No increase in safety for sex trade workers since VPD switched focus to johns: study
Posted June 3, 2014 12:29 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Prostitutes will face similar rates of violence if police focus on arresting those who pay for sex rather than sex trade workers themselves.
That’s the finding of a new study published in the British Medical Journal Open.
The study was carried out on Vancouver’s streets and found 25 per cent of prostitutes experienced violence after police stopped arresting sex workers in 2013, compared with 24 per cent the year before police changed their policy.
“These guidelines really came after two decades of missing and murdered women in Vancouver… with the explicit goal to increase sex worker safety,” says study co-author Dr. Kate Shannon.
Advocates argue only decriminalization will increase safety, as prostitutes can then screen their clients without fear of legal consequences.
“The old laws made sex work dangerous for myself and other workers,” says former sex worker Chili Bean. “What I don’t want now is to see us go back to the same dangerous situation.”
This report comes as the federal government appears poised to pass new legislation along these lines nationwide.
