Pubdate: Mon, 31 Oct 2005
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 The Vancouver Sun
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Jonathan Fowlie

LET'S TALK RED-LIGHT DISTRICT, MAYOR SAYS

A new project aimed at improving the health and safety of sex trade 
workers and dealing with their impact on the community should include 
a discussion of red-light districts, Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell 
said Sunday.

"We're going to have to come to some recognition that there is a sex 
trade and it's not going away," Campbell told a news conference 
announcing the two-year project. "It's here, it's been here forever 
and I simply don't think we can be playing with people's lives," said 
the mayor, who later told a Vancouver radio station that red light 
districts and legislation changes should be on the table during the 
coming discussions.

The new initiative, called the Living in Community project, is a 
collaboration of community and government organizations, including 
groups formed by current and former sex workers, business groups, the 
City of Vancouver, the Vancouver police department and the Vancouver 
Coastal Health Authority.

With a goal of developing a well-informed, coordinated approach to 
issues associated with the sex work, they're hoping to do for the sex 
trade what the four pillars approach did for drug issues.

"This is like the four pillars all over again," Campbell said.

Susan Davis, chair of the Prostitution Alternatives Counselling and 
Education society, and an active sex worker, said: "I think really 
what we are looking at here is harm reduction for sex workers who are 
in a survival capacity and to try to help the communities that are 
affected by the sex industry that is on the street."

"People are in the mood to take a harm-reduction approach," she said.

"They realize the laws aren't working, something has to be done."

Patricia Barnes, executive director of the Hastings North Business 
Improvement Area, said the committee hopes to develop a city-wide 
plan that will address core issues, and not just push workers from 
one community to another.

"We [have been] pushing these people out of their own communities and 
we're placing them in danger," Barnes said.

"We weren't moving forward. We weren't achieving anything."

Committee members will assemble a draft plan, which they will take 
into the community in the spring, she said, adding that no 
suggestions or solutions will be ignored.

Campbell agreed.

"Nothing is being ruled out. It's wide open," he said, pointing out 
no one could have foreseen a safe injection site when the Four 
Pillars plan was first conceived.

"I believe this project here is on the cutting edge and again will 
lead Canada into an area where people are respected, where we save 
lives and we are able to help the community and those people that are 
involved in the trade," he added.

First formed in 1997, Vancouver's Four Pillars Coalition was a group 
made up of business, government, non-profit organizations and 
advocacy groups that came together to determine ways to address 
Vancouver's drug problem.

In May 2001, the city adopted the four pillars approach, which 
included such elements as a supervised drug-injection site in the 
Downtown Eastside.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman