THROUGH HOPE'S EYES

"Are you scared of me yet?" he asked as he forced her into the trees with a
sawed-off shotgun pressed between her shoulder blades. Before he tied her
to a tree, Hope shot five hits of cocaine to escape what was about to
happen to her.

That was a few years ago.

Hope -- her real name is not used for safety reasons -- is now 38 years old
and has been a sex-trade worker in Prince Albert for nearly 26 years.

"I'm a veteran," Hope said during an interview at the Youth Activity
Centre. "Well, that's what people call me."

The story about the man with the shotgun is still fresh in Hope's mind and
she tells it with vivid detail.

"Sure he had given me money. He gave me $300, all in $100 bills. It was
brand new money right out of the bank," said Hope. "I said 'Can we hurry up
and get this over and done with? How far do we have to go?'"

The man pulled to the side of the road somewhere outside of Prince Albert,
reached behind the seat and pulled out the shotgun. He pointed it at Hope's
head and asked, 'Are you afraid of me now?'

"I looked at him, and I had never seen those kind of eyes before in my
life," said Hope. "I wanted to just fall over and play dead or something."

Tied to a tree in a cocaine haze, Hope wondered what would happen to her.

"I thought he was going to walk away and shoot me, but he walked away, put
his gun down and started laughing," said Hope. "He was gone for maybe an
hour, and I could hear him come whistling back."

The man again asked Hope if she was scared of him. When she answered yes he
untied her from the tree and told her to get in the truck.

"When we got closer to town he started hitting me again. I had bruises all
over my face," said Hope. "I jumped out and punched him. I punched him as
hard as I could."

Hope immediately went to the home she shared with her now ex-boyfriend.

"I got in the door, and the first thing he asked me is how much money I
had," said Hope. "He wasn't worried about the bruises on my face or if I
was OK or anything."

Hope went back on the streets the next day. She said she never saw the man
with the shotgun again.

"I've been stabbed, I've been hit with a baseball bat and I've been
whipped," said Hope. "There's a lot of sick and weird things that happen.

"I used to work all the time with bruises on my face. I guess I wasn't even
ashamed to be seen with a bruise. I thought with the abuse I used to see my
mom go through that I had to live through it, too."

Hope never reported to the police some of the things that happened to her.

"A lot of the girls don't want to go to the police because they are on
curfew or probation or something," said Hope. "They are scared that they
will get in trouble."

Hope left home at 12 years -old after suffering from sexual and physical
abuse by both male and female cousins.

"I felt free," Hope said about leaving home. "I just wanted to be alone and
away from everything. That's what I thought, anyway."

She made friends with people on the street and was curious about the sex
trade and the money. That's how Hope got started as what she calls a "lady
of the evening."

"I really can't blame anybody but myself. I wasn't forced. Well maybe I
forced myself with feelings," said Hope. "I still feel inside that I should
have talked to somebody about the things that happened at home. And I tried
to talk to people a couple of times, and they would say your an f-ing liar
or you're a lying bitch. That's when I stopped trying to talk to people."

Hope has always worked in Prince Albert except for a brief period in
Vancouver when she was 13. She remembers little about her experiences on
the West Coast.

"That's when I first became really involved in intravenous drugs and coke.
This guy showed me how to do it here in Prince Albert. I blacked right out,
and I don't know if I slept or what I did. I woke up on the bed and he said
'You need another shot. You're so cool when you're high.'"

When Hope came to, she was in a vehicle driving through Vancouver.

Hope doesn't know how she got back to Prince Albert. The experience
frightened her from leaving Prince Albert again.

"I was scared. I feel lucky that I got back," said Hope. "I don't know how
I got back. I didn't know what day it was. It seemed like I was only gone
for a couple of weeks, but it was a lot longer."

Hope works in the sex trade to feed her addictions to money, gambling,
alcohol, drugs and sex. She said she is addicted to everything.

When asked if she would quit the sex trade if she didn't have a drug
addiction, Hope said she didn't know.

"You try to set goals, but there is always somebody there that will take
you away from it," said Hope. "I won't give up yet, though. It's taken me
26 years to get where I am now, so it will probably take me another 26
years to get off of the drugs and everything else."

As a preference and for safety reasons, Hope only deals with her regular johns.

"There are a lot of girls that are working now, young girls, who just jump
into vehicles," said Hope. "A couple years back, I started to stick with my
regulars.

"It is a scary thing. You hear about different guys or girls that have gone
missing or what happened in Vancouver and it gets kind of scary."

Hope said people are wrong if they think prostitution always involves sex.

"Most of my johns just want company. It's not always about sex," said Hope.
"They just want somebody to be with and to talk to."

Hope always uses condoms. She became hepatitis C positive when she was 14.

Although she has been involved in the sex trade for 26 years, Hope still
has trouble putting into words how she feels after a job.

"I don't know how to feel. I guess I just don't feel," Hope said and then
thought about it a little longer. "I feel guilty and ashamed. I actually
pray before and after I do it to be forgiven."

When Hope talks about her goals, she mentions her children, who are
currently in the care of her parents.

"I feel real guilty when I go to my parents place to see them. I love them
very much, and I want to be with them and watch them grow up. But when I go
to see them, I always get angry and I take my anger out on them. I realize
that now. It's not good for me to be around them," said Hope. "And it
hurts. It really hurts."

Hope knows there is help in Prince Albert for her but is determined to kick
her addictions and get off the street on her own.

"I don't like to be preached at. I like to do it my own way," said Hope. "I
can get help if I want to, but I want to do it on my own rather than
somebody doing it for me."

If and when Hope leaves the street, she would like to work with youth.

"I know there are a lot of really young girls on the street, and it really
hurts me to see them. I know what they are going through," said Hope. "Some
of the girls I just cry with. I'm always there for them to talk to. I hope
someday I can really talk to them. That's one goal I would look at is
working with the youth.

"I am not a quitter. I will still reach my goals. I will. I hope. I hope."