Sex Worker Safety Policies

Statement Watch

Hello, Council. Thank you for hearing me today. My name is Kit Rothschild. I'm a non-binary queer and a multiple disabled sex worker with over 20 years in the industry. I am speaking in support of this motion. From 2017 to 2025, I was engaged with Pace Society, a peer-led sex worker support and education and advocacy organization based in the downtown Eastside since 1994. I am speaking to you today as both a former representative of Pace, as well as a concerned taxpaying citizen and community member. As you all know, this city's history has been inexorably altered by the sex workers who have lived, worked, and died here since its colonial inception. In Forsaken, the report of the Missing Women's Commission of Inquiry in Recommendation 5.5 called for the creation of not one but two sex work-focused social planning positions at the City of Vancouver, a recommendation the city followed with pride, leading the way at the time in North America for sex worker safety and civic inclusion. Eliminating one of these positions erodes hard-won gains that generations of sex workers and community advocates fought tirelessly to achieve. It is deeply unsettling and disrespectful to a community that has endured profound violence, criminalization, and loss, including the disappearances and deaths of countless sex workers harmed by serial predators, systemic neglect, and immeasurable police violence, and the struggle for even the most basic protections and recognitions of our rights, including the creation of these positions. The sex work social planners undertake complex, vital, and sometimes heartbreaking work in liaison with the city, police, sex work serving organizations, and business associations to try to improve the living and working conditions for this historically neglected community, navigating bylaws, the impacts of colonization, and societal whorephobia. This was never meant to be a singular role. There were meant to be two people in this position who could support each other in the difficult and sometimes grim nature of their work. Amongst so many other cuts to city staff, cutting this position in particular during a time when sex worker serving organizations have been forced due to lack of funding to cut or reduce their services and when FIFA is right around the corner, a time when sex workers will need even more support due to the influx of rowdy, intoxicated tourists and a massive presence of out-of-town police. resulting in dangerous conditions, loss of income, and available working spaces, as well as increased surveillance, harassment, violence, and criminalization is nothing short of cruel. It cannot be overstated that those who will suffer most under the new temporary FIFA bylaws are those members of our community already the most impacted by the harms associated with the stigmatization and criminalization of sex work, specifically Indigenous, Black, Brown, Trans, and disabled people, temporary residents of Canada, and those surviving poverty and homelessness. I encourage council to pass this motion to reinstate this position with haste and to reprioritize meaningful investment in sex worker safety and civic inclusion.

Statement Watch

I'm not.

That's okay. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. My name is Angela Wu, and I am the Executive Director of Swan Vancouver, an organization that supports the rights, health, and safety of immigrant and migrant and gender diverse, women and gender diverse people engaged in sex work. I'm speaking today in strong support of this motion. swan supports an extremely marginalized community that experiences multi-layered criminalization discrimination and stigma they face many barriers to accessing support that most people can easily access including city-run services and law enforcement they are also at greater risk of experiencing violence and exploitation at the hands of predators who target them knowing they are unlikely to call the police Since 2012, the city's two sex work safety positions have provided invaluable support for our community. They have provided opportunities for sex workers' voices to be heard and to ensure their needs are represented in city policies and initiatives. They have provided critical emergency support and resources and have spent years building relationships and meaningful trust within our community. SWAN has regularly utilized these liaison positions as we navigate precarious access to services, healthcare, safety, and justice. The elimination of this position does not align with what we know are the city's values and is contradictory to its past efforts to prioritize sex worker safety. For years, the City of Vancouver has been a leader in this area, locally, provincially, and even internationally. The city's response to the Forsaken report has been regarded as best practices for sex worker safety. But to do this work effectively requires both subject matter expertise and deep connection in the community. Integration across departments does not replace the expertise and the trusted relationships that were built through these roles. over nearly 15 years. Unfortunately, as history has shown, sex workers cannot rely on broader gender safety strategies that may not address the urgent and unique realities that they are facing right now. Furthermore, the scope and weight of this work is far too much for one person to carry alone, especially as violence continues to increase. I urge the council to remember the tragic context in which these two roles were created, but I also cannot overstate just how crucial both of these positions are to the safety of sex workers here and now. In the past year, there have been multiple deaths after many years without similar reported incidents. Violence against sex workers is increasing at a time when the commitment of the government at all levels to sex worker safety is diminishing. But this is an opportunity for the city to change course. We know that you care about sex workers and their safety. I urge the city, do not repeat the mistakes of the past. Listen to sex workers now and reaffirm your commitment to the safety and well-being of sex workers by maintaining dedicated capacity at a level consistent with previous commitments as well as current realities. Thank you.

