Vancouver's new sex-trade strategy praised by advocacy group

[romp]

A new municipal strategy on the sex trade put forth yesterday by the City of Vancouver has won the tentative support of a prominent sex worker advocacy group.

"We feel pretty positive about it," says Kerry Porth, executive director of PACE Society, a group working on behalf of street-level sex workers in Vancouver. "Sex work issues in this city

Comments

[ladypolitik]

Was thinking of amalgamating "sex work" with the "prostitutes/prostitution" tag; is that okay with folks?

[ladypolitik]

I think there should be representation of both terms, only because even though not all commercial work is exploitative, it's still also true that it's not entirely exploitation-free yet. There's not a lot of human rights agency, and reduced marginality, in child prostitution, for example.

I just wasnt sure if it would be a question of a separate tag (just "sex work") or a broad/connected tag ("sex work/prostitution").

[romp]

I'm fine with that.

[homasse]

"We're not entirely happy with the suggestion that the City increase enforcement on clients of the sex-trade," says Porth. "More enforcement on clients means they're more likely to want to meet in clandestine locations; that places sex workers more at-risk."

I recall reading in a post here a while back that decriminalizing prostitution but criminalizing soliciting for a prostitute caused sex trafficking to drop, whereas decriminalizing everything actually caused trafficking to increase.

[castalianspring]

I remember that one, too, but can't find it. It was comparing the strategies in Las Vegas with those in a Scandinavian country, IIRC.

[romp]

It linked an increase in sex trafficking, women being brought in to a city that decriminalizes prostitution rather than just the purchase.

That makes sense but it's not the end of the argument for me. Organized crime is a part of prostitution anyway--isn't this just changing the victim from local women to women brought in? So go after organized crime harder.