Behind the Scenes at Sweet VIP

Siri likes sex workers!

2011-12-30T09:25:00.000-08:00

Well, not sure what sex workers and abortion have in common, but for the purposes of this news story they must have summed up the yin and yang of Siri, that sultry-voiced high-tech vixen who voices commands on the latest versions of iPhones. Apparently the controversy is over Siri being helpful when it comes to finding sex workers nearby, but not for getting an abortion.
Hmmm. Slow news day, guys?

Make some noise!

2011-12-19T12:35:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, everyone! OK, maybe a protest by survival sex workers isn't everybody's idea of cheery Christmas news, but it's great to see this news of some push-back developing among sex workers in the Downtown Eastside.
If anyone's still waiting for our government to address the problems of survival sex workers, best to just let that go. What lingers from the Pickton trial and inquiry is that we'll be waiting a long, long time if we leave it up to the mainstream and our governments to do right by sex workers. It's going to take protest - more than the 75 people who turned up for the DTES protest, it's true. But hey, it's a start.
The fifth annual Red Umbrella Day march last Saturday in Victoria brought out more people than ever for the walk to the legislature, including sex workers. Great to see some of the indoor workers out in support of stopping violence against sex workers.
Kudos to Tracie Fawkes and her crew from PEERS Victoria for organizing the walk, which also was a chance for new PEERS executive director Marion Little to introduce herself to the community and some of the local sex workers.
Sex workers need mainstream people to walk alongside them if they're ever going to get out from under the stigma and stay safe from the dangerous or exploitive aspects of their line of work. But it's great to see them out there on the front lines themselves, rejecting the stigma that keeps them sidelined and invisible all too often. Here's to many more protests in 2012!

The tide is turning....maybe?

2011-11-25T09:12:00.001-08:00

Oh, isn't it heartening to see stories like this one starting to crop up in "respectable" papers like the Montreal Gazette? There was a time when this kind of coverage would have started with the police version of things and then maybe - maybe - allowed the sex worker a paragraph or two at the very bottom to protest that in fact, she was perfectly happy in her work.
Can we call this progress? Perhaps, but so slow!

Two out of three agencies helping B.C. sex workers are closing

2011-11-16T07:34:00.001-08:00

These are dire times for survival sex workers. Two out of the three agencies in B.C. that specifically work with sex workers have announced they'll be closing their doors - PEERS Vancouver in the spring, PACE Vancouver almost immediately, as that organization runs out of money to pay their staff in just three weeks.
And how deeply, tragically ironic that it's all happening even as a multimillion-dollar inquiry unfolds in our province looking into why so many sex workers went missing or turned up dead in the Pickton years even while police and the public watched with studied indifference.
The stigma around sex work has got to go. It kills people. It lets government safely withdraw funding from marginalized groups, because governments know that the public won't much be troubled by that.
If you've got any influence anywhere on this issue, please use it. Hundreds of people - mostly impoverished, traumatized women - work the outdoor strolls in our province. Regardless of how people feel about sex work - and we'd hope that those reading a blog linked to an escort agency would at least be a little more kindly disposed to these misunderstood workers - the situation for outdoor workers in particular simply must change. And part of that change is supporting the community groups that help them.

Telling it like it is

2011-11-10T19:59:00.001-08:00

Nothing like a gay porn star who's not afraid to talk about it to liven up the scene at Oxford. Here's coverage of what must have been an interesting presentation from the man who started the French sex workers' rights group Les Putes in 2006.

Industry pays more, gets less

2011-10-31T16:12:00.000-07:00

Another great health and safety night at Sweet VIPs this month - a big thanks to the Cool Aid street nurses for being there for STI tests and for some frank conversations on how to keep sex safer for everybody. These events are regular happenings at Sweet VIP, and are excellent opportunities for bringing staff together to get to know each other better.
One of the topics that came up a few times that afternoon had nothing to do with STIs, though. Talk turned to why it is that escort agencies pay a business licence that's 15 times higher than almost any other kind of business licence in the City of Victoria, and also requires individual SWs to pay an additional $250 apiece for their own licences.
It's not just the money that rubs agency owners and SWs the wrong way. What irritates them much more is that even though people working in the sex industry have to pay far higher fees for everything from business licences to Yellow Page ads just because it's sex that they're selling, they still get the chilly treatment from the municipal staff and publishing/advertising staff at the places where they do business.
"If I'm going to be charged at the gold level, then at least I should get gold-level treatment," notes Sweet VIP's Ms. Harvi.
So true. Come on, business community - either quit your gouging of the industry or give them way, way better service for all that money they're having to spend.

