A city councillor says the city’s problem with prostitution will not be solved overnight.
Coun. Paul Pugh, whose McKellar ward encompasses both downtown cores, said prostitution is an ongoing issue in the city. Residents raised concerns to him at a recent ward meeting, saying that there has been an increase in prostitution in McKellar at all areas of the day and night.
They also told him that men were approaching girls in the neighbourhood thinking they were prostitutes.
“Their young daughter and her friends (were) being approached in the afternoon by various men as they were walking home from the bus stop,” minutes from Pugh’s October ward meeting state.
Pugh said he’s hoping the city’s drug strategy and crime prevention council can help.
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“Hopefully between those two committees working together with other parts of the city we’re going to make some headway. I don’t have any immediate answers. I think it would be utopian to think we’re going to solve this problem overnight but I think with consistent effort we’ll eventually see some progress.”
He’s also been in regular contact with police about the issue. But while they monitor areas and are good at making their presence known where prostitution is high, it won’t solve the problem Pugh said.
“If the police are concentrating in one area what happens is the problem just moves to another area. It doesn’t really disappear.”
Pugh said he believes the root causes of prostitution, poverty and drugs, need to be addressed.
“I think that between those two, that generates the bulk of the problem with prostitution and I don’t believe that blaming the prostitutes themselves is the answer. We have to get to the cause of the problem,” he said.
“I don’t think many women get into prostitution because they want to, it’s something that they feel economically forced to do and I think that we have to deal with the socioeconomic realities that are behind the problem.”
