Over the years there has been huge debate over the topic of the longest standing profession: Prostitution. It has been condemned in some countries and legalized in others. Canada has constituted prostitution as a legal act under the Canadian Criminal Code. However, it has made all the acts that surround and enable the sole act of prostitution illegal. This has caused a lot of society to debate. One side argues for the decriminalization of prostitution for reasons that pertain to women's rights. The other side argues that it threatens social morals and values and should therefore remain illegal. Either way it is an issue that demonstrably affects women and girls. To narrow it down even further, girls are affect the most because they dominate the prostitute profession. The Badgley Committee (1984) reported that almost half of their respondents entered prostitution before the age of 15. An extra 30% entered before the age of 18, 78% were female (Lorenne 1986: p.52). The Badgley Committee is one of the only national surveys done on (young) female prostitution that is existent in Canada. This allows for a generalization of prostitutes to be perceived as young female "offenders," which makes it fundamental to explore the reasons why young females are drawn to and stay within prostitution. These reasons consist of drugs, financial security, and "pimps.".
In recent history it is obvious to see that women have not been able to attain the financial success that men have. As a matter of fact there are ten times more women then men who occupy lower-income statuses (Plant 1990: p.67). This shows that there are more women who face the ills of poverty then men and therefore have more of a pressure to look to other means in order to make ends meat. Many of these girls who get into this profession have children and need the income in order to provide for their families. Over three-fifths of the prostitutes that were interviewed by Shannon Bell had children or were pregnant (Bell 2002: p.
