Contributors: Alisha Ostberg, Hanako Rodgers, and Oluwaseun Ayodeji Osowobi Sex work and sex trafficking are concepts that are often conflated despite being separate subjects. Due to this conflation, they can carry significant social, legal, and …
Celebrating International Sex Workers’ Day: A Conversation with Our Shift Program Peer Support Worker
As the world commemorates International Sex Workers’ Day on June 2nd, a significant spotlight shines on the continued stigmatization of the sex work community in Canada. This day, rooted in a 1975 protest by sex …
National Human Trafficking Awareness Day
February 22 is marked as National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. Every year, February 22 is a day to encourage Canadians to “raise awareness of the magnitude of modern-day slavery in Canada and abroad and to …
TRANSforming Support Services
The marginalizing of people who self-identify as transgender and in sex work is dangerously compounded by the societal stigma attached to sex workers — putting people at an even greater risk of violence. Shift is committed to pushing back and here for support and advocacy.
Human Trafficking: A Sex Worker Rights & Harm Reduction Narrative
At Shift, we don’t spend a whole lot of time talking about human trafficking.
In 2014, we provided ongoing support and case management to 125 registered program clients; only a handful of these individuals had experienced trafficking. In the 8 year history of Shift, people experiencing human trafficking and other forms of sexual exploitation have remained a small minority of the individuals we support.
BBBJ’s: They Don’t Exist in a Vacuum
One day, while organizing Shift’s condom supply, I took the following photo of all of our beautifully colored flavored condoms: I wanted to post it on our blog because a) The condoms looked so adorable …
Safe Sex Doesn’t Exist in a Vacuum
One day, while organizing Shift’s condom supply, I took the following photo of all of our beautifully colored flavored condoms: I wanted to post it on our blog because a) The condoms looked so adorable …