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Two books show how Vancouver has doggedly ignored the plight of its prostitutes.
The Pickton File Stevie Cameron Knopf 260 pages, softcover ISBN 9780676979534
Red Light Neon: A History of Vancouver's Sex Trade Daniel Francis Subway Books 192 pages, softcover ISBN 9780973667523
Many people across the country were upset with media reports earlier this year of the brutal murders of drugdependent women who sell sex from street corners in Vancouver's skid row. They did not want to read the graphic accounts of the horrific murders. They did not want to hear about the testimony in court suggesting that women's bodies were butchered and disposed of as if they were pigs.
How naive it was to anticipate anything else. For decades, Vancouver pretended not to see the open-air drug markets and curbside prostitutes in the city's Downtown Eastside neighbourhood. Police were deaf to cries for an investigation into the disappearance of the women. Federal, provincial and municipal leaders ignored pleas to help make a difference in the lives of some of the community's most damaged people.
Two recent books draw much-needed attention to those dark corners of the city. Well-known journalist Stevie Cameron, in The Pickton File, writes about her efforts to find out about events leading up to the first-degree murder trial of Robert Pickton. Author Daniel Francis, in Red Light Neon: A History of Vancouver's Sex Trade, offers an engrossing history of prostitution in Vancouver.
I was anxious to read The Pickton File. As a reporter for The Globe and Mail, I was at the Pickton trial every day and familiar with the sprawling cast of characters in the story. I had not written much about the missing women before police on February 5, 2002, raided Pickton's farm, although I reported on the announcement in 1999 of a $100,000 reward for information leading to a conviction in the missing women case. At that time, friends and family of 22 missing women believed a serial killer was stalking skid row. Vancouver police just shrugged. What could they do? They had no bodies, no crime scenes, no suspects and no tips. Reflecting the widespread cynicism toward the missing women, some suggested the reward should be offered to women who stepped forward and confirmed they were...