Indoor sex workers face potentially life-saving benefits, including less violence, reduced exposure to HIV and improved relationships with police, says a new Vancouver study.
The study, published today in the America Journal of Public Health, was done by the Gender and Sexual Health Initiative of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS (BC-CfE) and the University of British Columbia.
The study interviewed 39 women who previously worked on the street and now are living in two Downtown Eastside housing programs operated by Atira Women’s Resource Society and RainCity Housing and Support Society.
They are women-only buildings (residents and staff) that offer supportive guest policies that require clients to sign-in at front desk, have 24-hour staff available to call police in case there is violence and onsite security cameras.
The buildings also offer health and safety resources, including bad date sheets and condoms. Bad dates sheets include licence plates and descriptions of violent “dates,” the term used to describe customers who pay for sex.
The study show that indoor sex work is much safer than women working on the street and negotiating through car windows.
“This is a really innovative model where sex workers are being able to operate in the confines of their own rooms and have supportive policies allowing them to do that,” Dr. Kate Shannon, the senior author of the study and assistant professor of medicine at UBC, said today.