Waaaait a second. An addict makes the choice the work the streets in order to get their fix. Selling sex is ALWAYS a choice, unless you're like 12, or being beaten by a pimp. Addicts opt for standing on the street corner because it's a quick fix. Easier to spread you legs for 60 bucks than work 5 hours at a drive through. People with mental illnesses recieve supplemented income for the government if they are deemed unable to work, as well as welfare. Addicts also choose to keep using instead of trying to get clean. Life is tough out there, but there are always other options...
i guess you missed the post on addiction as symptom of complex post traumatic stress or self harming tactic...people don't choose to be addicts, there is always an underlying factor. Like the commercial for anorexia says, not all suicide notes are in writing.
here's some info on the gaps in the system which mean people don't have choices to get out,get help,etc....those supports do not exist or have significant barriers for sex industry workers trying access;
A group of sex workers i work on these issues with had the privilege of utilizing Victim Services funding to host two Post Traumatic Stress Meetings among sex workers and front line staff July 26th and 27th, 2007. The July 26th meeting was attended by over 20 front line workers from Vancouver, Richmond and Surrey health and sex work organizations in addition to experiential professional working on the front lines. The July 27th meeting was intended to be exclusively for experiential professionals and active or former sex workers. There were around 12 individuals in attendance. Issues that limited these numbers were the timing of this second meeting.
3. During these meetings;
• Sex workers learned that very little work has been done to research the levels of PTSD experienced by sex industry workers in particular those who work in the dangerous street level environment. Some sex workers had been on the street for more than 30 years and had endured and witnessed unimaginable violence and hardship.
• Sex workers expressed that this environment was akin to a war zone and that the levels of PTSD affecting us could be compared to those affecting soldiers who have served in a war zone, Vietnam war veteran’s or holocaust survivors.
War Zone
1: a zone in which belligerents are waging war; broadly: an area marked by extreme violence
2: a designated area within which rights of neutrals are not respected by a belligerent nation in time of war.
• Sex workers learned how the children of trauma survivors or the children of holocaust survivors show a distinct set of symptoms including engaging in high risk behavior/ addiction and noted that trauma on these levels for this extended period of time will affect generations of people for years to come.
• Sex Workers acknowledged that the residential schools disaster has had a great impact for first nation’s people and first nation’s sex workers. The group acknowledged that a strategy specific to first nation’s sex workers would be absolutely necessary.
• Sex workers identified being re traumatized or made to feel unworthy by police, service providers, social workers, nurses and many others when seeking to report violence against them, access support or find assistance.
• Sex workers now understand addiction as a symptom of or coping mechanism for post traumatic stress and as such mandatory sobriety to access services becomes harmful to those using drugs or alcohol as a coping mechanism. These barriers are seen as one of the greatest contributors to society’s failure to address these issues in a way that does not compromise people’s safety.
• Sex workers now understand that the misdiagnosis of our symptoms has lead to wide spread harm through out our community. With symptoms that can be as extreme as hallucinations and strongly resemble the symptoms of schizophrenia, many have been prescribed mind altering drugs that they do not need and in fact harm them.
• Sex Worker Support Workers expressed frustration at the gaps that currently exist in services ie, mandatory sobriety.
• Sex Worker Support Workers expressed how lack of sex worker specific programming creates problems for finding safe places for sex workers.
• Sex Worker Support Workers expressed frustration with sex workers suffering with the symptoms of PTSD and now have a greater understanding of it’s causes and effects.
• Sex Worker Support Workers now have greater understanding of complex PTSD and it’s symptoms as it relates to vicarious trauma for the support workers themselves.
• Sex Worker Support Workers expressed a will to move forward together to design a strategy to raise awareness, capture best practices and fill the gaps that currently exist.
Information provided by the psychologist was in direct conflict with practices and policies of the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General. For example, PTSD was noted as being cumulative however those who experience violence over long periods of time and who access Victim Services for compensation or counselling must link their trauma to one incident at one particular time. (so,we've been raped too many times,stupid eh?)
In order to recognize PTSD among sex workers and provide them with the counselling and support they require, more research needs to be done to define the disorder among sex workers. With empirical evidence, advocacy initiatives influence policies that currently exclude our most vulnerable members from the services they desperately need;
A series of focus groups/work shops which engage all stakeholders will work to identify gaps, increase awareness of complex PTSD, increase understanding of factors contributing to PTSD amongst sex workers, and create a strategy which can be embraced by the systems responsible for caring for sex workers that ensures the problems of the past are addressed and eliminated.
we have a proposal in front of the ministry for this action now and are waiting for a response.