Life as a hostess

2011-10-12T19:26:00.000-07:00

Refreshing viewpoint on the human-trafficking issue from a woman who worked as a hostess. Just like everything else in the world, it's complicated. Force and coercion, bad. Doing what you have to do to extract yourself from a bad situation, good - or at least understandable. Time to separate the two.

Anyone know what's up with the stroll?

2011-09-16T07:41:00.001-07:00

Not that the Victoria outdoor stroll has much to do with Sweet VIP, but anyone know what's going on out there? Word from police and service providers is that the number of workers is way down on strolls along Rock Bay and Government up by Discovery, but nobody knows whether that means a new stroll is developing somewhere else or if there's a new way of doing business that isn't so reliant on an outdoor stroll.

If you know something about this, post some info and we'll be sure to pass it along to the people who provide support to outdoor sex workers - PEERS, Sandy Merriman House, VARCS.

Sex Meters in Germany

2011-09-06T07:30:00.000-07:00

Ah, those Germans. Stymied in their recent attempts to collect tax revenue from sex workers, they've now installed meters in Bonn to collect money from street sex workers.

The idea is that the workers will pay six euros a night for a permit to work the streets. Sex workers aren't too happy about it, though - they're OK with sex work being taxed (it's been legal in Germany since 2002), but they don't like an approach that singles out sex work from all other kinds of work for a special tax.

Video project

2011-08-13T08:32:00.000-07:00

You gotta like any video titled "Every ho I know says so." Maggie's, the sex-work advocacy organization in Toronto, has set out to create a place for media by sex workers - this video looks to be the only one on offer at the moment, but hopefully there will be more to come.

Red-light specials

2011-08-01T08:26:00.000-07:00

Well, damn, even where it's legal there are complications. Here's a report from the brothels of Australia, where post-economic-meltdown has fueled competition and spurred some all-Asian places to put their BBBJs on permanent special.

Best to be wary of any claim that sex work practices are responsible for the rise in STDs. Sex workers are always getting wrongly blamed as "vectors of disease," when in fact they're much more likely than those who give it away for free to take precautions. It's their job, after all.

All's not well in Sweden

2011-07-24T07:57:00.000-07:00

Found this new blog from a sex-worker-positive writer - check out the report on the shortcomings of the so-called "Swedish model" of decriminalization, in which the buyers are criminalized but the sellers aren't. As you might expect, the law's not working as well as expected.

Vacation break

2011-07-03T08:02:00.001-07:00

The blog mistress is on a road trip for a couple of weeks - check back for regular blog updates starting in the week of July 18.

Louisiana steps out of the dark ages

2011-07-01T08:35:00.000-07:00

Holy moly, they've been making some sex workers register as sex offenders in Louisiana up until now!! The good news is that they've stopped that practice.

Interesting to note that the most vulnerable and marginalized sex worker were the ones most likely to end up charged by police under the state's sex-offender laws. That's mostly how it is in Canada for prostitution charges overall, as 95 per cent of the charges in our country in any given year are brought against people working the outdoor strolls.

Google's discriminatory practices

2011-06-24T09:08:00.000-07:00

Read this and make some noise! Let's see if we can't get Google to rethink this bad decision. It's much bigger than a small ad for Irish sex workers - it's really about discrimination against legal workers just because you don't like what they do for a living.

Post ur displeasure yoon Google and CEO Larry Page's Facebook sites (although the blog mistress did just that this morning and the post is already gone from Google's site - I think it lasted all of 5 minutes). Send feedback to Google corporate. Give in to your inner radical.

Consider the customer

2011-06-23T06:58:00.000-07:00

If you don't mind a bit of academic prose, here's a paper from the Sociological Review arguing that any sociologist studying service culture ought to include the customer experience. The researcher has used a UK review board, Punternet, to test the premise.

