A 36-year-old feminist antiviolence organization has publicly stated that it has caused harm to sex workers and wants to take responsibility for these actions.

In a letter to the sex-worker community, WAVAW's board, leadership, and staff stated that the organization produced a position paper called "Stepping out of the Binary" in 2008.

"The paper framed the sex work industry as inherently violent and oppressive," WAVAW noted. "It failed to recognize the resilience, agency, and autonomy of sex workers. It also conflated sex work with trafficking and exploitation."

The letter acknowledged that its position critiqued the sex-work industry as a whole, but wouldn't turn away sex workers who wanted access to services.

"This position is inherently flawed," WAVAW stated. "It is not possible to support individuals and also call for the abolition of their profession.

"Our service delivery and the writing we’ve put out have sent the message to members of the sex worker community and their allies that sex workers could not access our services," the letter continued. "We’re sorry for this."

WAVAW stated that it supports sex work and the rights of sex workers.

"We believe sex workers should have access to the services they need, when they need them. We are committed to changing our service delivery to meet the needs of the broader sex worker community."

WAVAW added that it will conduct an audit of its services to see where it has been inaccessible to sex workers.

"To everyone who has done the hard work of giving us feedback over the last few years, we’re sorry that we did not act sooner. We hear you. We are committed to being better."

The name WAVAW was created as an acronym for "women against violence against women".

Meanwhile, Vancouver Rape Relief & Women's Shelter continues to campaign for the abolition of prostitution.

"We understand prostitution as sexual exploitation and male violence against women," Vancouver Rape Relief & Women's Shelter states on its website. "Prostitution normalizes the subordination of women in a sexualized form. It exploits and compounds systemic inequality on the basis of sex, Aboriginality, race, poverty, age and disability. Our analysis of prostitution as harmful patriarchal institution and our commitment to abolition derive from, and reinforced by the prostituted women who call us and the members of our own collective who’ve exited prostitution."

Sex workers remembered in West End

This October will mark the 10th anniversary of the West End Sex Workers Memorial Project, which was cofounded by UBC sociologist Becki Ross and sex-workers advocate Jamie Lee Hamilton.

The idea came forward when Hamilton asked then mayoral candidates Gregor Robertson and Peter Ladner if they would support issuing a civic apology to sex workers who were forced out of the West End in 1984 when the city supported an injunction application by then attorney general Brian Smith.

That came on the heels of the city fining sex workers $2,000 in 1982 for working in the neighbourhood. 

The injunction left sex workers with no alternative but to work in more dangerous areas of Downtown South and the Downtown Eastside, leaving them far more vulnerable to predators, including Robert Pickton.

Among those who participated in early meetings of the West End Sex Workers Memorial Project were Sadie Kuehn, Scarlett Lake, Esther Shannon, Tracey Porteous, Billy Wong, Hinda Avery, Katrina Pacey, Rory Richards, Brent Granby, Rachael Sullivan, Mandy McCrae, Casson Brown, Laura McDiarmid, and the late Jim Deva and Fraser Doke. 

Eventually, the group decided that rather than seek individual redress, they would urge the city to create a memorial for West End sex workers.

Mayor Gregor Robertson never issued an apology for the city's action. But in 2016, the memorial was unveiled at the corner of Jervis and Pendrell streets.

Sex workers in the West End in the 1970s and early 1980s raised funds for the first LGBT centre at the corner of Bute and Davie streets. They also helped create the first AIDS hospice and fought a law that aimed to quarantine people with AIDS.