Prostitution has moved indoors, which means safety for sex workers and privacy for clients. But did anyone check with the neighbours? A nother gloomy afternoon in November. The only relief comes from the glow of a nearby convenience store and, further down the street, a few perky mom-and-pop-type ethnic eateries and an insurance office. There is one bright spot on this nondescript block of Hastings Street: a string of white lights circling a brightly lit Open sign on a clear glass door that, if you were driven to enter, then to climb the meagerly carpeted red stairs, pass through the shabby office with its small Christmas tree, greet the manager, and be led into the warren of hallways and rooms beyond, would deliver you to Christine, who would be happy to explain to you how she ended up offering hand jobs for a living.
A tiny woman, she wears sheepskin-lined slippers and something that looks like a lab coat over black stretch pants and a low-cut tank top. No lipstick, no eye shadow, no makeup except giant false eyelashes on her round, friendly face. No rings, no nail polish, no earrings. Both Christine and her husband—factory workers in a big government operation in their hometown of Shanghai—came to Canada four years ago.
He eventually went back, discouraged, unable to find work. We worry about our future. Canada is a nice country. They follow the law. If you make a deal, you get a good commission. But in reality, there are now mini red-light districts everywhere, from the upscale West Side to Kingsway all the way to Abbotsford. Some have the strings of lights. On East Hastings near Boundary, a business on the ground floor of an office building advertises with a simple sign that has the business name in pink neon and the phone number in yellow.
Mangat, whom others in the business say was destroyed by the publicity, left to study nursing outside Canada. Nineteen months after she was arrested, the charges were stayed. Such arrests are usually splashed briefly in the media in breathless stories that, gosh, sex is for sale in the city, then are quickly forgotten. According to Crown counsel spokesman Neil Mackenzie, only 28 files related to operating a bawdyhouse were concluded in the last five years.
Two were found not guilty. To eliminate the pointless investigations and stayed charges, many cities are changing the way their police monitor brothels. That change is especially freighted in Vancouver for one sad reason: Robert Pickton, who murdered what are thought to be dozens of Vancouver street sex workers even while their families and other women argued in vain that a serial killer was at work.
