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Visit us there! REED

Sex Trafficking and Harm
Re(pro)duction

Wednesday, November 12
7:00pm

Grandview Calvary Baptist Church
1803 E. 1st (at Salsbury)

Speakers:

Trisha Baptie, Activist and Experiential Woman

Michelle Miller, Director of REED (Resist Exploitation, Embrace Dignity)

Erin Graham, Frontline Mental Health Worker and PhD student

Krista Bones, Researcher with REED

Join us for an evening of learning and dialogue around trafficking, prostitution and harm re(pro)duction. This will be a great opportunity to deepen your analysis around the connections between domestic and international trafficking in women and to discuss possible solutions.

All of us are concerned for women trafficked into the sex industry and want their lives to be easier and better. These speakers are interested in expanding our conversation to include not only a reduction of harm but also an expanded conception of liberation both locally and globally.

For more info contact: Michelle Miller 604.725.3838
michelle@embracedignity.org

Technology is not cooperating so in order to see the a promo for the upcoming Flesh Mapping Installation at Gallery Gachet go to:

REED is partnering with MTV and Radiohead to promote awareness about sex trafficking to a broad audience. Tonight the band has a show in Vancouver and REED will be doing public awareness. Watch for us at the gig!

Congratulations go out to Natalie for coming in first in her age category with a time of 03:12:09! There is still time to sponsor Natalie’s run (you know she can do it!!!).

There is still time to sponsor Natalie’s marathon in support of REED! Get your donations in by September 1 to be a part of this creative effort to end sex trafficking and the global exploitation of women.

Thanks to all of you who have already contributed. We’re cheering her on as she runs on August 3.
Check back after August 4 for marathon pictures!

Canadian donors: Write check payable to “Salsbury Community Society”
US donors: Write check payable to “Baptist World Alliance”
Send to:
REED
1424 Commercial Drive
P.O. Box 21732
Vancouver, BC V5N 4J8

“Decriminalization, Colonization, and the Normalization of Sexual Exploitation: The World’s Oldest Oppression Attempts to Go Legal.”

Wednesday, July 30, 7:00 pm
Learning Resource Centre,
(under the library)
Britannia Community Centre,
1661 Napier Ave.,
Vancouver.

You are invited on Wednesday night to a roundtable discussion among union members, women’s organisations, community organisations, and organisations of formerly prostituted women about the recent drive to “decriminalise” and legalize prostitution.

Attempts to normalize prostitution elsewhere through decriminalisation, legalization, and “unionisation” have resulted in greater numbers of women being forced to commodify their bodies in the market place, while legitimizing and strengthening the positions of those who profit from sexual exploitation and violence. Sexual violence has not decreased for most prostituted women in those countries that have tried the “quick fix” of decriminalisation or legalisation.

Aboriginal communities have been especially hit hard by the expansion of prostitution: Disproportionate numbers of Aboriginal girls and young women are being drawn into the “sex trade” in urban centres, many of them never heard from again. It is a trauma akin to that of the residential school tragedy. Decriminalisation can only exacerbate the harm that is taking place, not ameliorate it.

Let’s stand with our Aboriginal sisters to oppose this aspect of the anti-social offensive, and defend the rights of the most vulnerable! Join in the discussion on July 30!

Organised by AWAN (Aboriginal Womens’ Action Network); and Investing in Health, B.C.

Demonstrators bring attention to human trafficking in Montreal

Photo by Megan Martin, The Suburban Demonstrator Phyllis Douillard having a conversation with passerby about trafficking

More than a dozen people took part in a demonstration last Saturday in an effort to bring awareness to the problem of human trafficking in Canada. The demonstration took place on the corner of Ste. Catherine and Crescent Street downtown amidst the crowds of people celebrating Montreal’s annual Grand Prix.

“Our goal is to bring attention to the trafficking of sex workers that surrounds major sporting events like the Grand Prix,” said demonstration organizer Sharon Di Fruscia.

“Trafficking is one of the most profitable businesses in the world, it’s extremely well organized, they operate under the radar and it simply needs to stop.”

This is the third year the demonstration has taken place. This year’s event drew collaboration from various religious organizations, in addition to the anti-trafficking group STOP.

As Di Fruscia explained, the trafficking process begins some time prior to the sporting event. The large influx of tourists is the primary reason for the increase in sex workers.

“Sex workers are trafficked into the city hosting the event months before. They are kept in an underground network of basements and secluded rooms. In Canada we have trafficking victims from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and northern Europe. We also have a lot of our own indigenous people that are trafficked from province to province and over the border to the States.”

