Monica Forrester speaks outside the Regent Park Community Health Centre. All photos via the author.
On Friday, over a hundred people gathered in Toronto’s downtown east end and listened as Monica Forrester—a transgendered woman of colour who has been working as a sex worker for 25 years—remembered a friend. “As we come together to rally, remember Carolyn Connolly,” she said. “Murdered at Sherbourne and Dundas and the killer still is walking among us, without any justice for a friend, a sex worker, she is very much missed here in Toronto.”
The attentive crowd was gathered at the Regent Park Community Health Centre for the “Reclaim the Streets!” rally and march, mere blocks from where Connolly, an aboriginal woman, was found dead in an alleyway in 2008. Since 2009, Reclaim the Streets! has marched in response to her murder, giving a voice to an epidemic of violence that has seen 1,181 documented cases of missing or murdered aboriginal women across Canada over the last 30 years.
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This year’s march couldn’t come at a better time, as Toronto City Hall is scheduled to vote Tuesday on two proposed 24-hour drop-in facilities for women. The first of their kind in Toronto, the facilities would provide round-the-clock safe spaces for street-involved women, members of the LGBTQ community, sex workers, and women fleeing violence. They would offer services such as counseling, referrals, healthy food, laundry, and showers. Advocates say it’s a service that’s direly needed in Toronto, where shelters remain at or near capacity—often due to a lack of beds—can’t cater to women who make their money overnight.
Danielle Waters, right, and another marcher hold signs supporting trans rights during the Reclaim the Streets! march.
“I think it’s really important, that we need more shelter space for everybody in this city,” said one marcher, Danielle Waters, who identified herself as a queer trans woman. “Because there are way too many people that live on the margins, who are homeless, who don’t have safe spaces, even within the shelter spaces we have.”
Speaking with Monica Forrester later, she tells me that she has personally experienced violence and police brutality during her time as a sex worker. She says she didn’t report a sexual assault for years, fearing that because of her job, she would be treated as if it was somehow her fault. She agrees that a low-barrier facility is something Toronto desperately needs. “There’s nothing in Toronto that has anything at night for sex workers that are fleeing any form of violence,” she says. “This is very much needed in such a big city with various areas of the city in which sex workers work.”
Women hold banners and march through the downtown east.
Last week the federal government also unveiled its newly proposed prostitution legislation,Bill C-36, which aims to limit sex workers’ ability to advertise, pay for security, or even work in many areas. Friday’s rally and march created a sounding board for women’s cries of warning, as many fear these laws will force sex workers further underground, facilitating an even more unsafe working environment.
Given this proposed legislation and the working climate it will encourage if exercised, drop-in facilities like the ones proposed in Toronto may become more needed than ever. Being open 24 hours could even stand as a precedent that other Canadian cities might be inclined to adopt.
Toronto is being given an opportunity to step up and provide a means of safety for women. Perhaps after all the publicity the city has received for its trainwreck mayor, it might be nice to get a little attention for doing something positive.
After all, Forrester says, sex work is not going away. “This is a global profession… Anyone that does sex work will navigate the system to make money,” she says. “The sad reality is, what is the outcomes of that? How many more sexual assaults? How many more missing women? How many more deaths?”