Statement Watch

I'd like to begin by thanking Mayor and Council for the opportunity to speak before you this afternoon on the matter of sex worker safety. My name is Melody Wise. I am a resident of Vancouver, and I'm a public health researcher affiliated with the Ayesha Project. This is a longitudinal study which operated for 14 years, housed within UBC's Faculty of Medicine. Over the course of the Ayesha project, our team collected thousands of hours of qualitative and quantitative interview data with over 900 street-based and indoor sex workers across Metro Vancouver. My intention today is to draw upon this work and offer an evidence-based public health perspective that can support our discussion on the current motion, which I'm here to express my strongest possible support for. As others have already articulated, our city is facing a conjuncture that requires continued leadership and action for sex worker safety. It is well established in the literature and among public health experts that relative to the general population, sex workers experience substantially greater unmet health needs and face significant structural barriers to key determinants of health. Our current moment is also one marked by a provincially declared epidemic of gender-based violence with documented and disproportionate impacts on marginalized sex workers, especially those who are street-based, indigenous, racialized, or gender minorities. Within the context of these significant and persistent health disparities, community interventions play an incredibly important role in mitigating harm. Previous public health research has demonstrated that such interventions, whether that be sex worker-led services, outreach, peer models, all of these are strongly supported and associated with HIV, STI, and violence prevention globally. Importantly, the success of these interventions requires support from all levels of government, including municipalities. Vancouver, in particular, has been one of the first cities in North America to take a proactive approach in improving the health and safety of sex workers, including through the creation of two dedicated planning positions specializing in sex worker safety. I cannot overstate my support for an assessment of workload service impacts and risks associated with reduced staffing levels at present for these roles. I want to conclude by highlighting that the current motion also asks that council reaffirm its commitment to the findings and intent of Forsaken, which was motivated by the disappearance of 68 women from Vancouver's downtown Eastside between 1978 and 2001. Although these women are gone, they are not forgotten. Sex worker organizations, some of whom you've already heard from today and many of whom you will continue to hear from, have worked tirelessly to build their legacy of safety together. And much of this work has also been made possible through the leadership of our city. It is my hope that today, Mayor and Council will continue this important work, both in keeping with public health evidence, but more importantly, in honor of the missing and murdered women who are remembered and missed and whose spirits live within us. Thank you.

Statement Watch

My name is Kelly Go. Yep. Yep. My name is Kelly Goh. I'm the program manager at Swan Vancouver. I'm a Vancouver resident, and I'm speaking in support of the motion. For the past 10 years, I worked directly with immigrant and migrant sex workers through frontline support, outreach, and case management. Today, I want to speak specifically about the experiences of the community. Most are people of color working in conditions where they're heavily isolated from protection and support. They face racism, criminalization, language barrier, fear of immigration consequences, and a deep distrust of institutions that have historically surveyed and harmed them, rather than protected them or treated them as an integral part of our community. When violence happens, many do not feel safe reporting it. Some are afraid of attracting police attention, fear of losing income. Many worry that information sharing between systems could impact their immigration status, their families, or future opportunities. Some have also experienced being dismissed, stereotyped, or treated as disposable because of their work. Race, gender, migration status, and criminalization compound one another to create systemic vulnerabilities to violence. In my 10 years of work with this community, this has been one of the most violent periods I've witnessed. Over the past year, there have been multiple deaths in the sex-working community that we know of. And these are not isolated tragedies, but warning signs of systems failing people who are already marginalized. One of the clearest indicators we're seeing is the rise in abuser alerts. Swan's Abuser Alert is a community safety alert system. Workers contact us after experiencing various forms of violence, and these alerts are shared within the community to help prevent further harm. Swan is often the first organization immigrant and migrant sex workers call after experiencing violence, and we hear stories that rarely make it into the public discourse. One community member shared, people only care when we die. Before that, we're invisible. The sex worker safety planner position was not just administrative. It was a critical bridge between frontline organizations and the city in coordinating responses to violence, improving communication, supporting prevention efforts to ensure sex workers were not completely excluded from public safety planning. This will also help create accountability around institutional responses, including interactions with law enforcement and bylaw officers. Ultimately, this is a conversation and decision to be made about equity. Treating everybody the same does not address the reality that some communities face significantly greater barriers to safety, protection, and access to support. Migrant and immigrant sex workers experience overlapping forms of marginalization tied to race, gender, immigration status, language barriers, and criminalization. If the city truly values an intersectional approach to safety, equity, and gender-based violence, an equitable response means recognizing those realities and ensuring that there are dedicated resources and expertise to address them. Removing one of the very few positions specifically focused on sex worker safety moves us further away from that goal. Thank you.

Statement Watch

My name is Sarah Resendez. I sit on the board of directors at Pace Society, a peer-led organization that has been supporting, empowering, and advocating alongside sex workers since 1994. I'm here speaking in support of the motion. Pace believes the removal of the sex work social planner position will erode the relationships sex work organizations have worked tirelessly to establish with city officials. As mentioned, the sex work social planner positions were created in direct response to the recommendations from the Forsaken report. And of the 63 recommendations, only two were directed at the City of Vancouver, including a recommendation that the City create and fund two community-based liaison positions. Thankfully, the city responded, and two dedicated sex work social planners were hired to collaboratively identify and address issues impacting sex worker health and safety. As outlined in the report, sex workers have many reasons to distrust government and law enforcement. Their needs and concerns have been historically ignored and disregarded by government services, so they prefer to take care of one another because sex workers have been reminded time and time again that the only community they can rely on is their own. However, the two sex work social planner positions helped change this dynamic by meaningfully engaging and coordinating with sex worker organizations. They have helped ensure our voices and perspectives are included in city policies and programs. They have also been critical in providing operational and system navigation support. For instance, PACE faced unexpected back payment fees associated with rent at our drop-in space, and we nearly faced closure, which would have put a sudden halt to the life-saving services vital to our members. The sex work social planners were able to assist us in quickly renegotiating with the city operated space to reduce the fees and ensure we remained operational. It is impossible for a single person to adequately support Vancouver's sex work community and engage directly with the city, VPD, neighborhood associations, and businesses. These positions enable the city to better understand how programs actually function on the ground the various sex workers are experiencing and facilitate the co-creation of meaningful solutions. Under the community charter, counselors must consider the health and well-being of their constituents. By setting the strategic and subsequently financial direction of municipal operations, City Council plays a fundamental role in shaping the health and well-being of sex workers. Eliminating this position leaves critical gaps in the City's ability to plan and respond to sex workers' rights, health, and safety concerns. In 2023, the landmark Bias for Us report was released, which surveyed over 200 sex workers to identify how sex workers' needs could be met and risks minimized. Participants called for sex worker organizations to collaborate with the city officials on approaches to sex worker safety and enforcement. expressing the highest level of support for funding sex work-specific social planner roles. With that said, PACE is calling on the City of Vancouver to reaffirm its commitment to sex worker safety by immediately reinstating this critical position.

Statement Watch

Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Cara Gillis. I am a resident of Vancouver, and I am speaking in support of this motion. I am here in my capacity as the Executive Director of Wish Drop-in Centre Society. For over 40 years, Wish has been a refuge and community space for street-based sex workers in the downtown Eastside. 80% of Wish participants experience homelessness, more than half are Indigenous, and all live in extreme poverty. Wish knew many of the women who were murdered by the serial killer, who operated unencumbered in the city while institutions looked away. The Forsaken report was born from that failure, including the recommendation that the City of Vancouver have two dedicated community-based liaison positions or social planners. Now, one of those positions has been eliminated, and we are told that the remaining work will be absorbed into broader gender-based violence and community safety portfolios. I am here to say that this is insufficient to meet the city's commitment to protecting sex workers' lives. There is a real specificity to sex worker contexts and by extension to sex worker safety. And this is just as profound and real today as it was a decade ago. Criminalization, stigma, colonization, and poverty. all persist to undermine our safety, while the toxic drug and housing crises are now, as we know, significantly worse. It is vital that social planners doing this work have meaningful and nuanced understandings of these intersecting factors, as well as foundational knowledge of sex work, of sex work sectors, structures, and dynamics. Further, the social planners have spent years fostering deep and trusting relationships where, frankly, there was previously distrust and even fear. This work is fundamentally relational, and as such, it goes beyond the basic trainings, policy statements, and mechanisms that more generic initiatives typically entail. I want to stress that the social planner positions are a necessary but not isolated component of the city's broader sex work safety framework, which commits to ensuring fair and unbiased treatment towards sex workers and the promotion of sex worker safety, dignity, and well-being. Wish is requesting that the city formally recommit to the sex work safety framework and start by reinstating the sex work social planner position. Thank you so much for your time today.

Statement Watch

Good afternoon, councillors. My name is Susan Davis. I'm the executive director of the BC Coalition of Experiential Communities. I am a sex worker. I want to take time to acknowledge the three great nations whose land this is, the Musqueam, Squamish, and TTsleil-Waututh people. So grateful to be a guest on these lands. I'm here today in support of this motion. As someone who survived the criminal responsible in the case of the missing women, what matters to me the most is whether the response to that disaster is sufficient to address the risk we know exists. This work isn't new. In 2011, council adopted a comprehensive approach and action plan on sex work and sexual exploitation, a plan that created a citywide task force and set out a coordinated long-term framework for sex worker safety. I took part of that work. That process took years of staff time, coordination, consultation, research, community engagement. It involved social planning, Vancouver Coastal Health, Vancouver Police Department, researchers, frontline organizations, and sex workers ourselves. It wasn't symbolic. It was a coordinated, evidence-informed response to one of the largest institutional failures in Vancouver and indeed in this country's history. 12 of my friends are dead. In 2013, following Forsaken, council reaffirmed and expanded that work and including creation of the dedicated sex work social planning positions. These planning positions were created because the city recognized that this work requires ongoing coordination, engagement, and capacity over time. So the question is, why build this framework only to now reduce the capacity required to carry it forward. Today, the capacity has been reduced from three positions to one. It seems like there was two committed to, but there were three people working in that section. Now there's one. So it's not a neutral adjustment. It's a reduction in safety capacity. We're told this work is happening across other departments. I have to ask, what work? Who's doing that work? Where are sex workers named in it? To date, I have not been shown any information to support that assertion that work is happening elsewhere. At the same time, violence is increasing, and we all know where that road goes. I presented to the police board last June about human trafficking panic related to FIFA. We shared the findings from a report that was contracted between the VPD and sex worker organizations that shows that this never materializes. We were completely ignored. Now the whole thing is unfolding again, and we're seeing the same sort of harms reemerge. Sex workers are not a line item. We are people who live with families and then work in this city. Between 5,000 and 8,000 sex workers work here every day. So... Question is today, will council restore no fewer than two fully resourced, full-time, dedicated sex worker social planning positions? Please do not let the lessons of Forsaken be forgotten. Thank you.

Statement Watch

Good afternoon. My name is Alison Clancy. I'm the former executive director of Swan Vancouver, a sex work organization, and a former community developer with Living in Community, an organization that brought diverse stakeholders together to address the systemic failures that contributed to the violence against and serial murders of so many sex workers in Vancouver. I support this motion. My familiarity with the sex work social planner position dates back to 2012 when I served on the city task force on sex trade and prevention of sexual exploitation which created the position. For over a decade, I worked closely with all four sex work social planners who have held the position on issues ranging from training city staff to consultations on new condo developments that displace street-based sex workers and increase their systemic vulnerability to liaising with the BPD, reviewing bylaws, and advocating for life-saving supports for sex workers in Vancouver. Nationally, I was frequently contacted by people seeking information about the City's progressive work in this area. I also had the opportunity to highlight the City's work at international conferences and to bring attention to the leadership the City of Vancouver had shown in this area. Over time, however, I observed that these two sex work social planner positions became increasingly stretched and diluted. Meanwhile, violence against sex workers has not decreased in any way that would justify weakening, let alone discontinuing one of these positions. Imagine my shock given how many times I had witnessed the sex work social planners positively affect sex workers' lives across a multitude of policy and practice contexts for over a decade. I cannot overstate how critical and life-saving this position is for enabling the city to uphold its responsibilities to marginalized populations. And the scope and mandate are more than one position can handle. Given the city's history of failing to protect the safety and lives of sex workers, it is inconceivable that this decision has been made. This is simply not a matter of historical reparations. Sex workers continue to experience unacceptable levels of violence in this city today. In summary, I urge the City of Vancouver to remain a progressive leader in sex worker safety, both in Canada and globally. The risks of stepping away from this leadership through the discontinuation of this position are wholly unacceptable, given Vancouver's history, the current safety needs of sex workers in the city, and the important progress made by the four sex work social planners in the aftermath of the serial murders. This is progress we cannot afford to take for granted or risk reversing by recreating the very systemic vulnerabilities that contributed to such harms in the first place.

