By Neal Hall, Vancouver Sun
Fifteen groups, including aboriginal organizations, plan to boycott the policy forums next month of the “flawed’ Missing Women Inquiry.
“The commission has lost all credibility among aboriginal, sex work, human rights and women’s organizations that work with and are comprised of the very women most affected by the issues this inquiry is charged with investigating,” the groups stated Tuesday in a letter to Inquiry Commissioner Wally Oppal.
The head of B.C.’s Missing Women Inquiry says he is appalled by anonymous allegations that male staff created a highly sexualized work environment at the commission workplace.
The Vancouver police board are considering the adoption of new sex worker enforcement guidelines that will encourage officers to treat sex trade workers with “dignity and respect in order to build relationships and increase the safety and protection of vulnerable women working the streets.”
You can read the full document here.
BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN MARCH 17, 2012
BY SUZANNE FOURNIER, THE PROVINCE FEBRUARY 29, 2012
Vancouver sex trade workers are still being told by police to move to dark and dangerous “containment zones” north of East Hastings St., the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry was told Tuesday.
BY NEAL HALL, POSTMEDIA NEWS JANUARY 30, 2012
Vancouver police Const. Lori Shenher said she did “John” stings in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and, while posing as a sex trade worker, was grabbed by a man in a car.
The man wouldn’t look at her while he talked to her, Shenher told the Missing Women inquiry.
A coalition representing local sex trade workers is urging Ottawa police to stop cracking down on prostitutes in monthly sting operations.
The group’s open letter to police was sent in response to the warning Chief Vern White issued in December, saying investigators had detected a pattern in the deaths of a number of sex trade workers. The police also issued a safety advisory, advising sex workers to work in teams and to avoid isolated areas.
But the coalition, which is made up of six local groups, says this advice only exposes sex workers as obvious targets for arrest. They’re especially afraid of being caught in a street sweep, an undercover operation where officers start conversations with prostitutes, only to arrest them once an offer of sex for money is made.
A controversial bill that would allow the city’s police chief to set up permanent prostitution-free zones will be taken up this morning by the D.C. Council. The bill lets police detain and arrest people suspected of engaging in street prostitution. Some of city’s gay activists are planning to fight the measure.
Transgender rights activists say the proposal to establish permanent prostitution free zones in the District is a thinly veiled attempt to drive transgendered women out of neighborhoods, regardless of whether they are sex workers or not. Currently, the Metropolitan Police Department can only set up a temporary zone that lasts 10 days.
Activists made a video this week to raise awareness of the bill and are planning to fight the legislation. Rubi Corrado is one of those activists. “These police officers are going ot have to make a choice, to address and arrest young individuals that are on the street trying to survive, or addressing real criminals, seasoned criminals,” Corrado said.
Yvette Alexander, the Ward 7 Council member who authored the bill, says prostitution is running rampant in some neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River.
“We’re thinking either you make a decision, if there are going to be these prostitution free zones, then that’s my cue that I need to get out of the prostitution business,” Alexander said.
Some Council members believe the measure may be unconstitutional because the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly struck down anti-loitering laws.
Prostitution Free Zone from PJ Starr on Vimeo.
http://wamu.org/news/12/01/24/dc_gay_activists_fighting_prostitution_free_zone_bill
All Sheila Farmer was trying to do was guarantee the safety of her and fellow consensual sex workers from violence, rape and robbery, that she was prosecuted is a national disgrace…
Sheila Farmer speaks of her fight against being accused of Brothel keeping
It was January 3rd, 2012. Stepping over the broken-winged corpses of umbrellas on Croydon’s pavements, a rain-drenched, gale-battered group of approximately thirty supporters, myself included, approached the Crown Court to witness the conclusion to a landmark case.
By Suzanne Fournier
VANCOUVER — Vancouver police officers and staff referred to the missing and murdered women as “hookers” or “whores,” made sexist remarks about female bosses and even disparaged grieving families, but the Vancouver Police Department does not suffer from “systemic bias,” an inquiry heard Tuesday.
Vancouver police Deputy Chief Doug LePard, author of a 400-page report critical of the Vancouver police and RCMP handling of the murdered women files, stuck to his guns after eight days of testimony at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry.
escorts are for women too 
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