Conversation Series #2: Municipal Best Practices for Sex Worker Safety
We are pleased to announce the second edition of our Webinar Conversation Series. We’ll be launching this series with a workshop on Municipal Best Practices for Sex Worker Safety, organized in partnership with Living in Community.
Local governments have an important role to play in implementing policies, bylaws, and regulations which both protect sex workers and prevent human trafficking. While the laws governing sex work in Canada are federal, the municipal level has many tools at its disposal and is often best positioned to address sex work through localized solutions.
This workshop will help local elected officials understand sex work in their communities and how to regulate it safely and equitably. Attendees will also leave with a deeper understanding of how stigma, stereotypes, and biases often influence how we see the issue of sex work.
Register Now!
Speakers:
Alison Clancey (she/her) and Kerry Porth (she/her) are Community Developers with Living in Community (LIC), and have delivered training LIC’s since 2013.
Nadine Nakagawa, a City Councilor, will open up the discussion and share the experience of New Westminster in developing a motion for the municipality.
Organization:
Living in Community (LIC) began in 2003 in the City of Vancouver as a result of critical concerns about sex workers’ safety. LIC brought diverse stakeholders together, including sex workers and sex work support organizations, businesses, policing, health organizations, neighbourhood houses, Indigenous organizations, and more, to build relationships and collaboratively identify solutions. Over time, the LIC model formalized into a Steering Committee of these diverse stakeholders guiding our work in anti-stigma education and training, policy advocacy to all levels of government, and sharing of our unique model of community development. Our goal is to create communities that are healthy and safe for everyone, centering the needs and rights of sex workers.
Since 2013, LIC has provided training and education to service providers and policymakers across BC, the Yukon, and Newfoundland about a collaborative and community-based approach to sex work and community safety. We have also mentored other communities in developing local LIC models, including St. John’s, which established LIC St. John’s in 2017.
In 2019, LIC established the BC Sex Work Support Service Network, which is a network of over twenty sex worker-serving organizations from diverse communities across BC. LIC convenes this group on regular calls and virtual trainings for members to share the challenges in their communities, learn from each other, and develop a unified voice for sex workers’ rights in BC. This Network is a key voice in ensuring that sex work best practices do not only speak to the issues seen in larger urban centres, but instead include the unique needs of those in rural and remote communities as well.
Further Resources: https://livingincommunity.ca/fact-sheets/
About Living in Community: https://livingincommunity.ca/
Date and Location
October 5, 2021, 12:00pm-1:00pm
(discussion followed by Q&A)
Via Zoom
For more information or if you have any questions, please email Amor Verdeflor at averdeflor@columbiainstitute.ca
Thanks to our sponsors for helping make this event possible.
