Each was arrested weeks or months earlier for soliciting sex on Edmonton streets or in hotels. A woman stands up in front of them, a survivor of sexual exploitation. The mood in the room goes from quiet to that of a funeral procession. Is that what you really think? Not one of the two dozen johns want to answer.
Some stare at the ground. Others look at each other, but mostly they try to avoid eye contact with the woman. Her line of questioning is intended to be confrontational. She is, after all, talking to a room full of johns. In response, the Harper government introduced updated legislation which made it legal to sell, but illegal to buy, sex. John school, a long-standing tool used by the justice system for first-time, non-violent offenders, is one of the programs that has endured, even as laws around prostitution have been overhauled.
Much of its work, though, now emphasizes keeping sex workers safe and checking on their welfare. Officers ask women a series of questions, trying to find out if they are working in the sex trade against their will.
The young woman who advertised sex services online seems ill at ease. She expected to be meeting a client inside Room Instead she is sitting on the edge of a queen-sized bed in a tiny black silk robe pulled tight, surrounded by four police officers.
She is just days away from turning Dan Duiker, a member of the Edmonton police human exploitation and trafficking unit, mentions that escorts need a licence to operate in the city.