Statement Watch

Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Helena Seiferling. I'm calling in support of this motion for Council to reaffirm its support for the findings and intent of the Forsaken Report and specifically to reinstate the second sex worker social safety plan or position, which was recently cut and which is a breach of the Forsaken Report recommendations and best practices that the city has had in place for the past few decades. So I'm speaking to you today as an individual private citizen, but I've previously met some of you before as Executive Director of Living in Community. a provincial nonprofit and charity based in Vancouver that advocates for sex worker safety and needs across the province. As with the City of Vancouver's work on sex worker safety, Living in Community was developed in the early 2000s as a response to the serial killer and the obvious lack of safety and support for sex workers in the city that had been present and known for decades. Living and community personnel were involved in the city's sex worker safety task force 15 years ago. We've given many recommendations to the city and worked alongside the city on safety initiatives for decades. And we also convened the Safe and Cedar Cottage project, which brought together sex workers, frontline organizations, and both of the city's sex worker safety social planners in the Kingsway community. So the reason I am no longer speaking as the ED of Living and Community is because Living and Community had to lay off all the staff and pause all operations at the end of 2025. due to a broad lack of funding and support for this kind of advocacy work. And this is unfortunately not unique. As Council knows, PACE Society also had to close its operations in 2025, and Wish Drop-in Center Society also had to reduce programming in 2025 due to the same lack of funding broadly for this kind of work. So too often, there's a predictable and very scary cycle that happens after a horrible event. The bad thing happens, again, often when authorities knew and were warned for years, and then action occurs. Promises are made, funding is found, and that continues for a while. But over time, the memory of that awful thing begins to fade away. It seems less important. The problem seems to be getting better. And bit by bit, funding and support is reduced or removed entirely. But the reason it seems to be getting better is because what was in place was beginning to work. All of that work behind the scenes, all of those investments into community was preventing violence, was connecting vulnerable workers to resources, and was creating a stronger safety net for all while maintaining privacy and dignity. It's been incredibly disappointing to see the City of Vancouver engage in the same cycle of forgetting and cutting. For over 15 years, the city was a municipal leader in the right approach to ensuring workers' safety, and now it is letting that status crumble, but more importantly, knowing we create a more risky environment for workers in your community who are already stigmatized and criminalized. You're choosing to make these folks less safe. So in light of the closures to sex worker support services in Vancouver and the upcoming FIFA games, which will create a whole host of problems for sex workers, as advocates have raised with the city for over a year now, it is frankly the absolute least the city can do to simply maintain your historic and recommended level of staffing support for sex worker safety, most notably by ensuring there's two sex worker safety social planner positions and to support their critical work. I personally worked with those staff members for six years, and I know they are incredibly skilled, compassionate, and effective.

Statement Watch

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. My name is Crystal. I'm a Vancouver resident and I'm speaking in support of the motion. I work at Swan Vancouver, an organization that supports immigrant and migrant women and gender diverse people engaged in sex work. And I'm speaking to you at a time when it feels like the walls are coming crashing down around us. In my time at SWAN, I have never seen more violence than in the past year. For a community that's criminalized by both sex work laws and immigration rules, it means they're often targeted because they rarely call the police when they're a victim of a crime out of fear they can be arrested and deported themselves. So what does this look like in real life? It looks like a woman hiding in an apartment stairwell after being assaulted with a weapon during a robbery. It looks like running injured to a friend's house away from an abusive partner instead of running to an emergency room. It looks like being sexually assaulted, then having the perpetrator threaten to call the police or immigration officials on the victim because she does sex work. Things have gotten so bad that our staff have prepared emergency response kits and are scheduling wound care training for sex workers and some service users are becoming increasingly involved in community outreach during a crisis. As sex workers across Vancouver report increasing violence, organizations that support them are seeing initiatives, resources, and policies at the municipal, provincial, and federal level being quietly withdrawn, without notice, without consultation, or even an afterthought of the evidence, experiences, the devastating losses, and the advocacy that's led to those policies. The current landscape is changing. The violence will only get worse, and we need the sex work safety social planner more than ever. The social planner is an essential part of several safety initiatives that are now disappearing. As sex worker support organizations lose resources, their work often steers almost entirely to frontline services and crises. Many of us barely have the capacity to do advocacy like speak here today, so we cling on to the few remaining resources we have. I know you weren't aware of the many cases of violence being noted here today because of stigma and criminalization. Victims' identities and experiences are often never shared publicly. In due time, you will learn about the true gravity of the situation, details about the severity of violence that Swan's community and others have experienced recently. But I'm asking you not to wait to learn more before you take action. When the time comes, I do not want this council to be in a position where they're asking themselves, did we do everything we could?

Statement Watch

Hi, good afternoon, Council. My name is Natasha Hendrickson. I'm a resident of Vancouver and here to speak in support of Councillor Fry's motion. I understand you have a long day ahead of you, so I thank you for your focused attention in spite of the temperature of the room. I'm speaking today as a concerned citizen who was very disappointed to learn one of the two sex work social planner roles were cut, a role which acts as an important facilitator between sex workers and the city. Research from advocacy groups indicate that there has been a sharp increase in rates of violence against Vancouver-based sex workers, with those being only the reported figures. Additionally, while there is no credible evidence for an increase in sex trafficking due to FIFA, there is credible evidence for an increased risk of harm to sex workers. With this evidence in mind, I'm sure you can understand how counterproductive it is to cut a role intended to increase the safety of sex workers in the city. Sex workers are richly diverse and resilient people with an intimate understanding of care. They not only need to navigate callous laws, over-policing, moral panic, bad faith clients, healthcare barriers, infrastructure failures, assault, stalking, and fetishization, but underlining all this, stigma, which can mean judgment from the ones you love, and often stigma means judgment directed towards oneself. Simply put, it is a job. Some folks do it because they enjoy it, and some folks do it to survive. Like many jobs, the general public enjoy what they offer, but do not give a second thought to their working conditions. The city of Vancouver, on the other hand, recognizes workers face an increased level of violence. It also knows that sex workers are a part of the Vancouver community, and they deserve protection and safety at work. Vancouver has demonstrated this in the past, a commitment to supporting sex worker safety. Sex work is an incredibly nuanced profession, and they understand their work better than any authority or well-intentioned individual. This is why having a direct link between the city and the sex work community is essential to mitigating harm. The council must protect the well-being of all our communities, and I hope this council reflects on the words of my fellow speakers. And finally, I urge the council to support this motion. Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Natasha. Speaker number 13 is Chloe Hings.

