspects of your life." "In order to make my way out of it, I feel almost heroic because it took a superhuman effort or almost." "Certainly." " That's why I say I had faith because that was the only thing I could hang on to." "The change inside started long ago." "It's just that..." "how could I put this?" "I haven't acted on it yet." "I'm aware of many things, I'm becoming aware of lots of things but..." "I understand many things but I don't assimilate them." "The person I met was someone who occasionally visited the organisation." "The guy was involved, still actively taking drugs but who was still very involved." "That's why I relapsed." "He wasn't the cause of my relapse, we choose to do it." " Yes." "I agree." "Even if lots of people say that we don't choose, we're given the choice at one point but it's not really a choice." "I knew it was easy for him to get some, that's why." "I can't forgive myself for that." "I relapsed, I lost my job, I lost my car in just a few months." "My recovery really crashed down fast." "Back to the start." "A kind of violence settled in." "It took very little time." "That's why I left." "That's why you found a spot in that institute?" "Exactly." "I'm just living there at the moment." "It's a house for women who are victims of violence, regardless of the kind of violence." "I'm realising that basically, I was a victim of violence and not just on one occasion." "It'll probably help you..." " That's why I also got this drug problem." "It pushes you, leads you to that." "I thought drug addiction was an illness." "I was told it isn't, it's a problem... a problem that develops in relation to something else." "It's the consequence." " Exactly, it's a kind of defence mechanism." " That's it." "Some people become... not necessarily drug addicts but they become workaholics." "Or something else." "But all women who are victims of violence have another related problem." "Because it's..." " That's developed because..." "Yes, so they don't feel their emotions." "In any case, what I'm experiencing is special because I felt I was above all this." "How can we talk about equality for men and women when there's still a category of women who are still sexually exploitable?" "It is clear to me that as long as there are sexually exploitable women, we are all sexually exploitable, all of us can work as prostitutes, that's where I stand." "Contrary to what you might think, prostitution is not a peripheral phenomenon, it's not a marginal phenomenon." "The phenomenon has become so big, it's the driving force behind the international treaty, that means billions are at stake." "It's so powerful, lobbies are so powerful, we move women from poor countries to rich countries in order to sexually exploit them, and we move customers from rich countries to poor countries." "The first reason men will give for wanting prostitution is man's irrepressible desire." "We know, through social and human sciences, that biology isn't the one that determines that but that men's behaviour in relation to their own desire is shaped by society and the culture in which they were raised." "We're in St-Louis Square, I've already worked in this place." "What sexual predators are looking for is what they can't get with their wives or girlfriends." "They imagine they can get things from girls working on the street, or even from escorts or dancers." "A lot of them like anal sex but I'm not a cow, you know." "If you like anal sex..." "the man used anal sex when he raped me and I thought it was disgusting." "So it's out of the question for me." "But they offer money, it hurts so they give you 100 more and no condom, imagine that." "I think that pornography has a big influence on the demand for prostitution, on customers, what they'll ask for in relation to violence, in relation to orifice brutality." "It's become normal to sodomise." "You can't say no to the Deep Throat, they always try to find a way." ""Let's try it, you'll see, you'll like it, I'm good at it." You aren't allowed to say " ""No, I just don't like it, it hurts me when you hold my head... it's in the back of my throat, I can't breathe," "I don't feel very good."" "Girls in pornography, like prostitutes, are paid to pretend that they like it." "There's a network on the internet where men appreciate, evaluate the girls' performance and expect them, expect those girls to arouse them, to fully satisfy them, they expect them to behave like a lover, there's no other term to describe it." "Which she is not." "If the guy doesn't get a hard-on, he'll say it's your fault, that you're not good enough." "But you know very well it's because he's taken too much cocaine or he has an erection problem or..." "It's always your fault and he'll give you more money to make him get a hard-on but he knows you won't succeed." "He'll want to keep you to keep trying." "It's really strange." "It's as if the responsibility were entirely yours, it's your job to make him powerful, you know." "There's always abuse some way or another." "You're always worried he'll put his dick in a place you don't want him to." "He'll fondle your breasts too violently, they're not tender or gentle." "There's no sensuality, he can't kiss properly, he stinks." "I don't know if the guy realises he's almost forcing her." "But paying gives them every right." "Paying." "I had been recovering for several months but I got back into it, I had a major relapse." "That's also why we didn't see each other." "I had a major relapse last February due to several factors." "And it was a choice in the end." "What we do is basically always a choice." "I've started working as a prostitute again, obviously, but in a different way." "I started working on the street last winter." "Street customers being different is a myth." "Negotiating with street customers is the challenge." "They negotiate because they think you'll be satisfied with less just because you need your fix." "Yes, I was scared but I was alone, you know." "My new husband wasn't too far." "My body is completely overloaded, I've really gone..." "I've gone beyond my limit." "I talked about respect a lot in the first interview we had, that I respected myself." "But not this time." "Not on the street." "When I said I'd had enough, that my body was overloaded, that I had my major..." "I had a major breakdown and suddenly, the sun appeared." "I found out I was pregnant." "I can't believe it!" "I really can't!" "It really was a big surprise." "I wouldn't go so far as to use the word 'happy' for this." "But yes, it's given me hope." "I've survived many struggles, tremendous assaults." "I don't know..." "it's not a proper job, it's not something I would ever recommend to