Google censors sex workers

2011-06-20T10:46:00.001-07:00

Hey, what's up with Google? A sex workers' group in Ireland says Google is prohibiting the group from running an AdWord that links to the group's Web site due to the ad content being an "egregious violation" of Google's advertising policy.

Here's what it said: "Turn Off the Blue Light - Sex Workers In Ireland need human rights, not legal wrongs." Yeah, that's pretty out there, pretty damn egregious. Come on, Google! Time to see this item get a little media attention.

News coverage of court case

2011-06-14T09:36:00.000-07:00

Hope you're following the great coverage in the Globe and Mail on the big sex-work case currently before the Ontario Appeal court. Canadians are never going to get so passionate about safer sex work that they will actually force the government to act on decriminalization, so let's hope the courts can make things happen.

Film Fests

2011-06-06T19:55:00.000-07:00

Hey, this looks like fun! Anybody heading to London for a little getaway in the UK? Good chance to catch a sex worker film fest. Here's more thoughts on the festival, which starts June 12.

Too late for San Francisco's SW fest - that was last month. Next year?

Taking the stuffing out of the Swedish model

2011-06-01T11:00:00.000-07:00

Finally, a research paper that right-thinking people can use to refute those tiresome abolitionists who are always going on about the Swedish model (customers criminalized, sellers legal). This is out of the Prostitution Licensing Authority in Queensland, Australia.

2011-05-26T15:05:00.000-07:00

This is a disturbing development - everybody on the government side of the upcoming Pickton inquest gets taxpayer-funded lawyers, but not the sex workers' groups, aboriginals or residents of the Downtown Eastside. Hmm - that's just a tad obvious, isn't it?

OK, there's never going to be enough public money to go round, but it's just a little unsettling when ALL the money goes to one side of the case and none to the other. The scales of justice seem to be tipping rather firmly in one direction....

New comic-strip book touts johndom

2011-05-17T10:59:00.001-07:00

Gotta like a man who steps out of that deep, dark closet and reveals himself as an enthusiast of the sex industry. Check out this book review of "Paying For It," by Chester Brown. It's a comic-strip memoir of life as a customer, and definitely sounds like a great gift book to slide into the hands of all those friends of yours who you fear would faint dead away if they knew you paid for sex. But then again, maybe they do, too.

Court resumes in June

2011-05-09T16:59:00.000-07:00

An update on the court challenge to Canada's sex-work laws. The next round starts in June. Maybe common sense will prevail and we'll cease all this silliness and just get down to making a sensible decision to scrap a lot of these damnable laws. Yeah, right.

2011-04-26T17:59:00.000-07:00

Nice little rant here from the always readable Dan Savage. Hope your Easter weekend was full of eggs and bunnies. See you at the polls May 2 - wonder where the federal parties stand on sex work.....

Another Olympic "cleanup"

2011-04-12T07:41:00.000-07:00

Lordy, will we ever learn? The years pass, the various Olympic events move from city to city, and we still chase the sex workers all over town in the runup as if that's going to get rid of the industry. Here's the latest out of London. Blimey, leave the girls alone!

Battle-weary, but still fighting

2011-04-06T08:10:00.001-07:00

PostMedia columnist Ian Mulgrew sounds off about Canada's long, slow drift to nowhere around sex work. Looks like our governments will be throwing up every barrier they can to prevent the decriminalization of the adult industry. Fortunately, there are some pretty committed people fighting this issue from the other side.

Stronger together

2011-03-28T07:50:00.001-07:00

A moment in history - a short video from the 2005 Montreal gathering of sex workers.

Ancient Louisiana law tripping up SWs

2011-03-18T07:52:00.000-07:00

Leave it to Louisiana to come up with an even more punishing way to make life miserable for the state's sex workers. Man, we waste a lot of time causing pointless grief for adults just trying to make a living.

2011-03-13T09:13:00.000-07:00

Inching closer to a resolution on the Charter challenge around the sex-trade laws in Canada. The federal government has come up with the offensive legal argument that there's no requirement to protect sex workers because they work in an illegal industry. Except, of course, that's not true - selling sex is legal in Canada.

