Victoria Rallies on International Day to End Violence against Sex Workers

Sex workers keep rallying year after year because human rights battles are never definitely won; they have to be fought over and over.

Sixty advocates and supporters once again rallied in Victoria on this International Day to End Violence against Sex Workers, fighting a perpetual battle for their rights against a moralistic government and an uncaring society.

It takes guts to show up at a public square proudly proclaiming to be a sex worker, let alone as the organiser of a protest or the representative of an outreach group.

This year’s event was organised by a group or sex workers calling itself Sacred, part of Peers Victoria, a sex work advocacy and outreach charity. It was endorsed by Victoria-Beacon Hill MLA Grace Lore who claims to have attended it, although I did not see her among the attendance and she did not speak at the event.

Indeed, about sixty of us, plus a few who watched from a distance to listen to the stories.

The crowd first met at Bastion Square, under the gaze of curious onlookers who were unfamiliar with the trade and the hasards sex workers face. Given the stigmatisation of the sex trade, few witness the ordeal and, sadly, even fewer care. The likes of Robert Pickton can then prey on them with relative impunity, to the point that even he got convicted with only six counts of murder (and second-degree murder at that) out of the forty-nine he’s actually killed. And while the difference may look academic to the RCMP in its attempt to discard the case’s evidence, it is anything but to fellows in the sex trade who resent actual lives, especially that of indigenous women, being undercounted.

The participants then marched through Broad Street to Centennial Square, where an organiser held a quick roundup of the legal battle news since last year. To keep it brief, the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform (CASWLR) lost its Charter challenge of the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act with the Ontario Superior Court. This is of course an irrelevant setback, as major Charter challenges always end up being decided by the Supreme Court of Canada. Nevertheless, in the meantime the sex trade remains subjected to oppressive rules criminalising all but the sale of sex proper, in a constructive violation of the workers’ rights.

The march on Broad Street. Unlike last year, the umbrellas are just for show.

The Peers Outreach van, recently purchased after a crowdfunding campaign.

We tried holding a candlelight vigil, but it was mostly futile, as even the gentlest bruise snuffed out the flames no matter how many times we would light them. Likewise, sex workers’ legal struggles are a neverending cycle of setbacks before the courts and in the political arena. As one speaker put it, human rights battles are never definitely won, we have to fight them over and over.