Natasha Falle
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Toronto Police Service
Natasha Falle | |
|---|---|
 Natasha Falle speaking at an event hosted by The Salvation Army | |
| Born | 1973 (age 52–53) |
| Alma mater | George Brown College |
| Occupations | |
| Employer(s) | Humber College Toronto Police Service |
| Known for | Advocating that Sweden's Sex Purchase Act be adopted in Canada |
Natasha Falle (born 1973) is a Canadian professor at Humber College in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, who was forcibly prostituted from the ages of 15 to 27 and now opposes prostitution in Canada. Falle grew up in a middle-class home and, when her parents divorced, her new single-parent home became unsafe, and Falle ran away from home. At the age of 15, Falle became involved in the sex industry in Calgary, Alberta.
Falle's pimp kept her falsely imprisoned and trafficked her across the country. He married her and tortured her, breaking several of her bones and burning her body. In order to cope with the trauma of prostitution and violence, Falle became dependent on cocaine and almost died. Eventually, she got out of prostitution and, with her mother's support, went through drug rehabilitation, finished high school, and eventually received a diploma in Wife Assault and Child Advocacy from George Brown College.
In 2001, Falle began counselling women in prostitution at Streetlight Support Services, and counselled more than 800 women in the subsequent decade, 97% of whom wrote on their intake surveys that they wanted to exit the sex industry. In order to make this statistic more widely known, Falle founded Sex Trade 101. She began offering training for police and partners with the Toronto Police Service's sex crimes unit. Falle was one of the main proponents of Member of Parliament (MP) Joy Smith's private member's bill, Bill C-268, which was passed in June 2010 as An Act to amend the Criminal Code (minimum sentence for offences involving trafficking of persons under the age of eighteen years), and she helped the Canadian government formulate their appeal of the decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Bedford v. Canada to strike down various prostitution laws. Falle advocates adopting a law in Canada analogous to Sweden's Sex Purchase Act, which would decriminalize the selling of sex and criminalize the purchasing of sex.
Natasha Falle grew up in a middle-class home[1] in Nova Scotia,[2] a suburb of Toronto, Ontario,[1] and a suburb of Calgary, Alberta.[3] Her mother managed stores in the wedding industry[2] and her father was a police officer[4] with a vice squad, arresting drug dealers and pimps.[5] While she was growing up, Falle had multiple family members with addictions.[6] When she was a young teenager, Falle's parents divorced, and she subsequently lived in a single-parent home with her mother.[7][6][2] They moved into an apartment in downtown Toronto. Falle's father did not pay her mother alimony and there was often no money for food, so Falle began stealing food to survive.[7]
Falle had no role models.[3] She began writing poetry about suicide and wearing black clothing.[7] She acted out by stealing cars and using drugs recreationally.[1] She started out with soft drugs and then moved on to using psychedelic mushrooms and LSD.[2] Her associates in these criminal activities, who came from similarly dysfunctional backgrounds,[7] provided her with a sense of belonging that she no longer found at home.[2] Falle's mother had a series of boyfriends who abused her and made the house unsafe,[7] so Falle ran away from home.[8] She slept at friends' houses, on their couches and in tents in their backyards, concealing her presence from her friends' parents.[7]
Prostitution
Initiation
After she turned 15, Falle had her first experience in the sex industry at a party in a bar in Chinatown, Calgary.[9][10][11] A 25-year-old man at the party who had forged identity documents convinced her to sell sex for money and give him half of her earnings.[11][9] Falle found this man well-dressed and attractive and did not think that he fit the stereotypical image of a pimp. She had nowhere to sleep that night and had no money for food, so she accepted his offer.[7][11] The man to whom she sold sex that night had teeth that were rotten.[12] They had sex on a soiled mattress in a poorly-ventilated restaurant attic, and she received $100.[7]
Falle convinced five of her friends who came from dysfunctional homes to join her in prostitution.[2] Falle said that she and the other girls she knew her age who had gone into prostitution had felt as though that was their only remaining option. She said they all tried to stay free of pimps, organized crime, and drugs, but eventually succumbed.[1] Falle later said, "We were prey for every paedophile, pervert, pimp and drug dealer that was out there."[2] The man who had recruited Falle in Chinatown became her pimp.[12] Adults began advertising Falle's sexual services in newspapers.[13] Falle engaged in both indoor and outdoor prostitution, working as an escort, in strip clubs, and at massage parlours.[5][14][7] At the legal establishments where she engaged in prostitution, escort drivers engaged in organized crime, selling guns, alcohol, cocaine, and stolen goods and pimping children in massage parlours.[13]
Abuse
I couldn't admit that I was not there by choice. We couldn't live in our own skin if we admitted that. We needed to believe that it was our choice.
