“The world would
is a dangerous place,
not because of
those who do evil,
but because of
those who look on
and do nothing.
-Albert Einstein
This quote opens the “Who Cares”
documentary, which cleverly introduces the notion of oppressive forces that act
within society to victimize sex workers. The documentary depicts the lives of
two Edmonton sex workers as well as the job that Project KARE provides. Project
KARE is a program that is operated by the RCMP, which investigates the unsolved
murders of women involved in the sex trade. This program registers people that
live at risk lifestyles in order to identify the remains of unknown victims.
This program that Shawna Hohendoorf mentioned arose from
the numerous human remains that were found in Edmonton in 2003.
To
summarize, the documentary follows the lives of two sex workers, Shelley and
Courtney as they express their experiences and demonstrate their everyday
interactions with people. As this is a well-formed documentary, the two main
individuals of focus are Caucasian women and in no part does it mention Indigenous
women even though they are predominant number within that work field.
I believe that if you have the chance to
document about an enormous issue regarding the abuse and homicides of sexual
workers, then it should be essential to include the majority ethnic group that
occupies the sex work field. As Shawna mentioned, most of the women that go to
Kindred House are Indigenous so they should not be omitted from this
documentary.
Furthermore, as Canada does have
societal issues with the attacks on missing and murdered indigenous women and
secondly, with the ignorance of these occurrences, this would have been an
ideal way to generate attention towards the issue at hand which could enforce
the local police departments to take action. Nonetheless, I do not want to
exclude the abuse of other women, I just feel that it is important to represent
everyone equally.
Additionally, the documentary depicted
how the judicial system disregards sex workers, as there was a case of a real
estate agent who violently assaulted and raped three sex workers in 2009. His
bail was set out to be $60, 000 even though the three women testified against
him in the preliminary hearing. He was released back into society while awaiting
trial, even though he was clearly a danger towards sex workers. With this, a lack of protection for sex
workers from the legal system was unethically endorsed.
As Shawna mentioned, sex workers are
stigmatized and oppressed due to their work field with no intention of helping
and understanding their lifestyle. It is shown in this documentary as they
experience prejudice every day. Likewise, the KARE project is beneficial for
the police to find the identity of murdered women but the program does not actively
keep these women safe. The RCMP, local police and the government need to come
up with an approach that deters the assaults and homicides of sex workers in
the first place as well as aid the complications that they face. Sex work is
always going to be around therefore, in order to create a safe environment for
women, it is necessary to establish a change in the current laws held today, as
well, it is critical to demonstrate an overall social acceptance and support
for these undermined women.
Your summary and critique of the "Who Cares" documentary made me want to watch the film in the near future! I think that it would be beneficial to see the specific treatment of sex workers in Edmonton firsthand as it is often harder to grasp the seriousness/immediacy of the larger more general concepts of oppression we talk about in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it is very disappointing to hear that the documentary only features two caucasian street sex workers; bodies that are obviously unrepresentative of the majority of sex workers in Edmonton. As Shawna pointed out to us during her lecture, roughly 97% percent of women who are sex workers in the city are Indigenous women. This makes me think that the "casting" of this film was another deliberate act of erasure of Indigenous women's problems.
Finally, I want to elaborate on your point about preventative versus "after-math" or "garage control" initiatives. While KARE is an important and useful project, I also think that there are still some deeply rooted problems within it. While Kare allows the police to identify bodies and even find leads, it still accepts and perpetuates the notion that the murders and violence acted upon sex workers bodies are inevitable "consequences" of the job. There is an implicit understanding that sex workers will eventually suffer violence and that instead of attempting to prevent this from happening in the first place, the best that can be done is to "deal with it" properly in the after math stages.
Michelle, I really liked that you mentioned that although Project K.A.R.E is a step in the right direction for missing and murdered aboriginal women, I agree that it is far from a prevention strategy for keeping these women safe before they become missing or murdered. For me, what I found problematic in the documentary was the dialect that the police officers used during their interactions with these women. Despite the officers best intentions, asking for DNA and contact information sends the message that sexual assault and murder are simply “workplace hazards.” While Project K.A.R.E. is extremely beneficial for aiding police in solving crimes and finding missing sex workers, without prevention strategies to keep these women safe, the list of missing and murdered women will continue to grow. While this may seem a little extreme, and while I admire what they are trying to do, I agree that this program does little in the way of helping to deter the assaults and homicides that this group of women experience.
ReplyDeleteOn the RCMP web page, they list harm reduction and education as one thing that this program implements as a strategy. However, I would like to know if they are also doing more in the way of educating Johns other than just a one-day “John School.” Furthermore, I feel as if this project could have the potential to do so much more if they added support services for women who want to leave sex work, drug rehabilitation programs, and much more in the way of preventing these heinous crimes from continuing on in this community.