The International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers – Thursday December 17, 2009
For Immediate Release
December 14, 2009
Vancouver. BC
RE: The International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers
Thursday December 17, 2009
Vancouver Art Gallery, Robson Street Entrance
Start Time- 6:30pm
The BC Coalition of Experiential Communities (BCCEC) would like to invite everyone to join us as we march with red umbrellas, adopted in 2002 by Venetian sex workers for an anti-violence march, symbolizing resistance against discrimination for sex workers worldwide.
We will be raising awareness about violence against sex workers by distributing materials amongst holiday shoppers on Robson Street. Fancy dress is definitely encouraged and festively decorated red umbrellas too! This year we will be asking people to think about hate crimes against sex workers. We will be holding a vigil at the Art Gallery on Robson before marching along the street greeting holiday shoppers. After the march, we will be meeting at the Lennox Pub at Granville and Robson for hot chocolate and refreshments.
In the BCCEC report, “From the Curb,” sex workers who participated listed the following acts as violence;
- Physically being beaten, raped or assaulted by dates, pimps and drugs dealers
- Being ignored, belittled, humiliated, sworn at, shunned by police and public for being a “dirty ho, crack whore, or slut”
- Having items thrown at them from vehicles (very common)
Sex workers commented that even children throw garbage at them. People in cars throw beer bottles, pennies, pop and hot coffee. One respondent lost part of her ear due to an assault by a non sex working woman who threw a beer bottle at her while she was working on the street. Sex workers in our consultation described the pain of being “beaten down by words.”
Their words:
- “Any type of mistreatment is violence because people don’t care what happens to our kind.”
- “Being looked at like you’re less.”
- “Saying no to allowing us use of their phone or washroom- it leaves us depending on dates and other people who like to harm us.”
- “Being mistreated by the public.”
- “People laugh at me.”
- It’s like they take this beautiful thing we have… the ability to give love, and they destroy it.”
Sex workers described violence as activities ranging from public humiliation and social exclusion to more extreme incidents of beatings, sodomy, rape, extreme violence and the abduction and murder of their friends.
Overwhelmingly, sex workers agreed that violence against our community should be considered a hate crime. They also noted that doing so puts their violent experiences into a deeper context. They expressed that violence against our population is done with “specific intent to cause harm” due to our social identity and compounded by their sheer vulnerability under Canada’s outdated and harmful prostitution laws.
The BCCEC are also calling for people to contact the Attorney General by phone or by mail (mike.dejong.mla@leg.bc.ca; 250 387-1866) in support of the call for a public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Canada’s missing women’s cases. Only if we can identify where systems are failing to protect vulnerable people in our society will we ever see any increase in safety for Canada’s sex workers.
International Day to end violence against sex workers
Thursday December 17th, 2009, 6:30pm
Vancouver Art Gallery, Robson Street Side!
Join us as we march with red umbrellas, adopted in 2002 by Venetian sex workers for an anti-violence march, symbolizing resistance against discrimination for sex workers worldwide.
We will be raising awareness about violence against sex workers and the organizations that support us by distributing materials amongst holiday shoppers on Robson Street. Fancy dress and festively decorated red umbrellas are definitely encouraged!
The march will be followed by a gathering at the
Lennox Pub/Restaurant (corner of Robson & Granville).
WE HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!!
Smut is OK, says Montreal prof
By Lewis
Page •
Posted in Bootnotes, 4th December
2009 11:09 GMT
looking at porn has no measurable negative effects on men’s psychology.
“We started our research seeking men in their twenties who had never consumed
pornography. We couldn’t find any,” says Simon Louis Lajeunesse of the
Université de Montréal.
pornography on the sexuality of men, and how it shapes their perception of men
and women,” continues the prof.
Lajeunesse, unable to find any smut-free young chaps, carried out a detailed
study on 20 students who admitted having a fondness for filth. It seems that 90
per cent of all porn is viewed on the internet nowadays, at least in French
Canada. Unsurprisingly single chaps watch spend about four times as much time
looking at porn as those in committed relationships.
“Not one subject had a pathological sexuality. In fact, all of their sexual
practices were quite conventional,” reports Lajeunesse.
“Pornography hasn’t changed their perception of women or their relationship
… Those who could not live out their fantasy in real life with their partner
simply set aside the fantasy … men don’t want their partner to look like a
porn star,” he adds.
The study was funded by Canada’s Centre de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur
la Violence Familiale et la Violence Faite aux Femmes (CRI-VIFF, or the
Interdisciplinary Research Center on Family Violence and Violence Against
Women). However Lajeunesse firmly rejected the idea that goggling over naughty
pics, vids etc leads men to mistreat the ladies they encounter in real life.
“Aggressors don’t need pornography to be violent,” he states
uncompromisingly. “If pornography had the impact that many claim it has, you
would just have to show heterosexual films to a homosexual to change his sexual
orientation.” ®
UN climate summit in Copenhagen Dec. 7-18th
COPENHAGEN (AFP) – Prostitutes of a Danish sex workers association will offer their services for free to delegates of the UN climate summit in Copenhagen , an association official told AFP Saturday.
Susanne Moeller said the move was meant to protest an anti-prostitution initiative undertaken by Copenhagen city hall. The city, host of the December 7-18 UN climate summit, distributed postcards in Copenhagen’s hotels that said “Be sustainable: Don’t buy sex.” It also sent letters to hotel managers inviting them to take measures to avoid prostitutes meeting clients in their establishments. The prostitutes, whose work is not illegal in Denmark, promptly reacted to the move. “All delegates who come to Copenhagen for the world climate summit will be able to use the postcards for payment after making a request on our website,” Moeller, of the Danish association for the defense of sex workers, said. “We do not expect many delegates (to make use of the offer), but we want to protest what we consider discrimination,” Moeller said, adding the offer was good for the duration of the climate talks. The Copenhagen summit aims to craft an international climate accord to replace the Kyoto protocol, which expires in 2012.
Remembering Our Sisters
www.rememberoursisterseverywhere.com
ROSE (REMEMBER OUR SISTERS EVERYWHERE)
FREE COMMUNITY EVENT
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Gather at 10:30am,
Ceremony commences at 11:00am
Main St and Terminal Ave
Thornton Park, Vancouver, BC
In commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the massacre of fourteen
women at L*Ecole Polytechnique, University of Montreal, Remember Our
Sisters Everywhere (ROSE) invites the public to a community event to
remember women and girls who have been murdered in Vancouver and around
the world.