Aside from informing the general public about the issue of human trafficking, the groups putting on the demonstration have even bigger goals in mind, as explained by demonstrator and Catholic Women’s League member Patricia Hannan.

“We need to make the public more aware of this situation,” said Hannan. “One of our goals is to petition people to ask the government to bring attention to this issue as part of its advertising campaign for Vancouver’s 2010 Olympics.”

In addition, Di Fuscia added that the group has long-term objectives to make Canada more hospitable to the victims of human trafficking.

“We want to see our government grant asylum to the victims of trafficking,” she said. “Victims of trafficking are often sent back to their home country, which is very traumatic for them; we want to grant them a safe haven, and acquire the funding necessary to develop treatment programs and facilities to help get them back on their feet.”

According to statistics from the Temple Committee Against Human Trafficking, there are currently 27 million victims of human trafficking; 80 percent of which are trafficked for the purposes of prostitution.

“Education is the key,” said demonstrator Phyllis Douillard. “When people are educated enough, their conscience will not allow them to exploit sex workers. These are desperate young women and children who are promised jobs as waitresses or something else. When they get here, they’re passports are taken and they are forced into prostitution — it has to stop.”

By Ethan Baron
The Province
Friday, May 09, 2008

Five girls in the care of the B.C. children’s ministry have been selling sex on Craigslist, police say.

Police said the girls, aged 16 and 17, have been offering their services on the U.S.-based advertising website’s “erotic-services” section for the Greater Vancouver area.

“They’re purporting themselves to be 18, 19, 20 years old,” said Det. Lindsey Houghton of the Vancouver police youth-services unit. “All of them are in care of the ministry to some degree.”

Responsibility for prostitution by girls in the care of the Ministry of Children and Family Development falls “very clearly on the ministry,” said Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, the provincial Representative for Children and Youth.

“The outcomes are terrible for these young women. The most positive outcome might be a jail sentence. The most negative outcome they could face would be death.

“The sex trade is very risky.”

Vancouver police have identified girls as young as 15 advertising sex on Craigslist.

Child prostitution in Vancouver has largely shifted from the streets to the Internet, Houghton said.

“It’s moved successfully inside for these kids, because it’s a lot harder to police. They seem to be befriended and groomed by . . . the classic pimp . . . or older kids who seem to be able to convince them and manipulate them.”

Houghton believes there are more underage prostitutes advertised on Craigslist than police know about.

When police and social workers become aware of child prostitutes, they try to get them out of the business, said Houghton, who works closely with the ministry.

“The last resort that we want is to charge them criminally.”

In Alberta, authorities can seize and treat children involved in the sex trade, but political will is lacking for such a measure in B.C., Houghton said.

“It seems like there’s an acceptance that some of these kids are going to die,” Houghton said.

Investigating child prostitution on Craigslist is difficult, because the communication takes place privately over the Internet.

“We don’t know what that e-mail conversation is,” Houghton said.

“It’s impossible for us unless the guy keeps some sort of record or the girl decides she wants to testify against him in court, which is very rare.”

Turpel-Lafond wants police to shut down Internet child-sex ads by developing new methods as they have with online child pornography.

“This is the modern era,” Turpel-Lafond said. “Cyberspace is very important for us to monitor very closely if it’s being used for sexual exploitation.”

B.C. authorities have “a terrible track record” in pursuing men who use child prostitutes, said Annabel Webb, founder of Vancouver-based Justice for Girls. “It’s tolerated. The police need to focus their attention on the men who are doing the buying.”

Craigslist itself could face criminal charges for aiding in communication for the purpose of child prostitution, said University of B.C. associate law Prof. Janine Benedet.

“There’s an argument that they’re really sort of pimping,” she said.

The fact that Craigslist doesn’t profit directly from the free sex ads would complicate a prosecution, she added.

The for-profit company makes money by selling job ads in 10 cities and apartment listings in New York.

The Canadian Criminal Code prohibits paying for sex with a person under 18, and communicating for that purpose.

The children’s ministry and Craigslist did not provide interviews requested by The Province.

Question the statement that prostitution is the world’s oldest profession. Every day in our work this myth evaporates under the suffering of the women with whom we are in relationship. Bev Stevens from Magdalene has commented that “since the average age that a woman in our program was introduced to sex is around nine, sexual abuse is at least one generation older than prostitution.”