It's very important to first point out that the data regarding the justice system is very incomplete, because most sex workers are not in those files. When we are caught up in a criminal investigation, we will not disclose facts about ourselves if we don't have to, so that is very limited.
What we see at Stella, in the context that we make, is that sex workers are incredibly diverse. We have women of all ages. It is completely false to think that most sex workers are young. At Stella, the majority of the women we see are in their thirties. We see a lot of women in their twenties and forties. We see women in their fifties, sixties and much older, as well, who have been working in the sex industry for a long time, or who are starting to work in the sex industry.
We see a large proportion of trans women and non-binary people. We don't serve men, but we know that they're also very present in the sex industry. They're not seen in the statistics so much, because there isn't a big social project to see men as victims of sexual exploitation and to eradicate them. There's not as much police enforcement that directly targets men, so we don't see them as much in the stats, but they do exist in our community.
Indigenous women—