SWAN Vancouver conducted a broad community consultation to record women’s experiences about how the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (IRPR), which ban temporary residents from doing sex work, is impacting the rights, safety and overall well-being of im/migrant women engaged in indoor sex work in Metro Vancouver.
A total of one focus group and 24 semi-structured, one-on-one interviews were conducted with im/migrant women in sex work. The project highlighted several ongoing workplace safety concerns including robberies, client violence, interpersonal violence with massage parlour owners and colleagues, complaints by neighbours, as well as police raids.
“For me, it’s okay. As I said before, I can communicate well with people, and I have legal status, so I’m not afraid to report. I also have some knowledge of laws and regulations, so I can protect my rights in that regard. But for some [women], for example, those without legal status, they definitely wouldn’t report. Also, those who don’t speak English well, for them, even explaining what happened would be difficult, so they might not report it. Everyone is different.” -Permanent resident speaking about why workers may not report violent crimes to police
The findings are also consistent with past research that demonstrates how im/migrant women in sex work largely underreport violence to authorities due to the multiple barriers in accessing the criminal justice system, stigma around sex work, fear of police intervention and/or detainment, and concerns over sharing their sex work status with external parties.
To learn more, download the full report here.
Funded by the Law Foundation of BC
