The recent deaths of two escorts in New Westminster reinforce calls for legal reforms to protect the safety of sex workers, according to Vancouver lawyer Katrina Pacey.

“The tragedy that…we hear most commonly is of course violence against street-based sex workers, and what this situation tells us is that there are vulnerabilities when women are working indoors alone,” Pacey, Pivot Legal Society’s litigation director, told the Georgia Straight by phone.

“If that’s what’s happening here…what we need to do is really look at those situations and say, ‘Okay, how can we support sex workers to be in the safest possible circumstance so this doesn’t happen again?’ ”

New Westminster police and the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team issued a public warning on August 26, following two suspicious deaths in the same apartment complex in the 200 block of 11th Street.

Jill Lyons, 45, was found dead in her apartment on August 12. An autopsy showed inconclusive results, according to New Westminster police, and toxicology results are pending. Karen Nabors, 48, was found dead in the same building on August 25. Police said in a statement that “evidence retrieved supports that foul play may be a factor” in Nabors’s death.

“IHIT’s priority is to reach out to all escorts and remind them of the risks involved and to take extra precaution as it is unclear at this point why, or even if, they are in fact being targeted,” Sgt. Jennifer Pound said in a news release.

Pivot, along with PACE Society and Downtown Eastside Sex Workers United Against Violence, is an intervener in a Supreme Court of Canada case on the country’s prostitution laws.

“What the case became about is the fact that working indoors, working together, working with others, is really the safest possible way, and the laws prevent that,” Pacey said of the case.

“I think sex workers know best how to be safe and how to work safely, and…what the plaintiffs are asking for in the litigation is for the laws to essentially get off their backs and allow them the freedom to set up safe working conditions for themselves.”

Those safety measures, said Pacey, include hiring security, working with other sex workers, and establishing referral networks.

“I don’t know what these women’s experience was, but I know for many sex workers, they feel they can’t call the police if they know that they’re in danger or if they feel they’re in danger, because they risk both criminalization or arrest for working indoors, as well as the possibility of eviction and everything else that might flow from being involved in prostitution in an indoor venue,” she added.