Statement Watch

My name is Chloe Hines. I am a resident of Vancouver and a former city staff member. I worked as a planning analyst in social policy and projects, and I left the city at the end of March as part of the voluntary departure program. During my time at the city, I worked primarily with the community and gender safety team. and the sex worker safety planners. I was excited to work for the city because my master's research project was on sex work policy at the municipal level. It is a specialized, complex, and understudied area. It is highly stigmatized and prone to moral panics and misinformation. And it is a subject not typically covered in a general policy education. However, Vancouver has historically been a leader in sex work policy. During my time at the city, multiple other municipalities reached out for advice from the sex worker safety planners. I witnessed firsthand the value of these positions. They built connections across multiple departments to identify and propose solutions to problems that other city staff were not able to recognize. A large part of their work is educating staff on how policy impacts sex workers. They have been able to build trust with community and act as a link between sex workers and institutions that have historically harmed them. I first started working with the team to help analyze engagement data to create recommendations for the sex worker safety framework. My colleagues informed me that in the year between conducting engagement and analyzing the data, that multiple community members that had participated in engagement had tragically passed away. That was two years ago. It makes me very sad to think about the number of community members that may have died in those two years waiting for the sex worker safety framework. With the elimination of one of the sex worker safety planner positions and my departure at the end of March, I am deeply concerned about the city's ability to meet its commitments around gender safety and sex worker safety. To my knowledge, the community and gender safety team is comprised of a single staff member who is responsible for the sex worker safety framework, the 2STGD plus safety and inclusion plan, women's equity strategy, UN Safe Cities, and any gender-based violence prevention in the lead-up to FIFA. Many of these projects have recommendations that are interwoven with the city's response to MMIWG2S and UNDRIP. I'm very disappointed in the decision of senior city staff to eliminate this position, and I urge city council to pass this motion and adequately resource sex worker safety and gender safety. Thank you so much for listening.

Statement Watch

Hello, my name is Skyla Barahona. I've lived in so-called Vancouver my whole life and I've been in sex work advocacy spaces for eight years in the city. I've seen the need for and the ways that city social planners specialized in sex work do immensely important work. I'm pleased to see that members of council are working to reinstate this position. My assumption to this mistake is that the city may have overlooked the importance of two positions. When reviewing the COV sex work response guidelines, I noticed building positive relationships between sex workers, residents, businesses, neighborhoods, and COV staff is the primary focus of COV sex work city planners. I ask council, how do each of you expect just one person specializing in sex work city planning supposed to care for workers, residences, businesses, neighborhoods, staff, and the sex workers who fit into every one of those categories? From our collective knowledge and expertise in this field, these city planners have supported in different but utterly important ways. We need someone to work on the ground directly liaising with sex workers and someone to do the systemic change work. We cannot expect more city staff to do this job. We cannot ask city staff to put more items on their plate because that is when sex workers will fall through the cracks. We need city planners on the job. and looking at the bigger picture, not only from an operational perspective, but to maintain the relationships and historical knowledge of sex work in Vancouver. This does not just benefit sex workers. It benefits every constituent of the city. I commend the city for starting this work, and I also warn the city that this is a greater theme of deprioritization of sex workers in Vancouver. I urge the city to reaffirm its responsibility to community and take these meaningful steps to repair the harm that has been caused. The removal of the one of the sex work city planner position sends troubling messages. Sex workers in Vancouver have cited recently that they've felt unimportant, forgotten, and left out. In the consultations I've led for Pace Society, without the physical location of Pace, Members emphasize sex workers will die in losing this space. We would not have had the space if not for the City of Vancouver Sex Work Social Planner. Another member warned us by asking, please do not let any more of us die. City planner jobs are to address these concerns. Please remember, Council, this position is an essential service to the Downtown Eastside and sex workers of Vancouver. This decision is not in isolation. This is for everyone we've lost. Thank you.

