The Somerset West Community Health Centre’s Allison LaVigne (left) and Sarah Gott released a poster as part of a campaign to raise awareness for sex-trade workers.
As police search for the person responsible for the recent slaying of Ottawa sex-trade worker Amy Paul, the Somerset West Community Health Centre is promoting safety tips for women selling sex during this time of “heightened concern,” says an outreach worker from the centre.
Paul, a sex-trade worker based in Vanier, was reported missing on Sept. 9. Her body was found in a hay field south of Ottawa, near Kars and Osgoode, on Sept. 20.
“Due to the fact that the police are looking for a possible serial killer of sex workers in the Ottawa area, we thought it was timely to put out some safety tips,” says Allison LaVigne, the community outreach worker behind the centre’s efforts.
LaVigne worked with Sarah Gott, a social work student at Algonquin College, to design posters with safety advice for sex workers and put them up around Somerset West, located on Eccles Street. The posters encourage workers to be aware of their surroundings, avoid isolated areas, and work with partners.
The centre is also launching a self-defence program, which was originally designed by sex-trade workers and police in Vancouver. The workshops will teach sex-trade workers how to physically defend themselves and also about Canadian laws surrounding self-defence.
LaVigne says the workshops use a “train-the-trainer” model that teaches women how to defend themselves against violence and then encourages them to share those tactics with other sex-trade workers. “It’s a sex worker legacy for other sex workers,” she says.
As the main distributor of Ottawa’s Safe Inhalation Program, which provides safe materials such as clean glass stems and protective mouthpieces for people in Ottawa who use drugs, LaVigne says that the Somerset West centre has a unique role in sharing safety information.
“Because we have our Needle Exchange Safer Inhalation van that goes out six days a week, we’re out doing front-of-the-line outreach with the on-the-street population,” says LaVigne. “We serve a population of survival sex workers that other organizations don’t.”
The Ottawa Police have recently shared similar tips for sex workers.
“We want the sex workers to be safe, so what we recommend is that they take on the buddy system,” says Insp. Chris Rheaume.
“You’re dealing with a type of business that is very risky to start with,” he says. “Do we condone (sex work)? Obviously not. I wouldn’t recommend that anybody get into that business. But it’s one of these things that we can work together in a partnership to try and make it safer for them.”
Not everybody believes that sharing these tips is effective.
Christine Bruckert, a criminology professor at the University of Ottawa, says that sex workers are already aware of the need for these kinds of precautions.
“It’s rather annoying, the police or the community centres telling sex workers (to follow this advice) when these are things that sex workers have been doing for years,” says Bruckert.
Additionally, she says, many of these tactics are “undermined by the law” and “aggressive” policing.
On June 13, the Supreme Court heard the case of Bedford v. Canada, which challenged Canadian prostitution laws. A decision is expected later this fall.
“Really, nothing has changed in the way that women are policed. And it won’t until that decision is reached,“ says Bryonie Baxter, the executive director of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Ottawa.
Baxter adds that policing is “driving sex work into the margins of the city, away from areas where women have supports in place, where they’re more visible.”
Along with the organization POWER, Bruckert says she is asking the police to stop enforcing laws that prevent sex workers from behaving safely — “especially in light of the fact that they’ve identified a predator.”
LaVigne says that although the Somerset West Community Health Centre’s programs may lead to immediate harm reduction, there are deeper issues that need to be addressed.
These include criminalization, stigma, poverty, addiction, and a legacy of colonialism that has left aboriginal women disproportionately affected by this violence.
“Are these simple tips and self-defence workshops enough?” says LaVigne. “Absolutely not. Society needs to address the impact it has on survival sex work.”