A Peers outreach worker calls the same online ad five times before anyone picks up
Peers Victoria Resources Society says a growing share of the sex workers it helps don't speak English, and it's building a program to reach them in Cantonese and Mandarin.
The Esquimalt-based group has worked with women in the sex industry for over three decades. Executive director Leigh Elliott said Peers noticed more workers moving from Vancouver to Victoria under cost-of-living pressure that started during the pandemic. When SWAN Vancouver began referring migrant workers over, staff hit a wall. "We just had no one who was really able to communicate with them," Elliott said.
The barriers go past language. Workers on student or work visas can be targeted for violence and can't call police without risking deportation, Elliott said. A Cantonese- and Mandarin-speaking outreach worker who goes by Rayray estimates a couple hundred immigrant and migrant sex workers are in the capital region, and that 95 per cent of them don't speak English fluently.
Trust comes slowly. It can take three months before a worker will talk on the phone, and Rayray said she might message someone's ad five or seven times before hearing back. When contact finally lands, workers are grateful the organization exists. She runs monthly dinners, drops off condoms and gloves, translates for nurse-practitioner appointments, and turns the group's "bad date" warning sheet into Chinese so it's actually useful.
