The Minister responsible for Social Solidarity and Community Action, Chantal Rouleau, recently announced work on a major social assistance reform. Let’s hope that this project will take into account the recommendations repeatedly made to his ministry, including those concerning women who are victims of pimping.
These women deserve better. These women deserve, in particular, not to be hunted down by welfare investigators as they are now. All the workers who work with people who are or have been in a situation of prostitution will tell you that the pimps, often the spouses, get their hands on both the income from prostitution and the social assistance benefit available to them. a good proportion of women who engage in prostitution.
Because no one will be surprised to learn that financial precariousness can lead to prostitution… When faced with a measly $700 a month, some people turn to the many “massage parlors” in Quebec or to prostitute sites on which one can s register in a few clicks. And unsurprisingly, the pimping spouse pockets everything: the earnings from prostitution and the welfare “cheque”. But the one who will receive a call from a civil servant asking her for overpaid social assistance because she had income from “work” is her, not him.
With UQAM law professor Martin Gallié, I documented the phenomenon of “benefits received without entitlement” due to undeclared income from prostitution. Most of these “welfare frauds” are discovered through whistleblowing. The amounts thus claimed for fraud from these people are troubling, particularly with regard to the financial and social situation of these people and their state of health. We have identified cases of this type heard by the Tribunal administratif du Québec (TAQ). In our sample, the Department thus claims $23,821.70, on average, from recipients, or $1,100 to $84,000, for undeclared income from prostitution.
To these sums that must be repaid must be added interest, the value of which often exceeds the amount of the monthly repayments — as well as a stoppage of the minimum financial assistance of $100 per month for misrepresentation. I let you guess what many women do to get out of this difficult financial situation… Yes, a return to prostitution.
Until recently, as we could read in The duty, the Administrative Tribunal of Québec upheld the decision of the Ministère de l’Emploi et de la Solidarité sociale, which is claiming $2,874.25 from a woman receiving last-resort assistance because of the recognition of income from escort work and erotic masseuse. This single mother received her meager last-resort assistance benefit on a monthly basis and gave all of her earnings from prostitution to a man.
The TAQ ruled, more than six years after the decision of the ministry, and the applicant will have to find a way to pay this sum, the affiliated interests and the costs of recovery. She never saw the color of this money for which she is now in debt.
In the special committee on the sexual exploitation of minors, we pleaded for the ministry to review its practice with regard to investigations into fraud in the case of persons who have obtained earnings from prostitution. For us, reopening the files of people currently in debt to the State for such recovery requests should be considered.
The commissioners were receptive to this situation and included a recommendation to this effect in their final report. It remains to be hoped that a copy of this important transpartisan report will be sent to Minister Rouleau’s office.