2011-02-24T12:33:00.000-08:00

Hey, how'd they keep this case so quiet? A man busted in Maple Ridge for communicating used a Charter challenge to argue that Canada's laws are unconstitutional because they harm sex workers. OK, he didn't win, but the judge praised him for giving it a try.

The Blog Mistress is away for a couple weeks, so apologies in advance for the lag in blog updates. Back in mid-March.

Stigma lingers

2011-02-22T07:27:00.000-08:00

Not a bad piece out of the Kingston Whig Standard, which has been doing a decent series looking at the issues around sex work as part of the build-up to whatever's coming this spring when the Ontario court ruling is heard on appeal.

The point about stigma remaining even when sex work is legal is a good one. When adult sex work is finally legal in Canada (because it will be soon, right?), we'll need to have a good conversation about how to lift the damaging stigma once and for all.

Sex work in the Big Apple

2011-02-10T17:04:00.000-08:00

Ah, the oldest profession makes it into Wired, which takes a look in its latest issue at how technology and time has changed sex work in the city. That'd be New York Cityt, of course. Interesting map showing the shift in the sex-work districts in NYC over the last 20 years.

It's a good job when it's you calling the shots

2011-02-03T08:39:00.000-08:00

Looks like sisters are doin' it for themselves in Thailand. You go, ladies! We appreciate the age range, too - 18 to 66. As the manager of the brothel points out, it's hard to find a 66-year-old sex worker if that's what you want, and apparently her sales are great.

Ad campaign shakes up stereotypes

2011-01-27T07:36:00.001-08:00

A big hurrah to the Halifax community agency Stepping Stone, which has launched its first-ever awareness campaign reminding us that sex workers are people, too. Here's a news story on the launch this week, and a link to the clever, funny ads that Toronto/Halifax ad agency Extreme Group came up with for the campaign. About time this message got out there!

If Calcutta can do it, can't we?

2011-01-20T15:36:00.000-08:00

The Tyee is running a series on co-ops, adapted from the book Humanizing the Economy: Co-operatives in an Age of Capital. Here's this week's segment, about a co-op of Calcutta sex workers that's still thriving after 15 years.

YouTube interview with sex worker

2011-01-14T07:54:00.000-08:00

A sex worker gives a frank interview on YouTube, providing some of that intriguing insider information that only a working girl would know.

News from summer sex-work conference

2011-01-11T18:13:00.000-08:00

This looks like it would have been a fun time. We'll keep an eye out for announcements around the group's 2011 conference. The Power Point is definitely worth a look.

Sex on sale around the globe

2011-01-06T07:41:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting site that summarizes where the prostitution laws are at around the world. Not sure if we agree with all of this fellow's offside comments - it'd be nicer if he'd just stick to the facts - but it's still a handy resource to have the laws and practices of various countries laid out in one place.

As for his opinions around street prostitution, that's clearly an issue that. in a decriminalized context, would be dealt with as a municipal zoning issue. And let's be honest - the reason we've got people selling sex on the street is because there are customers who buy that way. If it's an end to street work that we want, then we should be taking aim at the buyers on that front. It's not like there's a shortage of indoor venues.

Crazy laws a global phenom

2011-01-02T09:07:00.001-08:00

Nice to know we're wacky all over the world when it comes to crazy law around sex work. Here's a story out of Britain underlining that.

Oh, and happy New Year!

Craigslist controversy

2010-12-30T17:39:00.000-08:00

Interesting viewpoint from the Globe and Mail opinion pages on all this fuss about Craigslist.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-22T07:35:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas one and all during one of the busiest seasons for sex workers. Here's a jolly Christmas read out of London, where the BBC set out to get a straight-up story from the city's sex workers about what kind of a Christmas season they're expecting. Nice to see adult sex work starting to get normal media coverage - not so long ago, that would have been unimaginable, as media would have been falling all over themselves to find a vulnerable victim to profile instead.

And of course, there are still vulnerable victims forced into sex work, and we wish them all the support they need to get into a new life. But there are also a whole lot of adult sex workers who are just fine with working in the business. Nice to see their perspective gaining at least a little credence in the press.

