OUTREACH PROJECT LINKED TO HIGHER RATES OF DRUG TREATMENT AMONG
STREET-BASED SEX WORKERS

Street-based prostitutes working in Vancouver's isolated areas are
more likely to seek addiction treatment if they receive frontline
support from other sex workers, a new study has found.

Women who encounter the Mobile Access Project (MAP), a specially
equipped van driven by former and current sex workers, are four times
more likely to enter detox or seek addiction counselling than those
who have not. That's the finding of a study conducted by researchers
at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and the University of
British Columbia, recently published in the peer-reviewed journal Drug
and Alcohol Dependence.

"The findings really demonstrate the importance of sex-worker-led
initiatives in connecting some of the most marginalized in the sex
industry with support services and drug treatment," says Dr. Kate
Shannon, the study's lead author. "It certainly speaks to the
importance of scaling up those services in Vancouver, as well as
potentially the opportunity for initiating similar programs in other
outlying areas."

The MAP van is a joint project run by the WISH Drop-In Centre and the
Prostitution Alternatives Counselling & Education Society (PACE), both
non-profit groups based in the Downtown Eastside. Since 2003, the van
has been in service between 10:30pm and 5:30am, seven days a week,
patrolling known prostitution areas from the Downtown Eastside to
Boundary Road. The van provides some measure of security for
street-based sex workers as well as a place to rest, enjoy a hot
beverage, or acquire condoms and clean syringes. Women can either flag
the van down or call to request it come to their area.

Shannon said the study is part of a larger evaluation of street-based
sex workers that looks at their access to health and support services.
Her team of researchers interviewed 242 women over a period of 18
months between 2006 and 2008. Of the women interviewed, 102 (42 per
cent) reported using the MAP van, which also allows women to report a
bad date and get referrals to addiction services.

Though the study has shown the van makes life easier for the women who
use it, Shannon says it isn't enough to combat the effects of current
prostitution laws, which she believes push women to isolated areas,
increasing their risk of violence and decreasing their access to
supports. Women working in isolation are more likely to encounter
violence and less likely to negotiate condom use, she says. "That's
where the MAP van can be very useful, is in bringing them back in
touch with health services."

A major component of the van's success is that it allows sex workers
to get to know other women who have first-hand knowledge of the
street-based sex trade, says Sheri Kiselbach, a former sex-trade
worker and a driver on the van.

After nearly three decades as a sex worker, Kiselbach's first
"mainstream" job was driving the MAP van, and she now works as the
violence-prevention officer with PACE. Working on the van bolstered
her resolve to make a life change. "It showed me every day what I
didn't want to go back to," she says, adding that for women
contemplating making a similar change, seeing women who've been
through the process is invaluable. "It's kind of a role-modelling
thing... They know that a real person has gone through that - not just
a layperson who's never gone through this stuff."

That shared experience is particularly poignant for women who are
battling addiction, Kiselbach says, noting that, like a lot of women,
her time in the sex trade was coupled with addiction, but she wasn't
aware there were resources available to her when she wanted to get
clean. "I look back at my own story, and I'm from Vancouver - I didn't
know there was detox available to me."

While not all sex workers battle addiction, Kiselbach says for many,
the two go hand-in-hand. "If I use, I'm going to work; if I work, I'm
going to use. It was a no-brainer for me, and I think [that's true]
for a lot of other people."

While the MAP van has guaranteed funding for the next 18 months
through an agreement between the City of Vancouver and the provincial
government, the study's authors are hopeful the report's findings will
bolster the argument to fund the project indefinitely. "I'm very
hopeful that things like this report really support the need for this
project," says Kate Gibson, executive director of WISH Drop-In Centre
and a co-author of the study. "The thing about this van that's
different is that it reaches women where and when they work, out in
the middle of the night. The other thing is we reach women that don't
often access any other services."

But with Canada's prostitution laws now under review in Ontario, and
in B.C., where a constitutional challenge by Kiselbach was given the
go-ahead to proceed on Oct. 12, Gibson says she'll be watching the
legal system closely for a more permanent solution to the risks women
face in prostitution. "Obviously, we'll be watching with great
interest," she says, noting that no matter the result of the challenge
in B.C., the court proceedings have already succeeded in getting sex
workers' rights on the public radar. "People have the right to
equality and to be treated in the same way as any other citizen of
Canada. No matter where this goes, that will never be taken away now."