[Wamvan] DTES POW "Being an Addict and Working the Streets on Skid Row"

[Harsha W.]

Being an Addict and Working the Streets on Skid Row
“In Our Own Voices,” Week III
by Diane of DTES Power of Women Group

When I was about 15 years old I ran away from my parent’s home in Burnaby.
My parents were alcoholics and there was a lot of abusive behaviour and
yelling in our home.

This is common in a lot of Native homes, but I think this is because our
parents are mimicking the behaviors of abuse that they learnt in
residential schools. Residential schools were a terrible nightmare. White
people were in charge of the schools and their main purpose was to ‘beat
the Indian out of us’. It was a means of controlling Native people and
trying to subordinate us into White society. Young Native people were
ripped from their homes, beaten when we spoke our own languages, and
denied the right to our history, our culture, and the safety and wisdom of
our families. My dad used to get beat up badly in the residential school
that he was in, and so he behaved the same with us.

One night my sister and I decided we had had enough of our parents’
drinking and fighting. We jumped out of the window and took nothing except
the clothes on our back. I remember thinking: “What are we going to do and
where are we going to go?” We hitchhiked all the way from Burnaby to Main
and Hastings, the heart of the Downtown Eastside (DTES).

Once we got to Main and Hastings, we ran into two older guys who allowed
us to stay with them and introduced us to pot and alcohol. But of course,
we could not stay with them for free. We had to have sex with these two
men. They would get us drunk and then force themselves on us. Although
they took advantage of us sexually, we stayed with the two men, because we
felt it was safer than the alternative of being alone on the streets or
back in our parents’ abusive home. As with many other women fleeing
parental or partner violence, my sister and I became re-victimized as
women without homes and vulnerable in our relationships with men.

The police were often looking for us because we were reported as missing
by our family. Until we became legally recognized as adults, the police
would track us down and drag us back home, where we would get locked into
our rooms. Because the abuse did not stop at home, we kept running away.
The police never asked us why we kept running away; they just keep
dragging us back to the same situation at home that we were running from.

At the age of 16, I started hooking (working on the street as a sex
worker) in the DTES. I learnt how to talk to guys, how to ask for money,
and how much to charge. But I did not know much about safety – such as
using condoms to protect against STI’s and pregnancy. I had four abortions
while working on the street. Working the street was also very dangerous
because you never knew if you would come back alive. According to a 2001
PACE report, one-third of surveyed women in the survival sex-trade in the
DTES said they had survived an attack on their life. A guy could beat you,
rape you, or murder you. I feel lucky that I wasn’t one of serial killer
Robert Pickton’s victims though I know that I easily could have been. I
remember hearing that he was driving around the area where I was working
and I knew three of the women who were murdered on his farm.

One night a guy picked me up in his van. He grabbed me by my hair while I
was in the backseat and tried to rape me. I was screaming so loudly that
someone walking by knocked at the van door. The guy opened the back door,
pushed me out, and drove away. I never reported this incident because I
was too scared and believed that the violence committed against me was my
own fault. Also, I do not trust the police. They judge those of us who
live in the DTES, particularly the working girls. My friend who once tried
to report an incident was told by the police: “You are a hooker. What do
you expect?” Just like many other people in our society, the police
stigmatize women in the sex trade, which is exactly why men prey on
street-level sex workers as targets for violence and know that their
crimes will either not get reported or not be taken seriously.

But working the street was the only way to make enough money to support
myself and to get my own place, away from those two men. I was also
addicted to drugs by then, which I did to forget the violence of my
parent’s home and the pain of the streets. I started by snorting cocaine
and then I started smoking crack in a pipe. Doing drugs is fun at first;
it helps ease the every day pain of just wanting to end your life. But
over time, I started to realize how dangerous it was – three of my
personal friends overdosed and died. Over 4,700 injection drug users live
in this neighbourhood, and until recently, overdose deaths outstripped all
other North American cities.

It is not just the probability of overdosing that worried me, but also the
risks associated with the street-level drug trade. People are often trying
to steal your drugs. If you have a drug debt with your dealer, they show
no mercy. Women have all of the hair on their heads shaved off, are
kidnapped and tortured for days, or are pushed out of their windows. I
knew a woman who was raped all night by several different men because she
owed money to the drug dealers.

After 15 years, I realized I wanted a better life for myself and I
believed that I deserved a better life for myself. Even though I had a
drug habit and needed money to survive, I decided to get out of the
sex-trade. My boyfriend at the time helped me realize that I could get
other work and take better care of myself. So I started volunteering and
working on furthering my skills. I am proud of myself now.

I really wish my life had turned out differently, but I had few options
back then. So that no one else has to go through what I had to go through,
I believe there should be housing available for young girls so they do not
end up homeless or in an unsafe housing situation. If I had a younger
sister, I would do everything possible to prevent her from entering the
sex-trade. I believe it is important for young girls to know that the
street is disappointing and dangerous.

The government should make it easier to get on welfare and raise the
welfare rates so women do not have to work the streets to survive. Welfare
for a single person without disability is $610, made up of $375 for rent
and $235 for support. Even in the DTES average rents in slum buildings are
above $450, forcing people to rent in unsanitary housing and leaving us
hardly enough money for food. Our society should also make it easier for
people who live in the DTES to work because no one is willing to hire
people who have the DTES as their address or who have no address at all.
Finally, I think people should have more understanding and compassion
towards us. We should not be judged for who we are or what we do for
trying to support ourselves when no one else even seems to cares whether
we live or die.


Diane (not her real name) lives in the Downtown Eastside and is happy to
have a life where she can start over. She wishes others could do. She
likes the DTES Power of Women Group.

This story is part of the Downtown Eastside Power of Women “In Our Own
Voices” writing project. For more information and to read more stories,
please visit http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/author/dtes-power-women-group


-- 
Harsha Walia

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http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/author/dtes-power-women-group