Happy holidays, everyone! Hope your season's nice, and just a little naughty.

Rise up, 'fallen women'

2010-12-14T11:58:00.001-08:00

Just in case you've been wondering what's up in China when it comes to sex work. here's food for thought. We in the VIP blog department are not too enamoured of the country's plan to stop calling SWs "prostitutes"and instead refer to them as "fallen women," but we do appreciate that at least the Chinese government gets that "sex worker" is a morally neutral term. We've been trying to make that case with the Canadian media for some time now.

2010-12-08T07:52:00.001-08:00

Hard to know who the good guys are when you're a sex worker, as this story about police abuse of Ottawa sex workers makes clear.

Setback on the legal front

2010-12-02T14:35:00.000-08:00

So we have to wait a little longer for decriminalization of the sex industry - the Ontario Court of Appeal has ordered that sex work remain illegal in Ontario until the appeal of three recently overturned laws is heard.

No one said it was going to be easy. But it's pretty obvious that there's no contest when you weigh the harm of the current laws against the good. It'll take a few years, but the landmark ruling from the Ontario Superior Court earlier this fall will eventually stand.

Are we legal yet?

2010-11-29T07:46:00.000-08:00

The plot thickens as Canada (well, at least the federal government lawyers) ties itself in knots over the fate of laws around prostitution. This just in.

Oh, they always know how to have fun...

2010-11-20T09:39:00.000-08:00

Only Sweet VIP girls could turn a night of blood and urine testing into a good time. But the place definitely had the feel of a party Thursday night when Cool Aid health nurses and two University of Victoria researchers showed up for "rapid HIV testing" on a dozen or so VIP workers.

The new kind of HIV test shows accurate results in seconds, just like a pregnancy test. That makes the medical community very happy, seeing as studies have shown that more than half of people who got the older style HIV tests never came back for the results.

The UVic researchers are looking into sex workers' responses to the rapid tests, and surveyed the VIP workers on their feelings about the test. Pretty good deal for the staff - everyone who did a survey got a $100 spa certificate!

For better or worse, find us on Google Maps

2010-11-12T07:56:00.001-08:00

Hey, here's an interesting thing: Type "escort agencies Victoria" into Google Maps and up comes those familiar little balloons showing where a bunch of them are (including VIP, of course). Hmmm - is this a good thing for agencies, given that little business of the Criminal Code that still hangs over the industry? Hard to say, but it's handy for finding the places, even though the search pulled up a few wild cards.

2010-11-02T08:14:00.000-07:00

Some good work is coming out of a few big Canadian papers around sex work - notably the Montreal Gazette and the Ottawa Citizen. Here's a recent example from the Gazette, which gets beyond the usual knee-jerk stuff and tries to move the debate forward.

Two very different things

2010-10-29T08:21:00.000-07:00

As this story out of Cambodia points out, presuming that sex work and human trafficking are the same things create dire consequences for people in the industry.

Sue Davis speaks out

2010-10-24T09:07:00.000-07:00

Check out this interview with Sue Davis, a Vancouver sex worker who is tireless in her work to decriminalize the adult industry and create better working conditions for outdoor sex workers. You go, Sue!

Outreach on stroll a big help

2010-10-18T15:34:00.000-07:00

Programs like this one in Vancouver and the PEERS outreach service on stroll here in Victoria can make all the difference for marginalized survival sex workers. Sweet VIP helps raise money for PEERS outreach services through some of its events.

B.C. sex-work court challenge inches forward

2010-10-14T07:29:00.000-07:00

More good news of successful court challenges of Canada's pointless and dangerous laws around adult sex work, this one made in B.C. The B.C. courts have been reluctant to hear the case up until now because the woman leading the fight is a former sex worker, not a current one, but the Court of Appeal has now given the go-ahead.

And here's a good screed from Simon Fraser University professor John Lowman, taking Sun columnist Daphne Bramham to task for a recent piece in which she appears to have closed her eyes to any evidence that didn't suit her argument against decriminalization.

That's one of the big problems with this issue - it's got way too much ideology and personal belief wrapped up in it and not nearly enough straight-up facts. If we just considered the facts of the law and its impact on the lives of Canadian sex workers (and its complete lack of impact on preventing prostitution or stopping child exploitation), any thinking person would have to conclude that decriminalization of the adult industry is the right and smart thing to do.

