I agree that most men (and other women) would notice if they knew what to look for, and would care if they thought a SP was in danger. Having a commonly known, safe, confidential method of reporting it might encourage more people to intervene.
crime stoppers is confidential, completely anonymous. i would encourage anyone who feels they may have witnessed exploitation of any person, especially a worker of questionable age, to report it safely and confidentially through crime stoppers.
support servies for sex workers does not include confronting a potentially dangerous pimp or trafficker. here's a story to put it into context;
my friend was working as a bouncer in an exotic show lounge and my other friend the waitress. a dancer was working VIP and sort of working the guys in the bar. this guy comes into the club and starts full out man punching her in the face and dragging her out by the hair.
they didn't know what to do, the bouncer- a huge samoan - intervened and tried to stop him from hurting her at which point she freaked out and hit the bouncer with a pint glass across the face. ( its a normal reaction for people to protect their abusers) by the time police arrived, the bouncer was the one being charged!!
they called me and i reported to my cohorts in the bccec. we created a safety planning tool for workers trying to escape exploitation. it is a complex process to leave safely and is no small task. our tool was distributed to 200 hundred victims services agencies across BC.
no one with out adequeate training should attempt to rescue some one from exploitation.
that said, there are very few specialized services in bc and we are working on it. in vancouver/ the lower mainland there are not enough beds to accomodate every woman or girl who needs help. also, young girls like 11 to 13, yes i have met workers that young, are TOO Young to get a bed. they are placed i foster care where people do all kinds of terrible things to them.
i guess i am saying, the supports you are looking for do not exist, there are many barriers to receiving support in the first place and that this is why people fall through the cracks.
the police love to hoist sister watch as the be all end all and it did work well for workers on street. that said, in a recent experience trying to help a kidnapped worker, police took 7 hrs to respond and the officer who attended mocked the program. he said " sister watch! no one really does that!"...he clearly had no idea who i was and went on an anti prostitution rant mentioning his daughters repeatedly. he also told me that he had been dreading coming to the call as sex workers were always difficult to deal with.
no, crime stopers are not trained to deal with sex workers. the police have only in recent years done any sort of sensitivity training. ecom are also not trained to deal with sex workers, nor are nurses, doctors, social services, MCFD...
we are engaged in system wide reform. the missing women's commission recommendations include alot of the things we need provincially and in a criminal justice sense. there are other reforms necessary for example, business by-law revisions to allow a more open industry here. we are doing that work currently on the city wide task force. the missing women's commission recommendations implementation is on hold in lieu of the provincial election.
all that said, if you are interested in trying to address some of these issues, there's no need to reinvent the wheel. i am happy to share all of our work and strategies for bringing police, city staff, etc to the table and the ways we are changing things here in vancouver. there's a great support serivce in abbottsford called the warm zone- or at least there used to be...things have been pretty thin under the liberals....maybe you could engage with workers there? or have a gathering at your place?
i have been working in social justice for 10 years and can tell you its rewarding but really draining also. hearing all of the stories of violence and other things workers express, is soul taxing. i am happy to do it and wouldn't change a thing but am definitly feeling the weight of it all. for example, when we incorporated canada's first sex worker cooperative in 2008, there were 10 members of the development team. the team changed from meeting to meeting as people's health permitted etc. but out of those people, 6 are dead. i tried for 2 1/2 years to get funding from the federal government to no avail to develop the safe work site...i feel like i failed.
we have made leaps and bounds here working ethical submissable data in research that was run completely by sex workers, but i still feel like it was not enough. i don't drive so i've only been to abbotsford a few times. mostly to lecture at fraser valley university but 2 times during the trade secrets-
www.tradesecretsguide.blogspot.com consultations. we went to the warm zone and had amazing converstaions with workers there.
anyway, the questions you ask make perfect sense and i was also completely shocked to discover the second class citizen treatment that sex workers endure. rest assured though, we are at the table in BC, we are influencing policy and change, we will close the gaps that allowed so many to be harmed.
it doen't seem to come fast enough, but it is slowly coming around...it didn't help that crispy crunch, our premier, porogues the legislature for so long. all provincial funding frozen....hopefull that will change after the election.
love susie
