Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all of our witnesses for being here today. We very much appreciate your time and efforts. Thank you also for the work that you do in your communities and in your cities, working with women who are prostituted.
My first question is for PEERS Victoria Resource Society; it has to do with screening. You talked about this, and we've been talking about it this week in our meetings. You mentioned that sex workers need to be able to freely communicate in order to establish security. But we have heard from other witnesses, even just on this panel, that screening is really a misnomer and that it doesn't matter how much screening you do.
Yesterday we heard from a woman who was trafficked who said that she thought the guy she was in a car with was safe and fine, until he pulled the crowbar out from under the seat, and then she didn't remember anything for the next two days about that.
I'm wondering how to reconcile all of this, everything from using the terms “prostituted women” to “sex workers”, and you called it “escorting”. Is this really possible? Is it really possible, and are you just a member of a small group of women who are lucky enough to practise in a relatively safer environment?