Vancouver is an ancient and wondrous Pacific port, a modern colonial
outpost; a ‘border town’ of the American imperial giant. This gateway
to the splendour of the world’s largest sea, ringed by magnificent
volcanic mountains is also a man-made funnel to an urban ghetto of
poverty, racism and sexist violence.
A tourist
destination pandering in advance of the Olympic games, Vancouver feigns
harm reduction while growing and boasting an industry of warehousing
and herding the poor. In the name of voluntary prostitution, it
proposes to use law and order to clean out the city of the
disadvantaged Aboriginal street women thereby protecting and raising
the downtown land values. The sexual service to both resident and
touring men it seems to assign to immigrant women and runaway girls
housed in suburban brothels, many of which are beyond city limits.
A constellation of places and forces creates
the prostitution market in the greater Vancouver area for women (see
upcoming article by Lee Lakeman 2009 contact Rape Relief for
reference). Global flights and rusty ships of immigration both legal
and illegal meet global containers of goods and stockpiled wealth both
legal and illegal here and soon in Prince Rupert.
Vancouver supports both the first rape crisis
center in the country and a particular and horrible history of violence
against women. This is a site of the global trafficking of girls and
women, including Refugee Women and Indigenous Women.
Vancouver is also a crossroads of thoughts about prostitution and trafficking in women. New legal challenges
may well strike down all laws against pimping, procuring, and
prostitution. Other local courts punished the first cases of sex
tourism and are investigating the next (Kenneth Robert Klassen - an
international art dealer is charged with 35 sex tourism offences
involving 6 Colombian girls, 8 Cambodians and 3 in the Philippines. The
first charges of trafficking were laid here in a case of Korean women.
(Michael Ng). See Canadian Court Cases of Sex Tourism and Trafficking
for details of the 3 cases. Law enforcement claims to support
prostitutes as victims but fails to criminalize johns and traffickers.
Read more under Prostitutes Offender Program.
The Canadian parliamentary committee considering the Status of Women
agrees that Canada should move "From Outrage to Action". But national
political parties are divided. All parties fail to decriminalize women
but continue to effectively decriminalize their tormentors and
exploiters. See the Report of the Standing Committee on
the Status of Women.
Some even propose legalization. They all fail to provide the conditions
and resources that would allow women the choice not to be prostituted
or to escape it. They all fail to provide desperate women the choice to
migrate safely or to be safe and to feed themselves in their homelands
without migrating.
Women working against sexist violence face the
global economy as it affects women in the rape crisis center, in the
transition house and on the streets. See "A Global
Economy: The Promotion of Prostitution"
for more information. They face it in the fists and pocketbooks of
individual men and in their organized gangs and in the businessmen’s
consortiums.
Starting from our position that prostitution is neither necessary nor
desired by women and represents at best the “constrained choices” of
women, we explore what are the links between the local demand of men
for prostitution and the global traffic in girls and women.
Our project consists of four elements:
Gallery Gachet
Live Media Installation
Nov 25 – Dec 10th 2008
12-5pm
In a new genre public art praxis, guided by four local artists: Haruko
Okano, Bettina Matzkuhn, Suzanne Rutchinski and Krista Tupper and
collective members from Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter.
Hosted by the collective at Gallery Gachet Sixty women will exhibit
their view of Vancouver particulars about prostitution.
The Vancouver Art Gallery
An Artful Conversation between Pacific Rim women
Nov 25-Dec 10 2008
2pm-4pm
Hosted by Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter, 15 feminist
organizers from around the Pacific Rim will gather daily for two hours
in artful discussion of the conditions of women, the marketing of
women, the nature of pacific trade and the connections between
prostitution in Vancouver and international trafficking in girls and
women. This Pacific Rim information will be linked by two-way live feed
to the Vancouver installation at Gallery Gachet displayed on screens at
both sites.
Vancouver Public Library
Dec 6, 2008
10am- 6pm
Canada has designated this day to mark the massacre of young women
engineering students at L’ecole Polytechnique and the published
antifeminist intentions of the killer Marc Lepine to kill these women
and others for their role in feminism. See Women, Violence and the Montreal Massacre for more information.
Annually Vancouver Rape Relief responds to this historical attack by
renewing our commitment to educating the public about the conditions of
women and publicly organizing with women and men of conscience against
those conditions. Check the Upcoming December 6th 2008 details. Films, lectures, roundtables and interactive displays will fill the library concourse and downstairs meeting rooms.
A Feminist Dinner Party
by invitation
The fourth element is a feminist dinner party uniting participants with
other women of influence. In the spirit of Wack! Art and the Feminist
Revolution, women will celebrate the achievements of artists and other
activists and connect the current feminist initiative to end all forms
of violence including prostitution and trafficking.
Details:
November 25 – Dec 10, 2008
Vancouver Rape Relief and Gallery Gachet
at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Gallery Gachet and the Vancouver Public Library