Statement Watch

My name is Andrea Kruse. I'm an assistant professor in the School of Criminology at SFU and a co-principal investigator of the Aisha Project, which is a longitudinal study that followed over 900 sex workers in Metro Vancouver for over a decade. I'm also a resident of Strathcona in Vancouver. Thank you for the opportunity to speak in support of Councillor Fry's motion today. The past year has been marked by a string of closures and service reductions at the organizations serving sex workers in Vancouver, including program suspensions at PACE and Living in Community, both longstanding sex worker-led organizations that provide occupational health and safety supports. sex workers. Similarly, Kingsway Community Station, an important sex worker support service in the Kingsway corridor, is facing uncertainty both in terms of funding and location. These closures and service reductions are happening in the midst of a provincially declared epidemic of gender-based violence. An extensive body of empirical research, both globally and locally, highlights that sex workers face a disproportionate burden of gender-based violence due to the ongoing criminalization, stigmatization, and the lack of labor rights. All levels of government have a responsibility to ensure sex worker safety. Municipal governments are well positioned to support the health and safety and well-being of sex workers. This is underlined in the Forsaken report, which in response to systemic failures to support sex workers, prompted the implementation of the two city sex work safety planner positions. Peer-reviewed research by our team shows that only 26% of violent events in the context of sex work are reported to police. The reason sex workers do not report violence to police is due to lack of trust in police and the criminal legal system. As a result of this, sex workers mostly rely on community-led organizations to maintain their health and safety and share important safety information. In the context of this distrust, we need all levels of government to step in. At the municipal level, the sex worker city planners are essential in building trust, facilitating safety through city programming, ensuring city bylaws support the safety of sex workers, and supporting sex worker... support organizations in finding space to operate in. Our research highlights the importance of sex worker support organizations in supporting the health and safety of sex workers. The city sex work planners are an essential conduit between the city and the sex worker community. I urge the City Council to reaffirm their commitment to the findings and recommendations of the Forsaken Report and instruct the City Manager to reinstate the second Sex Worker City Planner position to ensure adequate support for the health, safety, and labor rights of sex workers in Vancouver. Thank you.

Statement Watch

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. My name is Philip Palenda. I'm a resident of Vancouver and the program manager of the Vancouver Sex Work Community Alliance. The Alliance does outreach for SDBBIs for sex workers, in addition to training for health care workers around stigma and barriers. I want to speak today in favor of this motion. I think it's really important to focus on how these decisions are experienced in community. I also want to acknowledge that this staffing change is happening in the context of a broader closure in the city. We've lost services from both pace and living in community. At the same time, the sex work social planner will carry the unique responsibility when it comes to safety. Sex work in Vancouver is not one thing. It includes street based indoor and online work, and people navigating are facing increasing economic pressures, housing instability and gaps in services. And all these conditions shape risk. We're seeing ongoing violence and rising safety concerns. Organizations are having increased calls related to safety and the impact of these are very real. The findings of Forsaken made it clear that violence experienced in Vancouver was not random. It's the result of systemic gaps and lack of coordinated response to known risks. In response, the city made commitments to ensure there was a community-connected capacity to support sex worker safety, and that's what this role is all about. Also, from a gender perspective, we know that men are less likely to reach out for support, particularly around vulnerability and mental health. When services are difficult to access or when stigma is high, people are even less likely to engage. That's where risk increases, not because the need isn't there, but because connection to support and services are lost. This role is not just administrative. It's about relationships, trust, and the ability to respond to a complex and evolving safety concerns within the community. Reducing capacity does not reduce demand. It reduces the system's ability to respond. And ultimately, it's about the city's role in maintaining conditions that support safety. The lessons from Forsaken is not about what went wrong. It's about what's required to do better. Consistent, sustained, community-based support that people can trust and access. This motion is about maintaining that capacity and ensuring the city can continue to respond more effectively to issues of safety and harm. Today there's been a lot of discussion about making Vancouver a fun and enjoyable city, and I would encourage Council to remember that a true, healthy and livable city also requires investment in safety, dignity and the support of vulnerable communities. I would like to encourage Council to consider the importance of this role in that context. Thank you for your time.

Statement Watch

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, we can, Emily. So as a procedure question, I need to ask you if you're a resident of Vancouver?

No, I am not.

Oh, that's okay. Just a procedure question. Please go ahead.

Thank you. My name is Emily Baker, and I'm the executive director of the Pacific Association of First Nations Women Plus. I'm calling in today from the Grandview Woodland neighborhood of Vancouver. where our office is situated, and I'm speaking in support of this motion. As mentioned by several speakers today, the sex work social planner roles were intentionally created as a meaningful response to the public inquiry into missing women, girls, and two-spirit peoples, which specifically recommended the City of Vancouver create and fund two community-based liaison positions. At the Pacific Association of First Nations Women Plus, we stand alongside the families of missing and murdered women, girls, and Two-Spirit peoples in their rally for this support to be re-evaluated. We stand firmly in solidarity with sex worker-led organizations, many of which are present today, and with sex workers of all backgrounds living and working in the City of Vancouver. The City of Vancouver was designated a City of Reconciliation in 2014 in part for their commitment to urban Indigenous communities, and this designation stands today. It is a designation we have a duty to uphold. Eliminating a role expressly created to protect sex workers on these territories directly contradicts your commitment to protect urban Indigenous women, girls, and Two-Spirit communities. At the Pacific Association of First Nations Women Plus, we are asking the Mayor and City Council to reinstate this life-altering, life-saving, life-changing role and to fulfill their commitment to stand by, for, and with sex workers. Thank you.