Thoughtful writing on sex-trade court decision

2010-10-05T17:36:00.000-07:00

There's been some terrific (and terrible) commentary and writing about Canada's prostitution laws since the Ontario Superior Court struck down three key laws around the sex trade last week. Here are a couple pieces from the former category, one from SFU professor John Lowman in the Vancouver Sun, and the other from the Ottawa Citizen by Steve Sullivan, Canada's federal ombudsman for victims of crime. Nice to see some smart, thoughtful writing on this subject.

The good guys won!!

2010-09-28T13:09:00.001-07:00

Yay, triple yay, wild screams for the legal team that may have changed everything about Canada's prostitution laws. The ruling came down today from the Ontario Superior Court scrapping that province's laws against bawdyhouses, living off the avails and communicating for the purposes.

Hypocrisy 'round the world

2010-09-26T18:46:00.000-07:00

A thoughtful essay on legalizing sex work, from a blogger in India.

Poll shows 50 per cent Canadians favour decrim

2010-09-24T15:59:00.001-07:00

Somehow missed this story until now, but here's the results from an Angus Reid poll a year ago asking Canadians whether they support decriminalization. OK, 50 per cent support isn't overwhelming, but it's a pretty good start! And at least a solid majority of Canadians recognize that the status quo needs to change.

Prague gets with the program

2010-09-16T10:34:00.001-07:00

While Canada takes a big step backward by toughening up sentences for anyone convicted of keeping a bawdyhouse, other places in the world recognize what most of us can clearly see: The sex industry is here to stay, and trying to deny that just makes the whole business way more risky and stigmatized than it needs to be. Here's what Prague is up to around decriminalization.

Sex and Money

2010-09-14T07:39:00.000-07:00

Check out this interesting sex blog put together by an economics professor at Dalhousie. Here's a little squib from the Dalhousie newsletter about who the prof is and who she's starting to influence now that her blog has been picked up by Big Think, one of those sites that does the work for you and just goes out and finds interesting writers.

Medical journal sounds off against criminalization

2010-09-13T08:02:00.000-07:00

An excellent piece from UBC researcher Kate Shannon, written for the Canadian Medical Association Journal this month. Some great (but disspiriting) facts in here about the tremendous surge in arrests for outdoor sex workers in Canada due to short-sighted changes in the communications law in the 1980s. We're still living with the fallout - let's not add another bad, poorly considered law to the mix by toughening up sentences for keeping a common bawdyhouse.

From the September edition of the Canadian Medical Association Journal:

(All editorial matter in CMAJ represents the opinions of the authors and not necessarily those of the Can adian Medical Association.)

The hypocrisy of Canada’s prostitution legislation

Often described as the world’s oldest profession, the exchange of sex for money has always

existed and will continue to exist worldwide.

For many, the sex industry evokes a sense of moral unease, and divides feminists and society alike on whether it is an oppression and commodification of women, or a woman’s right and choice to sell her body. Canada’s federal legislation reflects this divide: The buying and selling of sex among consensual adults has always been legal, yet criminal code provisions on communicating, procuring, bawdy houses and living off the avails of prostitution make it virtually impossible to work legally in safer indoor settings.

Against this backdrop, the numbers of missing and murdered women continue to swell in Canadian cities and street-involved women engaged in sex work experience some of the worst health outcomes in our society, including drug-related harms, trauma, and HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.

Standardized mortality rates among female street-based sex workers are higher than any other population of women in North America, with homicide being the most common cause of death.

Sadly, there are multiple examples of convictions of serial murderers of sex workers over the last decade in North America and the United Kingdom, and ongoing concerns remain of potential

serial murderers in Edmonton, Winnipeg and along the “Highway of Tears” in Northern British Columbia. The recent convictions for the gruesome homicides of women on the streets of Vancouver and Seattle — the largest serial murders in Canadian and American history — should be a vivid and chilling reminder.

Importantly, growing peer-reviewed research published in some of the top medical journals now suggest that enforcement of criminal sanctions targeting sex work, including communicating

in public spaces, displaces sex workers to isolated alleys and industrial settings away from health and support services.

