Statement on the Death of Victoria Head

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 15, 2017

 

Statement on the Death of Victoria Head

The St. John’s Status of Women Council and the Safe Harbour Outreach Project (SHOP) extend our sincere condolences to the family and friends of Victoria Head.

We support the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary in issuing their media release because all too often in our province and across our country the murder of sex workers goes unnoticed and unrecorded.

We are heartbroken at the news of another woman murdered in our community. This is the third woman in our province who has been murdered in less than six months. We know their names: Cortney Lake, Ryanna Grywacheski and Victoria Head. At this time, the In Her Name list of missing and murdered women and girls now sits at 122.

We must acknowledge that the horrendous levels of violence against women in our province is a threat to the general public. Violence against women devastates families and communities, and carries a huge social and economic cost.

Of the 217,900 women over the age of 15 residing in Newfoundland and Labrador, approximately 108,950 (one in two) will experience at least one incident of sexual or physical violence throughout their lifetime. Approximately 10 per cent (10,895) of these women will report this victimization to police. ​

When we continue to view women who do sex work as disposable, we allow them to be targeted for violence, stigma, and death. We must be clear that sex work is not what killed Victoria Head, it’s the environment we create when we continue to see sex workers as disposable and not provide them access to basic human rights of health care, safety, justice, and housing.

Once again, we call for a Provincial Task Force on gender-based violence that has the strength to change policy and legislation, mobilize resources, and provide the education and awareness we need to turn the tide against violence women and girls face in Newfoundland and Labrador.

 

Quotes

“There is a disgraceful history of violence against women who engage in sex work in our city, underscored by the ways in which sex workers are stigmatized and seen as separate from our everyday communities. Sadly, we know that stigma kills.”

Heather Jarvis

Program Coordinator, SHOP

 

“Violence against women and girls in our province is at a crisis level. We need the political will at all levels of government now to come to the table to address what is clearly a human rights issue.”

Jenny Wright

Executive Director, St. John’s Status of Women Council

 

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Media Contact

Jenny Wright

Executive Director

St. John’s Status of Women Council

Tel. 709.753.0220

jenny@sjwomenscentre.ca

Heather Jarvis

Program Coordinator

Safe Harbour Outreach Project

Tel.709.771.1077

heather@sjwomenscentre.ca

 

About St. John’s Status of Women Council/Women’s Centre 

The St. John’s Status of Women Council/Women’s Centre is a feminist organization that since 1972 is continually working to achieve equality and justice through political activism, community collaboration and the creation of a safe and inclusive space for all women in the St. John’s area. The St. John’s Status of Women Council operates the Women’s Centre, Marguerite’s Place Supportive Housing Program and the Safe Harbour Outreach Project.

About Safe Harbour Outreach Project  

The Safe Harbour Outreach Project (SHOP) exists to advocate for the human rights of sex workers. SHOP serves women for whom sex work is an occupation; we also serve women who are in the industry not by choice, who are wishing to exit. We provide front line support, system navigation and outreach from a harm reduction approach.

 

St. John’s Status of Women Council calls for an end to Operation Northern Spotlight

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 13, 2017

St. John’s Status of Women Council calls for an end to Operation Northern Spotlight

The St. John’s Status of Women Council (SJSWC) and its Safe Harbour Outreach Project (SHOP) are deeply committed to the health, safety, and human rights of women, and trans women involved in the sex industry, including those who are at heightened risk of human trafficking and exploitation. As such, the SJSWC is asking the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary (RNC) and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to immediately end the practice of Operation Northern Spotlight and all other undercover operations targeting sex workers.

Operation Northern Spotlight is a harmful attempt to deal with a complex issue, that targets sex workers for interrogation, detention and/or arrest, without adequately distinguishing between those who are underage and/or coerced, and those who are not.

This strategy is one that is based on deception and manipulation, as evidenced by police posing as sex workers’ clients in hotel rooms. These actions foster distrust and adversarial relationships with law enforcement. Pulling people out of the sex industry without their consent and penalizing those who do not agree to exit the sex industry does not ‘save’ or ‘rescue’ them. At its worst, it harms sex workers by forcing them underground to evade police. Further, this deters sex workers from turning to the police to report crime that they have witnessed and/or experienced. For women and girls who are at risk of exploitation and human trafficking this practice criminalizes them and perpetuates lack of safety and trust.

Jenny Wright, Executive Director of the St. John’s Status of Women Council:

 “We have been working with the police in good faith to find strategies to reduce violence against sex workers and find meaningful ways in which sex workers and the police can work collaboratively. Operation Northern Spotlight has broken that trust.”

‘Rescuing’ individuals who do not wish to be rescued has multiple impacts. Sex workers report being confused and frightened and may suffer trauma and even exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Sex workers lose income and experience economic hardship. This places sex workers in a precarious position where they must either accept dates or provide services they normally would not. This operation further criminalizes women by increasing their chances of being arrested and detained on non- sex work related charges.

