WHORE WARS:
The Battle for East Vancouver

This is a personal account of some of the hot issues during 1997 for Vancouver prostitutes. SWAV has had reports from members who have witnessed the police telling girls all over the east end, not just around the schools, that they have to move along. Move where? is the question no one wants to answer.

• Some context -- Valentines Day Women's Memorial March,
  Thursday, February 14, 1997

• "Pimps" and "Predators." A letter to the editor of City & Region, the Vancouver Sun (Feb. 19, 1997) .The letter was in response to news reports about the Vancouver Police Department deciding to stop charging hookers.

• Town Hall meeting in East Vancouver
  Thursday, February 27, 1997. This meeting is Federal Liberal MP Anna Teranna's idea of democratic government. She holds monthly "Town Hall" meetings on different topics and distributes the reports to members of Parliament. Her topics have included child poverty, the CBC, and various crime and neighbourhood issues, including prostitution. The report from this particular meeting will also go to the Federal-Priovincial-Territorial Working Group on Prostitution. The report is called Notes from a Roundtable Meeting with Anna Terana, MP Vancouver East on Prostitution.

• Mounted Squad out to move hookers
  Wednesday, March 6, 1997. The East Vancouver problem escalates. There were newspaper and radio reports that the mounted squad of the police are going on horseback to push the hookers six blocks away from Sir William Macdonald Elementary. Anne Drennan, spokeswoman for the VPD says that police will offer the girls "alternatives services" and if they refuse, then they will charge them.

• Update: April - June, 1997
  "In early April a member of SWAV reported seeing 11 cop cars in less than an hour. ..." There is a press release from Anna Terrana and a poster from a residents' group.

• A candlelight vigil
  For Cassandra Antoine who was brutally murdered on or about June 1, 1997. The parking lot of the Patricia Hotel.

  About the stickers...
  On a rainy grey day late February, I saw matinees of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, back to back with my sweetie -- lots of popcorn and chocolate and great inspiration for a sticker! We printed eight stickers in all with the slogans "A hooker is a person in your neighbourhood, Support your local prostitutes," and "Prostitutes use condoms, Do you?" Send us an email to order stickers.

  Print your own!
  Print whorewars.pdf on US-letter size (8.5" X 11") paper. Photocopy or offset on sticker paper (looks great on florescent colours!) and trim. (You can download Acrobat Reader free!)