Enforced displacement and lack of access to safer indoor work environments independently increase sex workers’ risk of physical violence and rape, and reduces their ability to safely negotiate condom use with clients, thereby protecting themselves from sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies. Qualitative evidence further describes how criminal sanctions limiting sex workers’ ability to regulate safer industry practices (e.g., create unions,

safer indoor work spaces. etc.) compound health-related risks.

Globally, evidence-based public health research is being used in calls to remove criminal sanctions targeting sex work; one such call even came from the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Yet in Canada this public health policy gap has been met with

scaled up enforcement-based efforts targeting sex workers and their clients.

According to the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, following the enactment of the 1985 ‘communicating code’legislation designed to remove the visible presence of sex work, annual prostitution arrests increased nearly 10-fold,

from 1, 255 arrests in 1985 to 10, 457 arrests in 1987. These rates have remained constant at about 10, 000 arrests per year, with 97 per cent occurring in Vancouver, Toronto and Montréal.

Despite three separate parliamentary sub-committees on prostitution since the

mid-1980s, sex workers and human rights experts are now being forced to

challenge the criminal sanctions through the courts, as a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedom.

Now, as we wait for the Ontario Supreme Court decision on one challenge, the federal government has taken another backward step, this time by reclassifying the Criminal Code on

“keeping a bawdy house” (a place kept for the purpose prostitution) making it a

serious crime with a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment.6 This new

Criminal Code regulation, introduced without Parliamentary debate, is in blatant

disregard of the evidence and has the concerning risk of pushing sex workers

further underground and outside the public health umbrella.

In perhaps the saddest reflection of this public health policy gap, in 2008 sex workers in Edmonton began giving samples of their DNA to a community agency and RCMP network to ensure their bodies would be identified in case of future harm.

While rigorous evaluation of legal policy approaches to sex work remains critical, it is also time for government and policy makers to take into account the evidence of the failures of the criminalized approach to sex work on health and human rights in Canadian society.

Kate Shannon PhD

Assistant professor

Department of Medicine

University of British Columbia

Vancouver, BC

REFERENCES

1. Shannon K, Strathdee SA, Shoveller J, et al. Structural and environmental barriers to condom use negotiation with clients among female sex workers: Implications for HIV prevention strategies and policy. Am J Public Health 2009;99:659-65.

2. Shannon K, Kerr T, Strathdee SA, et al. Prevalence and structural correlates of gender-based violence in a prospective cohort of female sex workers. BMJ 2009;339: b2939.

3. Rekart ML. Sex-work harm reduction. Lancet 2005;366: 2123-34.

4. Goodyear M, Cusick L. Protection of sex workers. BMJ 2007;334:52-3.

5. Duchesne D. Street prostitution in Canada. Ottawa (ON): Statistics Canada; 2002. Cat. no. 85-002-XPE

6. Perreaux L. Tory legislation takes aim at brothels and bookies. The Globe and Mail [Toronto] 2010 Aug. 5. Sect A:6 DOI:10.1503/cmaj.100410

Previously published at www.cmaj.ca

CMAJ • SEPTEMBER 7, 2010 • 182(12)

Another ally speaks up

2010-09-12T14:15:00.001-07:00

Sociology professor Sudhir Venkatesh challenges the misconceptions around sex work in this article from the Washington Post, one of your blog mistress's favourite newspapers. Venkatesh makes the point that a lot of SPs make all the time - that the work isn't all about sex by a long shot. And how nice to see the piece addressing that tired old myth about SPs all being drug-addicted, desperate and exploited.

Like fine wine...

2010-09-08T16:14:00.000-07:00

Nice to know the old girls have still got it, at least according to this news story out of Chennai, India.

Hey, it's got us talking

2010-09-05T13:34:00.000-07:00

If nothing else, Ottawa's efforts to get tough with Canada's bawdyhouse laws is getting us talking about the sex industry. A recent article from the Vancouver Sun, and another from the Toronto Star.