Bridget Clarke, Outreach Worker, Safe Harbour Outreach Project:

 “Women we work with at SHOP are confused, angry, and feel threatened by Operation Northern Spotlight. Some women have told us that they are no longer doing outcalls so their working conditions have immediately become less safe.”

Targeting sex workers through approaches that induce fear and increase mistrust of police jeopardizes any chance of cooperation between sex workers and law enforcement. This type of repressive enforcement also threatens the foundation of a collaborative, multi-stakeholder, community-based approach that SJSWC has been working painstakingly towards – in our shared goal of reducing violence against sex workers.

SJSWC joins Ontario and British Columbia advocates in calling for an immediate end to Operation Northern Spotlight, instead we ask that law enforcement:

  • Include sex worker voices in any and all work to end human tracking and exploitation;
  • Stop using anti-trafficking programs to justify the intrusion of law enforcement in places where consensual sex work is done, including indoor sex work businesses;
  • Review existing anti-trafficking policies and programs that equate sex work with human trafficking.

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Media Contact

Heather Jarvis

Program Coordinator

Safe Harbour Outreach Project

709.771.1077

heather@sjwomenscentre.ca

About St. John’s Status of Women Council/Women’s Centre 

The St. John’s Status of Women Council/Women’s Centre is a feminist organization that since 1972 is continually working to achieve equality and justice through political activism, community collaboration and the creation of a safe and inclusive space for all women in the St. John’s area. The St. John’s Status of Women Council operates the Women’s Centre, Marguerite’s Place Supportive Housing Program and the Safe Harbour Outreach Project.

About Safe Harbour Outreach Project  

The Safe Harbour Outreach Project (SHOP) exists to advocate for the human rights of sex workers. SHOP serves women for whom sex work is an occupation; we also serve women who are in the industry not by choice, who are wishing to exit. We provide front line support, system navigation and outreach from a harm reduction approach.

Supporting Sex Workers, Supporting Women: Why We Come From A Human Rights Approach

Supporting Sex Workers, Supporting Women: Why We Come From A Human Rights Approach

By Laura Winters – SHOP Coordinator
Heather Jarvis – SHOP Community Outreach Worker

We support sex workers – we listen to women engaging in sex work as they define their experiences, we see their strengths and skills, we value their autonomy, we treat them with dignity, we ask them what they need and want, and we fight like hell for their human rights.

Our S.H.O.P. program’s mandate is simple: we advocate for the human rights of sex workers in Newfoundland and Labrador, and everything we do is guided by the principles of human rights. But what does it mean to come from a human rights approach to sex work? Let’s unpack what that means for the work that we do, the ways we approach the women we work with, and why this approach is crucial in supporting women and our communities.

Applying a human rights framework to sex work means:

• Beginning from a place of respect for all people and their autonomy,
• Allowing women to define their own lived experiences,
• Ensuring basic civil and political rights for meaningful participation in our community,
• Rooting the work in the belief that everyone deserves access to human rights, including the right to freedom of expression, association and movement, supportive healthcare and safe housing, safe and equitable working conditions, and to live and love with dignity and respect,
• And recognizing and addressing the ways in which certain groups of people, like sex workers, are denied their human rights due to underlying historical power structures and discrimination based on gender, race, socio-economic class, orientation, ability, citizenship status, ethnicity, family status, and moral judgments.

Our goal in a human rights approach is not to eradicate or abolish sex work from our society, as is the case with many anti-human trafficking groups who take what can be called a “rescue” approach to sex work. We see the rescue approach as one that:

• Comes from a moral belief that all trade involving sex and sexual services is wrong and inherently violent,
• Labels all people who sell sex to be “victims” who need outside intervention and rescuing, regardless of their conscious and autonomous decisions,
• Speaks over and for countless women’s experiences and realities, upholding a singular narrative,
• Dangerously conflates consensual sex work with sexual exploitation and human trafficking, and conflates the experiences of adults with that of children,
• Sees the selling of a sexual service as the selling of a person’s entire body and self,
• Inconsistently defines what constitutes consent,
• Heavily relies on the criminal justice system, police and government powers to enact justice, often through arrest, criminalization and incarceration.

In strong contrast, our goal is rights, not rescue. We defend and advocate that sex workers rights are human rights. We recognize that sex work is something that many people consent to – whether they work in a strip club, on the street, in a massage parlour, online, in porn, or independently – and they deserve to be able to work and live safely in communities. We also recognize that some people are involved in the sex trade non-consensually, and experience exploitation or human trafficking (when there is sexual exploitation and movement involved), and that those people also deserve access to their human rights. The needs of people who experience exploitation and/or trafficking are vastly different from people who do consensual sex work but we believe that no matter what someone’s experience of the sex industry, women are the experts of their own lives, and that we must first and foremost listen to them when creating services, supports, policies, or legislation related to sex work. The voice of experience is the most important voice in the conversation, always, and this is the place from which we start our work everyday.

So what about supporting people who don’t see sex work as work? We know, from listening to women involved in sex work in our communities, that there are people in Newfoundland who do not consent to offering sexual services, or who are doing “survival sex” to support chaotic drug use and addiction, to put a roof over their heads when they are homeless. We also know that there are people here who are coerced and forced into the industry by others, and they are sexually exploited against their will. The best approach for serving people with these experiences is still not a rescue approach – it’s harm reduction.

