St. John's Status of Women runs the only front-line service to sex workers in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, it's called Safe Harbour Outreach Project.
We started SHOP as a pilot project in 2013, and it has been very successful. Since the introduction of the bill we have found many women have come forward with a great amount of fear and lack of understanding about the law. They are saying to us that clients are very nervous; they don't want to give screening information; they don't want to follow the normal procedures of screening that would happen for those in the sex trade to keep themselves safe.
So there is a lot of nervousness on both sides. The women are concerned and they have a lot of questions. They are very vulnerable and very much underground within our province. So trying to get to them and build trust with them and be able to hear their voices and provide services is very difficult, but we definitely have seen a greater fear for safety and that would be the predominant one: how do they keep themselves safe with this new bill?