Sex Workers Get Ready for Olympics in Vancouver

(Feb. 1) -- Like most Vancouver business owners, Nina Leone is anticipating an influx of clients when the city plays host to the Olympic Games next week. She's posting extra advertisements online, coordinating with co-workers and coming up with creative ways to maximize profits.

Leone, who goes by the name Sexy Nina, is one of Vancouver's estimated 1,000 sex workers. As their hometown is overrun by tourists and TV cameras, these women and men on the social fringes are bracing themselves. Those working the streets or operating near busy Olympic venues will face increased competition, risky work conditions and an unwanted media spotlight. Others, like Leone, who owns a bawdy house outside the city's downtown, think they stand to make major profits.

"Absolutely, I think I'm going to be very busy," Leone said. She's teamed up with a friend in the limousine business to offer male tourists "the ride of their life" to and from Olympic events. "The Games are a world-class experience, so why not arrive in style, and enjoy yourself the entire way?"

The 2010 Olympics will bring an estimated 300,000 visitors to this Canadian metropolis, which has a long and storied history with sex workers. Women and men in the industry flock to Vancouver for a more relaxed legal atmosphere and warmer temperatures than other major Canadian cities. This winter, an additional 500 sex workers have traveled from across the country in hopes of making quick cash at the Games.

Susan Davis, a Vancouver sex worker who advocates for the decriminalization of prostitution and also collaborates with local police in sensitivity training, is worried about sex workers' profits -- and safety -- during the Games.

"Hundreds of new sex workers will cut into the earnings of those who are local to the area," said Davis, who, at 41, has been a sex worker in the Vancouver area for 23 years. "Not to mention that they don't know how to operate safely in the city."

Davis is especially concerned about false reports circulating in the Canadian media, claiming that Vancouver sex workers are establishing a $1 million, temporary brothel meant to act as a "safe house" for incoming workers, and that other area brothels and massage parlors are opening their doors to temporary visitors. Both rumors are false, and pose a serious safety risk for unknowing foreigners.

"Do they really think we've got a million dollars to spend on a brothel?" she asked, referring to the sex worker's alliance, called British Columbia Coalition of Experiential Communities (BCCEC), that she spearheads. "Not a chance."

Instead, with hotels fully booked by tourists, visiting sex workers will end up on the street, turning tricks in cars and leaving themselves vulnerable to sexual and physical abuse at the hands of unknown clients.

Vancouver, a coastal city of 600,000, is home to a thriving sex industry, which Davis says is "as busy as New York." One need only check out Craigslist to get a sense of how Vancouver's sex workers commission clients: city boroughs are divided into sections, and each locale is staffed by a loose affiliation of women and men. Those in the industry are active online, using trusted Web sites and forums to book appointments, and often work in brothels or massage parlors instead of on the street.

Newcomers may not be aware of how the Vancouver community operates.

"We've got our own resources, way to solicit business, and a tight-knit community," Davis said. "If you show up here, not knowing where to go or how to get clients, you're putting yourself in danger."

Safety is a concern for sex workers anywhere, but the issue is especially salient in Vancouver. Between 1997 and 2001, local pig farmer Robert Pickton brutally murdered an estimated 49 women, most of them sex workers, whom he'd plucked from the city's well-known prostitution hangouts.

Pickton has been convicted of six murders, charged with 20 more and sentenced to life in prison. Even nine years after his arrest, Davis said memories of the ordeal have left local sex workers anxious, territorial and extra careful about the clients they take on.

Davis and other leaders in the sex industry have always encouraged local workers to cultivate a trusted clientele, and, if they must work outside, to stick to the same area. But with several Olympic venues in the city's Downtown Eastside -- a well-known prostitution hub -- road closures and temporary no-stop zones mean that many long-time sex workers, including Davis herself, will be displaced.

"We'll be cut off from the clients we know and trust," she said. "A lot of women are worried that if they end up in some other part of the city, they'll be compromising their safety." The potential for lagging income means sex workers might accept unknown clients, not insist on condoms or acquiesce to a lower rate.

BCCEC has taken the initiative to protect sex workers during the Games. Drop-in centers will encourage them to meet trusted clients in a different part of the city, and some workers are chatting online to establish new, communal meet-up spots.

SafeGames 2010, an advocacy group providing resources on safe sex and responsible drug and alcohol use during the Games, will be passing out SafeKits including condoms, drop-in center phone numbers, a guide to Vancouver's legal policy on prostitution, and etiquette tips for clients. The information is based on Trade Secrets, a manual written by the BCCEC for sex industry workers.

Prostitution is legal in Vancouver and the rest of Canada, but most activities associated with it -- running a brothel, soliciting in a public place -- are not. In the U.S, the laws are much more strict, with every state but Nevada banning prostitution outright. In Vancouver, sex work occurs so openly that many tourists falsely believe it's been entirely legalized, and police rarely make arrests.

"The Vancouver police are incredibly progressive," Davis said. "They understand that arrests only create more danger."

Constable Anne Longley with the Vancouver PD confirms that the department "only makes complaint-based arrests," and targets human traffickers and abusive pimps rather than prostitutes. Sex workers who are arrested face repercussions from Johns, lost income and lifelong difficulty finding a job off the streets. They often move to less-populated, more dangerous areas to avoid a second arrest.

Sex workers have also benefited from pre-Olympic media training, organized and led by the Prostitution Alternatives Counseling & Education Society (PACE). Staffers handed out a one-page guide to media interviews, and hosted workshops to help workers plan around the street closures. PACE first created their media guide during the Pickton trial, when some street workers were approached up to nine times a day by reporters.

Kerry Porth, executive director of PACE, said the group's headquarters will be open 24 hours a day during the Games. Volunteers will provide food and information, and plan to host nightly outreach sessions to see how street workers are faring.

Some prostitutes have planned to leave Vancouver during the Games, opting to avoid the fray rather than face safety risks and media glare while trying to earn a living. But for better or worse, temporary sex workers will likely take their place, with little interference from law enforcement.

Homelessness advocacy groups are protesting the forced relocation of Vancouver's estimated 3,000 homeless, but the city's police department made a verbal commitment not to arrest or displace sex workers during the Games for the sake of public image. Porth said that if they do, media outlets covering the Games will hear about it.

"Oh," she warns. "I'll make some noise."

As for Sexy Nina, she'll be enjoying a surge in business that's sorely needed, after last year's recession cut into her tourist business. "I stopped getting many clients visiting from out of town, mostly the States," she said. "I'm looking forward to welcoming them back next week -- with open arms."