Harm reduction acknowledges that people engage in harmful activities (in some cases, sex work might even be harmful for someone) but it also acknowledges that people cannot or will not stop those activities for many reasons. This approach works to reduce the harm associated with the activities. This is also a part of our human rights approach working with women. If someone is engaging in sex work and for whatever reason it is harmful to them, we don’t tell them they need to stop, or that what they’re doing is bad – this approach more often than not just leads to the person not trusting you, feeling judged, and deciding not to connect with you in the future. Instead, we ask people what they want, what their goals are, and how we can help them get there. This may mean that someone is doing sex work to support an addiction and that the addiction is part of their life right now, but we can offer information on working more safely, offer harm reduction supplies such as needles or crack pipes, offer condoms, information on bad dates, information on where to go if they want to move from working on the street to working indoors, and we can let them know that we’ll be here again next week. Through doing these things, through upholding human rights, harm reduction and supporting people where they are at, we build relationships. When we build relationships, we build trust, so if or when someone is ready to make a change, they know we are here to support them.

We have the utmost respect for all women we work with, and even when people are in bad situations, we still believe they know what’s best for themselves and that things have to happen on their terms, in their own time. Listening to people and believing them leads to the knowledge that there are many people doing sex work, for many reasons, and that everyone’s story and situation is different. There is no one truth about sex work or the people that do it. People have all kinds of sex for love, for pleasure, for curiosity, for business, and for many, many other reasons. The only line that truly separates moral and immoral ‘sex’, is consent. Unfortunately, when money and trade is involved, the logic and significance of consent is too often overlooked. If women are to be believed when they tell us they did not consent to sex, we must believe women when they tell us that they did, including consenting to sex for money.

There are many individuals, groups and organizations out there that say consent is essential, but all sex work is bad, all sex work is a form of exploitation, and all sex workers are victims of violence. This was the position of the Conservative Government of Canada when they enacted new ‘prostitution laws’ in 2013, blatantly stating that their goal was the ‘eradication of prostitution’ and they had no interest in making the sex industry safer for women or protecting the rights of sex workers, because they saw all women who sell sex as victims. It was this rescue approach that guided the misinformed, harmful, and ultimately, unconstitutional laws that we currently have in our country around sex work. It is also, sadly, the position of many influential and financially powerful anti-trafficking rescue groups and organizations across the country and around the world, and it is hugely problematic for many reasons, contributing to ongoing stigma, stereotypes, misinformation, violence, and human rights violations for sex workers.

Approaching sex work and sex workers with a commitment to upholding human rights has brought us to advocate for decriminalization of sex work, and we aren’t the only ones. Sex worker advocacy groups across Canada, often led by sex workers, and many other organizations around the world have listened to sex workers, poured over evidence and research on sex work and human rights and have come to the conclusion that the most supportive thing to do is to call for the decriminalization of sex work. We join the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform, the World Health Organization, Amnesty International, UNAIDS, the International Labour Organization, the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women, the Global Network of Sex Work Projects, the Global Commission on HIV and the Law, Human Rights Watch, the Open Society Foundations and Anti-Slavery International and many other sex worker organizations across the world in prioritizing the human rights of all people who engage in sex work.

When human rights aren’t the priority, we’re worried. We’re worried because the moral position embedded in the rescue approach does not start from a place of wanting to understand people and their complex experiences – it starts from a place of telling people who they are and defining what their experiences mean. This silences the voices of people who do consensual sex work, and it’s dangerous because it is often used to justify actions that infringe on human rights, and make life more hazardous and unjust for both sex workers and people who truly are being exploited. It’s not that people who believe in the rescue approach are bad people – on the contrary, they are often concerned, well-intentioned and want to help. The issue – the biggest part of our worry – is that the beliefs of people taking the rescue approach are based in moral assumptions around sex work and upholding one truth about the sex industry, rather than the countless realities of the millions of people in this industry. The only way to know about the realities of the sex industry is to listen to those involved in it – this is what those who take a moral rescue approach to sex work fail to do.

After working with over 100 women in Newfoundland who have engaged in sex work, in one form or another, we know that one experience cannot and should not speak for everyone, and there is no one truth out there about sex work, except for the truth that everyone who trades sex deserves human rights. The women we work with are intelligent, resourceful, critical, funny, kind, loving, creative, and come with skills and knowledge that have informed us on our work from the beginning of this program. We believe wholeheartedly that the first step to increasing human rights for sex workers is to listen to them – they are much more than the one-dimensional people that stigma makes them out to be. Sex workers are multifaceted people with complex lives. They deserve access to human rights, and they alone are the experts on how to make that happen.

*Our sex worker advocacy program is a part of the St. John’s Status of Women Council and Women’s Centre, with the mandate to serve women. We advocate for human rights for all sex workers, across all genders, but through S.H.O.P. we centre and serve women-identified people in the St. John’s area.

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