Society is very biased in its views
towards who deserves public
outrage and who does not.

It is the difference between the
outrage towards the Paris bombings
or recent Manchester attacks versus
the response to bombings that
occur in Syria or other non-Western
countries. | am not arguing that
people shouldn't be upset by the
events that happened in Paris or
Manchester, because they should
be. | am simply pointing out a bias
that our society has towards who
deserves our Facebook photo being
changed in honour, and who does
not.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
described this phenomenon best
in her TEDtalk called “The danger
of a single story.” She said that
this phenomenon occurs when a
country or a group of people are
labelled as nothing more than
sufferers or monsters. This is how
Africans and Middle-Easterners
are described in the media, and is
also how sex workers are labelled
in the Downtown Eastside (DTES).
Apathy for those on the outskirts
of “civilized” society is what allows
for people to disregard atrocities
that occur daily if a group of people
is constantly deemed as victims or
lesser-than. This also contributed
to how at least 26 missing women
went unnoticed when Robert Pickton
murdered prostitutes in the ‘90s to
early ‘OOs.

|, too, had not previously put
very much thought towards sex
workers or their basic human rights.
| failed to know that Indigenous and
trans women are disproportionately
represented in the DTES at the street
level of sex work. | failed to know that
some sex workers choose to work
in the sex industry. | also failed to

know that Davie Street sex workers
of the ‘60s to ‘80s were displaced
due to stigmatizations surrounding
prostitution. This is what we do as a
society; we remain ignorant to issues
that do not affect the dominant
culture.

On September 16, 2016, a
memorial on Jervis Street and near
Davie Street was placed in honour
of those who were unfairly displaced
in the ‘80s due to their work being
considered immoral. Historically,
Vancouver had a vibrant sex work
community on Davie Street, where
sex workers could safely work on the
streets without the threat of violence,
police intimidation, and hate-crimes.
People within the community
were accepting of those who were
LGBTQ+ and people of colour
before it became more popularized,
were sex-positive feminists who felt
empowered by their choice to sell
sex, and were often in charge of
their businesses at a time when the
rest of society was only starting to
diminish gender discrimination in the
workplace. This all changed when sex
workers were displaced from Davie
Street and forced to work in either
Mount Pleasant or the DTES. Laws
were instilled that criminalized selling
sex, and charged sex workers on
Davie Street up to $28,000 in fines.
Although this has changed since
the introduction of the Protecting
Communities and Exploited Persons
Act in 2014, many sex workers are
still subject to unsafe working
environments due to the notion that
sex work is not real work.

Sex work is routinely described
as exploitative and as women
“selling their bodies.” Not only is it
not just women who are involved in
prostitution, but not every sex worker
is a trafficked human being. There is

a huge difference between trafficked
people who are coerced into sex
work and two consenting adults

who exchange money for sexual
intercourse.

The notion that a person—
specifically a woman—is selling
their body demonstrates how
fearful our society still is of sex and
a women’s right to be a sexual.

The stigmatization of sex work is
another form of slut-shaming that,
statistically, causes more women
to be targeted by the police for
prostitution charges than men.

Jamie Lee Hamilton, a sex
worker advocate for 45 years and
former sex worker herself, stated in
an interview with the Other Press
that prostitution is “engaging in an
exchange of services for financial
compensation. You're not selling your
body, you're selling your expertise,
your skills, your compassion, and
knowledge.” However, she also
acknowledged that there are those
who are pressured into sex work in
order to survive. Often, these are
street level sex workers who are the
most at risk for exploitation and
violence. But rather than stigmatizing
these vulnerable persons or simply
putting them on welfare, would it
not be better to provide services
that help them exit out of this line of
work? Or decriminalizing prostitution
outright in order to set up rules and
regulations that keep sex workers
safe? | believe so.

Currently, Canada uses the
Swedish model of prostitution, which
is how the Protecting Communities
and Exploited Persons Act (Bill C-36)
arose out of 2014. The Swedish
model aims to criminalize pimps
and patrons, rather than prostitutes.
However, if prostitutes work together
or sell their services in the public

 

REO UMERI
DECRIMINE

A discussion about s

By Katie Czencz

The pink raindrops represen
that takes place on the stree