New police approach to help sex workers proves ineffective

published on April 1, 2016 by Emily McCarty, in The Thunderbird

When Kerry Porth worked with the Vancouver police department in 2012 to create new rules on sex-work regulation, she had hope for huge changes.

The sex-work enforcement guidelines that came out the next year — a direct result of calls for change that came after Robert Pickton was convicted of murdering several Downtown Eastside sex workers — made it clear that consensual adult sex work would not be a priority for police.

Everyone knew changing an entire city’s approach to sex work wouldn’t happen overnight, but organizations and workers were hopeful.

But, two years later, the Conservative federal government passed Bill C-36. The bill allows the sale of sex work but criminalizes advertising, the purchase of sexual services, or receiving any “material benefit,” such as a money received by a pimp or brothel.

Now, Vancouver’s sex workers are living in a morass of confusing, contradictory regulations that leaves them preoccupied with staying out of trouble under the new federal law.

Slow acceptance leads to fearful relationships with police

Besides that, the Vancouver police guidelines have produced so little change that workers are unsure of how the laws will be enforced due to damaged past relationships with police.

The slow acceptance of the guidelines by police, according to Porth, doesn’t help that relationship.

She provides sensitivity training for organizations whose workers come into contact with sex workers.

“It’s a huge shift for people to even think about sex work as being something that’s not a criminal activity,” Porth says of the training. “And for the police, that’s even more difficult. It takes them a little longer to get there.”

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BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

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New police approach to help sex workers proves ineffective

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