Sex Workers Pushed Into The Shadows

Sex workers in Vancouver are being forced to work in isolated areas, putting them at greater risk of sexual violence.

Criminologist John Lowman blames the police. At an inquiry into the case of serial killer Robert Pickton, Lowman said the police have long been moving prostitutes into isolated, industrial areas of the city similar to the areas Pickton targeted.

Lowman said “…sex workers were in isolated areas out of sight of both police and local residents, making it easy for predators to target the women with impunity.”

While the police in Vancouver have been moving sex workers to isolated parts of the city, courts have been moving prostitutes off main streets and into alleys and side streets.

Canadian prostitution laws regard sex workers as criminals, which creates a barrier to sex workers reporting crime and asking for help from the police. Sex workers have been harassed, abused and ridiculed by law enforcers and Lowman says “the law itself encourages an adversarial relationship between street-involved women and the police.”

This policy of abuse created an ideal situation for Pickton, who went looking for vulnerable women in isolated parts of the city. Pickton was convicted of killing six women, but that number could be as high as 49.

Lowman advocates decriminalizing prostitution, a practise already in place in countries such as the Netherlands and New Zealand.

In my own experience of working with prostitutes in urban Scotland, the risk of violence dramatically increased when the red light area was moved due to complaints from local residents.

As sex workers moved to more isolated parts of the city with less public lighting, their vulnerability increased. This could easily have been avoided by allowing sex workers to operate from brothels or by maintaining a “safe” zone in the city with regular police patrols.

If we want to protect sex workers and avoid abuse, the best thing we can do is decriminalize prostitution.

Contact the author here: miriam@morningquickie.com