Survival Sex
A nightmarish scenario, that there is every appearance that sex workers in the Ottawa area are being targeted for murder, and there appears to be some reason for police to believe that these murders are the work of an obviously deranged serial murderer. Women have now been warned to be especially vigilant and to take care to appear in public in pairs. Implicit in the message given, was the fear that the murders that have occurred will not end at the last one.
Ottawa's Police Chief Vern White, an estimable man, and outstandingly good chief security officer for this city, took the initiative to request that he be permitted to address women through the downtown aboriginal women's centre, Minwaashin. Tragedy upon tragedy, aboriginal women suffer from abuse in their own communities, and are disadvantaged doubly, in the greater community. If they are street workers, there is a double indemnity.
Life has not been kind to Canada's First Nations in general, and certainly not to First Nations women in particular. Communities living in isolation from the greater population in remote, undeveloped areas appear more prone to abusing themselves through the use of mind-deadening, hope-defeating use of alcohol and drugs. And women in those communities often are abused, a common enough fall-out in any community that is listless with neglect and dispiritedness.
The greater population insists that the vulnerable would be less so if they were only to enmesh themselves in the lifestyle prevalent in highly populated cities. Yet there is still so much negative attitudes prevailing toward aboriginals that when they're among others they feel themselves to be scorned. Under these circumstances, confidence in self is hard to come by. And if women have been abused in the past, they will continue to feel that this is all that life has to offer them.
Chief White revealed to the press, if not to the women with whom he spoke, that "a pattern" appears to have been revealed in the homicides of city prostitutes. He could not or would not elaborate, other than to remark that there is an investigation and it is as yet in its early stages. "In light of recent murders and injuries to various women, there is a sense that there is someone who is targeting women" Minwashin Lodge support worker Kimberley Mansfield revealed.
Chief White was clear, however, with respect to the purpose of his public safety warning:
Outreach workers explain that women are loathe to report attacks, fearful of being "criminalized" in the process. New legislation currently being considered, that would give protection under the law to sex workers by removing this threat through changes that would give them needed protection, would help a good deal.
Ottawa's Police Chief Vern White, an estimable man, and outstandingly good chief security officer for this city, took the initiative to request that he be permitted to address women through the downtown aboriginal women's centre, Minwaashin. Tragedy upon tragedy, aboriginal women suffer from abuse in their own communities, and are disadvantaged doubly, in the greater community. If they are street workers, there is a double indemnity.
Life has not been kind to Canada's First Nations in general, and certainly not to First Nations women in particular. Communities living in isolation from the greater population in remote, undeveloped areas appear more prone to abusing themselves through the use of mind-deadening, hope-defeating use of alcohol and drugs. And women in those communities often are abused, a common enough fall-out in any community that is listless with neglect and dispiritedness.
The greater population insists that the vulnerable would be less so if they were only to enmesh themselves in the lifestyle prevalent in highly populated cities. Yet there is still so much negative attitudes prevailing toward aboriginals that when they're among others they feel themselves to be scorned. Under these circumstances, confidence in self is hard to come by. And if women have been abused in the past, they will continue to feel that this is all that life has to offer them.
Chief White revealed to the press, if not to the women with whom he spoke, that "a pattern" appears to have been revealed in the homicides of city prostitutes. He could not or would not elaborate, other than to remark that there is an investigation and it is as yet in its early stages. "In light of recent murders and injuries to various women, there is a sense that there is someone who is targeting women" Minwashin Lodge support worker Kimberley Mansfield revealed.
Chief White was clear, however, with respect to the purpose of his public safety warning:
"I am here at Minwaashin Lodge to speak to Ottawa residents about concerns the Ottawa police has for women's safety. Our major crime investigators have recently identified a pattern with homicides involving sex-trade workers in our community. I am asking women, particularly those involved in the sex trade, to be vigilant and exercise good safety practices. There will be a time when we have more information, but it's not today."There is an estimated 250 women working the Vanier-Byward Market area of Ottawa. A psychopath intent on violating, raping, torturing and murdering women has ample opportunity to strike. Women are vulnerable at the best of times, out alone at night in various places in the city; when some predator malevolently, violently attacks those women who walk the streets to service men, they are acutely at risk.
Outreach workers explain that women are loathe to report attacks, fearful of being "criminalized" in the process. New legislation currently being considered, that would give protection under the law to sex workers by removing this threat through changes that would give them needed protection, would help a good deal.
Labels: Human Relations, Ontario, Ottawa, Sexism, societal failures
posted by Pieface @ 6:14 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home