Falle's pimp kept her imprisoned for the years that he prostituted her, and trafficked her across Canada to Edmonton, Vancouver, and Kelowna.[15][8] Falle later said of herself and the other women in prostitution she knew, "I couldn't admit that I was not there by choice. We couldn't live in our own skin if we admitted that. We needed to believe that it was our choice."[7] Falle's pimp told her he would marry her if she made enough money for him through prostitution. When she had made the amount of money her pimp required, she was 17 years old.[2] The two got married that year.[16]
Falle's pimp regularly beat her and she began to suffer from battered person syndrome.[10][5] The worst beating she received was in a brothel where she and four other teenagers engaged in prostitution.[17] Over the years that she was married to her pimp, she hoped he would change.[10] She later said that she "wanted to love him, believe he'd never do it again."[5] She tried to make him enough money through prostitution to convince him not to find another girl.[10] He threatened her family, and conditioned her not to call the police. Fear of being labelled a "snitch" or "rat" prevented her from going to the police.[5] None of the other women she knew in the sex industry were in healthy relationships.[18] At her peak, Falle owned a Ford Mustang, bought her pimp a Mercedes-Benz, and lived in a four-bedroom penthouse apartment, but she continued to experience violence.[2][5][12] She used her material possessions to elevate herself above the women around her who were dependent on cocaine; she dismissed them as "crackheads" and "crackhoes".[2]
Some of the men who purchased sex with Falle were police officers, and she knew girls who used drugs with their drug counselors.[7] Falle was brainwashed to believe that her only worth lay in prostitution, which she later said was why it took her so long to exit prostitution.[6] While engaging in prostitution, Falle was frequently threatened by other women in the sex industry, she was verbally abused by her clients, she was stalked, and she was threatened with guns on multiple occasions, including by her pimp.[10][14][1][7] She was also drugged several times, and was once sexually assaulted by an escort driver after having been drugged by him.[1][5] At one point, she was kidnapped.[2] She had to resort to pulling a knife on people at times when she was threatened with violence. Because of various instances of violence during her time in prostitution, Falle was injured in a variety of ways.[18] Her pimp broke several of her bones and burned her body.[19][7]
Effects and aftermath
In order to cope with the psychological trauma of prostitution and violence, Falle became dependent on cocaine.[6][2][1] Within two years, she was spending $500 per night on cocaine.[2] Her drug use resulted in delusions[10] and caused her to become schizophrenic, and subsequently distrustful of those around her,[1] fearing that people were coming to take away her drugs.[2]
Eventually, the personal horror stories[tone] Falle heard from other women in her situation convinced her that she needed to get out of prostitution.[1] Her substance dependence became so severe that she almost died.[20] Her best friend was killed by her pimp.[7] By this point, many of her friends in the sex industry had died, and she thought that she would be next.[2] One night, Falle was hiding alone in a hotel room when she found a Bible placed there by Gideons International. She began reading the Psalms and later said, "For the first time I understood what God was saying to me. That night my life began to move in a new direction."[21] On her 27th birthday, Falle left her husband and returned to her mother.[1] Because of the delusions, Falle did not recognize her mother, thinking she had been replaced with a clone. Falle told her mother about being dependent on cocaine, entering prostitution, and marrying her pimp.[2] Her mother accepted her back.[1] It took several more years before Falle gave up hope that her husband would change.[7]
Falle participated in a diversion program that allowed her to return to school.[1] She said that she required a lot of support in order to fully exit prostitution, and found that support in her mother, her school, and Streetlight Support Services. Falle underwent a month of drug rehabilitation, which convinced her to become a counsellor.[10][18] She then spent 90 days at the Toronto West Detention Centre and took seven months to finish high school.[10] She went on to graduate from a college and a university.[2] She received a diploma in Wife Assault and Child Advocacy from George Brown College and graduated with honours.[10][1] To remove the burns her pimp had inflicted on her, she had laser surgery that cost thousands of dollars.[7]
Falle uses the term "sex trade survivor" to describe herself.[12] In 2012, Falle sought to bring a lawsuit against her former pimp to demonstrate to other women who are or have been forcibly prostituted that it is possible to oppose one's pimp.[22] In 2013, she said that, while she has left much aggression and profanity behind since leaving the sex industry, some of the issues that she developed will stick with her until the end of her life.[6] Jonathan Migneault of the Sudbury Star wrote that "Falle's story about her descent in and escape from prostitution is so horrific you almost don't believe the details."[1] Sam Pazzano of the Toronto Sun wrote that, after 12 years of prostitution, Falle still has "attractive looks and [a] sharp mind."[5]
