Donations help sex workers left out of federal relief fund
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/06/2020 (1958 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
AS COVID-19 arrived in Canada and unemployed Canadians began to draw on emergency financial support, activists and volunteers started setting up community-driven fundraisers to help sex workers.
Online donations have collected about $9,600 since April 21 — allowing 96 individuals to receive $100 each through the Sex Workers of Winnipeg Action Coalition. The volunteer-run organization was one of several such groups across Canada to set up coronavirus pandemic relief funds, including in Toronto, Vancouver and St. John’s.
Many sex workers are ineligible or reluctant to apply for the $2,000 monthly Canada Emergency Response Benefit created to support people forced out of work during the pandemic, said Claudyne Chevrier, one of the Winnipeg coalition’s founding members.
“Sex workers and their communities were once again faced with just taking care of their own, because they’re again excluded from support and excluded from society, even though… they want to take action to protect themselves and protect their communities,” Chevrier said.
“Sex workers are experts when it comes to disease prevention, they deal with it every day in terms of safer sex… and so they wanted to do that again, yet they weren’t given the support that a lot of other workers were given.”
While Chevrier couldn’t estimate how many Winnipeggers rely on sex work as a main source of income, she said she is aware of those who moved their work online, including via webcam; others had to stop working completely. The most vulnerable may have had no choice but to keep working despite public-health risks, she said.
“We saw among our members, but also in our broader networks and the agencies that we are in connection with, how desperate everyone was,” Chevrier said. “People depend on the income that they usually get for sex work, and that all of a sudden was just gone. So people were having very immediate needs that they were not able to meet, like food and shelter.”
The coalition launched a GoFundMe crowdfunding effort and received more than 130 individual donations. Organizers developed an online application process for sex workers to claim the money and worked with local agencies that could reach people who fit the criteria but weren’t able to fill out the online form.
They prioritized sex workers who identified as Indigenous, Black, disabled, or other minorities, Chevrier said. “People who are, in any way, more targeted by systems of oppression.”
The coalition is still collecting donations via e-transfer, Chevrier said. “Sex workers are members of our community. Sex workers are members of everyone’s community, whether people know it or not.”
“Sex workers are members of our community. Sex workers are members of everyone’s community, whether people know it or not.” – Claudyne Chevrier
A 38-year-old Winnipeg sex worker and coalition member who spoke to the Free Press on the condition of anonymity said she hasn’t seen any clients for several months, and doesn’t yet feel safe to start working again.
“I’ve been very, very fortunate to be in a position where I still have some income, but it’s been really challenging,” she said.
“Even when you’re not working, at least for me, it’s not like my business-related expenses stopped. I have expenses like website hosting and most significantly, a dedicated workspace, so I’ve still been having to cover the rent and utilities on that space while being unable to use it.”
She said she worries about greater stigma being placed upon sex workers who haven’t been able to stop working.
“It’s been a source of stress and a big challenge for lots of folks who would absolutely prefer to not be in a close, intimate setting with others during the pandemic. But even though sex workers may not be considered essential workers, when they’re going to work, they face a lot of the same risks and challenges,” she said.
Apart from health risks, she is also worried about the long-term economic consequences of the pandemic.
“I think sex workers are one of the groups that is really being impacted hard by this, because of the existing inequities that exist in our system that oppress and marginalize sex workers, and criminalize us.”
katie.may@freepress.mb.ca
Twitter: @thatkatiemay
Katie May is a multimedia producer for the Free Press.
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Decriminalization, regulation of sex work needed: researcher
Canada’s pandemic relief plan hasn’t devoted funds to sex-worker organizations, but that could be an effective way to support a group of people who generally fall outside other social safety nets, says a leading Canadian sex-work researcher.
Cecilia Benoit, a scientist and sociology professor at the University of Victoria’s Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research, was recently named among the winners of this year’s Killam Prize for her health-care research, which has included about 25 years of study involving sex workers.
Among the sex workers she’s studied, about a third have day jobs, many in the food and beverage industry. So much of that work has been lost or put on hold as well.
“This pandemic has put them in a corner, and it’s very difficult for them to come out of… my idea would be to channel emergency funds through the sex-worker organizations,” Benoit said.
“Because they’re not charities, because they don’t have that certain kind of status, sex-worker organizations are not getting access to COVID-related funds, as far as I know. So I think that’s what really needs to change.”
We don’t yet understand the impact COVID-19 is having on sex workers in Canada, Benoit said, though history has shown epidemics have done disproportionate damage to marginalized groups.
“It exposes, as in other epidemics before, that people who are the most marginalized in the society then are the worst affected by the pandemic, and that’s what we’re likely to see here in Canada. And partly it is because the response from governments and so on does not include them as part of the groups that should be helped, so I would really like to see some change in governments’ approach,” she said.
Despite 2014 federal legislation that targets those buying sex in Canada instead of those selling it, the work hasn’t become safer, Benoit said. She has been pushing for full decriminalization and regulation of sex work so that workers have access to labour protections. The laws were meant to reduce exploitation and violence in the industry, “yet we’re not seeing any evidence of that on the ground,” she said.
“Their social and economic situation hasn’t improved and their safety hasn’t improved, and so they’re still exposed to the same stigma and social exclusion that they were before the new law came in place.”
— Katie May
Katie May is a multimedia producer for the Free Press.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
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