anyone." "I often talk about it to young girls and I talk to my girls as well as other people who know what experience I've had and I always tell them " ""Don't be tempted..." "don't be hungry for that kind of dirty money because there are consequences, repercussions that can affect you deeply, very deeply."" "At this very minute, women are being sold by their boyfriends, sold by procurers who are owners of escort agencies, of massage salons, of naked stripper bars, sold by street gangs." "This commerce is even supported by marketing in newspaper ads." "It's a web of deceit!" "What these women want and wish for more than anything in the world, is to find a way out of prostitution and not to find reasons to stay." "The least we must do for them is to help them through social policies that provide them with conditions in order to leave prostitution behind for good, to provide them with sex therapy, help and training so they can find a job," "rehabilitation, systems, aid to socially reintegrate them." "Social innovation can't head towards an increase in prostitution." "We must head towards the suppression of prostitution." "And it's not a utopian dream." "Other countries have done it or are already doing it." "Sweden did it in 1999, after completely liberalising prostitution in the sixties, it reconsidered its decision and abolished prostitution in 1999." "Norway followed in its footsteps in 2008, fairly recently, and Iceland abolished it in 2009." "Abolishing prostitution means decriminalizing those women, penalising customers and procurers, educating the population by teaching them that prostitution is sexual exploitation and an assault to women." "It's a social and political problem that concerns the entire society." "We must all rise and fight to bring prostitution to an end." "I have been off drugs, alcohol and sex for almost 9 months." "I have to learn how to live a sober life again, by expression emotions, by not thinking about the past and what I've done too much, I have to walk ahead." "I'm trying to focus on myself, on how I feel and I try to be active all the time." "Being active helps me a lot." "We're at the 3A Women's Centre where I work on my project." "I'm working as a volunteer here." "Well, it's partly volunteer work because I'm doing this project with Emploi-Québec." "We were asked to work on this project because some volunteers were working in community resources but they didn't know what other resources existed." "Before including organisations in our project, we had to pay them a visit, one by one, we had to ask questions, we'd prepared a questionnaire." "So it took a lot of time." "So girls, what's come of all this, concerning your big project?" "Because you've worked hard." "I'd never worked in a 'legal' job before." "So I had nothing to put in my CV." "It's pretty discouraging." "This has changed the way" "I see myself, I saw that I was able to carry out projects and to enjoy it." "I didn't know I could..." "I didn't think I had the capacity to work, you know." "I thought I was totally out of order." "I realised that it was more intelligible to go to school to learn about a job than to continue high school." "That's good." "And then?" "So what's the first step?" " We prepare the citrus fruit?" "Decorations." "Then we add the dry gin." "Ah!" "White Cinzano, red Cinzano on the rocks and a white rum with coke." "After putting your cocktails on the platter, complete them and serve them at that table." "It's better to spill your drinks here than in your clients' back, it's less embarrassing." "Okay?" "That's what you must practise because when we're serving, we have to compensate for its weight." "Let's practise that." "Oh that's true!" "I'll knock them all out." "If you want to give menus to the three people there, tell them you'll bring..." " Okay." "Sir?" "I've always told Cindy she speaks too softly." "It's very soft, very pleasant." " Very soft indeed!" "I'm always telling her to practise, she isn't imposing in terms of size either." " Sir!" "Thank you, miss!" "When I graduate from here, I'll basically be deserving and I'll be proud to have studied a job that lived up to my expectations." "I used to be a night owl but I had to change what time I go to bed." "I go to bed earlier," "I get up at 5:30 a.m." "It requires a bit more organisation but makes me more responsible." "When I finish my studies, I'd like you to be there for my graduation." "I've studied hard, I get good marks, between 80 and 100%." "I'd like you to be there." "Of course I'll be there." "I'll be so honored to attend that graduation." " It's really tough," "I'm struggling but working hard." " At Sara's graduation, three mothers were present." "My mother, my godmother and Rose." "What touched me most in all that is that even if I took two courses at the CEGEP and failed both, you never gave up on me." "I realised that we should learn how to study when we're young but I didn't get that." "I'd struggled to find balance in my life." "I was like a little lost girl." "My god, you're so different today!" " Possibly, yes." "You're a determined woman who has found her place, who's had vocational training, who's working full-time, who has a monthly salary." "It's incredible how far you've come but the road has been rocky!" "It's just a Diploma in Vocational Studies." "It's not just a vocational qualification, it's an occupation, a job, when we learn and study it." "It's not just a qualification, it's really a job." "In a way, my dream to become a nurse has come true because I provide people with care." "Leaving prostitution for good means starting a project." "The idea here is to work within an empowerment culture perspective, which means moving from 'wanting' to 'acting'." "Being able to carry it out." "But at the same time, you need the financial means to support those people." "All the needs that were vital to the project's success were immediately met so as to propel you." " The uniform..." "Uniforms, registration fees, books." "But I think what we must remember in all this is that one day, you'll have to be sponsors for other girls." "It's a chain." "It goes on and then we'll be strong enough, we'll have overcome all those steps so we'll be able to help others blossom as we were lucky to do so, as we were entitled..." "We're strong, right?" "Yes, that's true." "Deborah presumably died from a pills overdose." "Sad case but..." "anyways, she's going to be missed." "She's finally in peace." "Hallelujah." ""Let's imagine a world where women are freed from violence and bloom in respect and freedom."" "Thank you to the women who told us their stories, whether they appear in this film or not." "SUBTITLES:" "RED BEE MEDIA"