Salon article on Canada's shame

2010-09-02T10:24:00.000-07:00

Salon Magazine jumps into the debate over Canada's ridiculous plan to toughen up bawdyhouse laws while at the same time we're preparing for a big inquiry into how we could have avoided the Pickton tragedy. Come on, people! What can they possibly be thinking?

They're not just sexy, they're smart

2010-08-27T08:15:00.000-07:00

A study out of the UK verifying what we already know: Sex workers aren't stupid, coerced victims.

More on bawdyhouse changes

2010-08-27T08:07:00.000-07:00

Today's column by Times Colonist writer Jody Paterson, on the hypocrisy of lamenting the Pickton murders while at the same time the federal government is making Criminal Code changes that put even more women at risk.

Troubling changes in federal bawdy-house laws

2010-08-24T11:04:00.000-07:00

A closer look at the federal government's new regulations on "bawdy houses" reveals some pretty alarming changes. In case you missed it, here's the press release and the backgrounder that the Department of Justice issued in early August. Very scary for anyone working in the indoor sex industry in Canada - now that they've redefined keeping a common bawdy house as a "serious offence" under the Criminal Code, police have the right to run wiretaps, and the minimum prison sentence for someone convicted of this will now be five years (compared to a maximum of two years right now).

What does it all mean? Depends on how police choose to use the changed laws, but it certainly increases the risks for sex workers and others in the business. Pay attention, folks - this is a very worrying development.

Beware: The feds want to ramp up enforcement of the bawdy house laws

2010-08-23T12:43:00.000-07:00

Here's a Vancouver Sun editorial from last week and an excellent column from Sun writer Peter McKnight, sounding the alarm about a potential crackdown on "common bawdy houses" - otherwise known as brothels, escort agencies and massage parlours. The federal government has just designated certain crimes as deserving of more police attention, and one of them is the rarely used bawdy-house law.

The last time there was a government-ordered crackdown, in the 1970s, the result was a dramatic increase in street prostitution and an even more dramatic rise in assaults and murders among sex workers, who now no longer had a safe indoor place to work. We can't let this happen again!

Disposable women

2010-08-21T11:45:00.000-07:00

How would things have turned out if Willie Pickton had been murdering, say, bank tellers instead of street-entrenched sex workers? Guess we'll never know, but here's the Vancouver Police Department report on the many things that stopped the VPD and the RCMP from taking their investigators more seriously during the period when Pickton was murdering women in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Blog gap

2010-07-30T10:09:00.000-07:00

Blogmistress Jody is on the road for the next while, so blog-posting will be on hold until later in August. See you back here then!

He's b-a-a-a-c-k!

2010-07-29T16:47:00.000-07:00

Looks like Robert Pickton's back in the news, at least for a media moment or two.

Rights groups support Cambodian sex workers

2010-07-27T05:57:00.000-07:00

Fighting back in Cambodia.

Fashionably racy

2010-07-24T06:24:00.000-07:00

Oh, for the day when we can be this open about sex work in Canada.

Yay, us!

2010-07-19T21:54:00.000-07:00

Thanks to our wonderful Sweet VIP customers and staff, we raised $500 for PEERS outreach at the recent party at VIP.

Know about PEERS? It's a non-profit here in Victoria that helps past and current sex workers who need a little support to get things straightened out in their lives. We're picking them as our spotlight charity and will be raising money at our parties and at other events for the PEERS late-night outreach program on the stroll.

We're putting a donation box up at the office soon - hope you'll contribute to it!

The Brothel Project

2010-07-15T17:21:00.000-07:00

A few links to The Brothel Project, a documentary that aired on Global in June and stars VIP's very own Harvi Wallbanger, plus assorted other VIP characters and enthusiasts.

Here's a blog post from one of the subjects in the documentary, Jody Paterson.

And here's a link to a review of the film, which has a link to the actual doc at the bottom of the article, in case you'd like to see The Brothel Project for yourself. (P.S. Jody HATES the photo they used of her in this article, but what can you do?)

World Cup Woes

2010-07-15T17:18:00.000-07:00

The World Cup falls flat for sex workers.

Oops!

2010-07-02T17:57:00.000-07:00

Sorry, folks - the Sweet VIP blog was tragically and inadvertently deleted (long story). We'll be rebuilding it over the next couple of weeks. Please stay tuned.