An end to provincial funding has hit the brakes on a vehicle that helps female sex-trade workers on Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside.
The van was operated through a partnership between the WISH Drop-In Centre Society and the Prostitutes Alternatives Counselling and Education -- or PACE Society.
For five years, the van drove around the streets most frequented by downtown sex workers. While others averted their eyes when passing the women on the street, the van would stop and offer coffee, juice and water, as well as condoms and clean needles. From 10:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m., when other stores and services are closed for the night, the workers could have a moments rest, as well as a link to shelters and emergency services.
The eyes and ears of the community
The van was driven by women, many of them former sex-workers who could provide compassion and empathy to the women who were filling their previously-worn stilettos.
"I look at the van like it's the eyes and ears of the community," Sheri Kiselbach, a former sex trade worker who works for PACE, said. She has worked with the map van since it first hit the streets in Vancouver and has provided outreach services and support for many sex trade workers that have entered its doors.
The van was previously funded by provincial dollars, but like many other programs, it has been cut due to the economic downtown. Kate Gibson, executive director of WISH, said the centre has been trying to raise funds for the van for more than a year and has written to the premier but has received no response.
"It was just that personal friendly face in the middle of the night," Gibson said. "I think it has an impact in that it tells women they don't matter when they're out there all night long by themselves," she said.
However, the province said it's currently reviewing the centre's funding request.
Low self-esteem and dangerous nights
Until its removal June 12, up to 50 women used the van every night. They are women who enter the sex trade industry at the average age of 14 and are only expected to live to 40-years-old. They come from every background and have no other means of survival.
A low self-esteem and dangerous nights are their reality. Often lacking access to housing, often the only doors opened to them are ones that can lead to beatings, rape and murder from their 'Johns'.
According to a 2006 evaluation of the MAP van by the WISH centre's executives, 90 per cent of women sex workers interviewed said the service made them feel safer, 16 per cent remember an incident when the van prevented a physical assault and 10 per cent remembered a moment when it saved them from a sexual assault.
Kiselbach said that when no one else listened to the sex trade workers, the van was the place the women could turn to. She said it was in the van that it was a life-changing opportunity to learn the skills to help the women. Now that the van has lost provincial funding, future opportunities for the women of the downtown east side will be lost.
Kate Gibson said it's troubling that funding to the van has been cut in a city that's had dozen of women sex trade workers disappear off its streets.
"It's troubling to think that the government has forgotten the 67 women that went missing and those that we know for sure were murdered," she added, referring to Robert Pickton's victims. The families of those victims will soon learn if Pickton will be granted an appeal for his charge in the involvement in the disappearance of dozen of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside missing women.