Statement Watch

My name is Asia Lamhart Lee, and I am the operations manager at Wish Drop-In Center Society, Vancouver's largest and oldest sex worker serving organization. I'm here in support of the motion. You've heard previous speakers describe the extreme conditions sex workers in Vancouver face, conditions serious enough that these dedicated planner positions were created in the first place. The need for that dedicated expertise has not decreased. Sex workers continue to face violence daily in our community, and the organizations serving them need a city partner who understands the nuance and urgency that work requires. I have relied on the sex work social planners throughout my time at WISH, and what distinguishes them is not just their knowledge, but also their speed and their judgment. In my monthly check-ins, I have consistently been offered immediate, practical, and appropriate solutions that showed a deep understanding of what sex worker safety actually looks like on the ground. Here are two concrete examples. In 2023, the MAP van, which is Outreach Van, broke down beyond repair. While we waited for a replacement, we had no way to reach the hundreds of sex workers who relied on that van for naloxone and harm reduction supplies, for a way to report bad days, for a check-in from someone who knew their name. Without intervention, our MAP program would have been suspended for close to six months. The planners acted immediately. They arranged for a vehicle from the city's fleet to be donated to us and secured a grant to outfit it for outreach. That solution required someone who understood both the city's system and the stakes of a gap in this service. More recently, as FIFA preparations ramped up, so did our concerns for the folks we serve. It was the sex work social planners who proactively reached out to bring WISH to the table. They understood that sex workers would face increased surveillance and displacement during the tournament, and that this in turn would push sex workers into less visible, more dangerous situations. They connected us to additional funding so we would be able to respond with increased services. We were not an afterthought. We were included because the planners knew to include us. These solutions would not have been found by planners who were not solely dedicated to sex work. This work requires specialized knowledge, trusted relationships, and consistent presence. One planner cannot do the work of two, nor can this work be shifted onto planners without the expertise who are already stretched too thin. I urge you to vote yes to reinstate this position and recommit to sex worker safety.

Statement Watch

Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. My name is Layla and I'm a 38-year-old woman currently residing in Vancouver. I'm speaking in support of Motion 4. I've been working as an entrepreneur, a.k.a. sex worker, here in Vancouver for the past eight years. I wanted to speak today to show Council another cross-section of the sex worker community who are also being alienated due to only having one sex work social city planner as opposed to the previous two before the budget was cut. The stigmatized, outdated view of who a sex worker is causes more alienation and discrimination to the whole community of marginalized workers. I got into this work because Vancouver was getting progressively unaffordable, and I could no longer live off minimum wage. I was filled with depression, anxiety, and a worsening alcohol abuse disorder due to the hopeless feeling I had of living in the city. I was working two restaurant jobs and one bartending job. I was barely able to afford rent, bills, grocery, and some extra money to enjoy my free time. Tackling student loan was definitely out of the question. I wound up entering into the sex work industry in order to get my basic human needs met. This job took me from survival work and showed me the promise of a brighter future. Over the past eight years, I have developed a real business working for myself. I was able to buy a home, something that my single mother wasn't able to do while raising my brother and I in Vancouver. This job also is the main reason why I was able to get sober. I've been sober for three years now because I finally have hope and dreams that I have a future in this city. This job comes with a lot of danger, unfortunately. What makes this job dangerous isn't just the job itself, but rather the lack of workers' rights, our semi-criminalized policy approach that prevents us from creating community and seeking safety and general societal alienation. I, too, have been in danger numerous times. A few years ago, for example, I had a client who was exhibiting behaviors of criminal harassment. I was terrified, and the Steckbroker police liaison was too busy with other cases, and she had to blow me off. I had to beg the officer at the non-emergency line to connect me with the police officer about the stalking and harassment I was experiencing. I was brought to tears before they would send over two police officers to my residence to take my story and evidence. Cutting back on a job position that helps thousands of us here in Vancouver is not wise. The stigma around this job causes very biased view of who the city is ignoring when they remove job positions like the sex work social city planner. As long as the city continues to be unaffordable, the sex worker community will grow. Making this job, making the city job position all the more important. Ignoring us will not make us go away. Eliminating this position leaves a critical gap in the city's ability to plan for and respond to sex workers' rights, health, and safety concerns. Combined with the closure of many sex workers' serving spaces, losing this role creates conditions for further strategies to take place. Thank you.