We’re looking for a fluent Japanese speaker to join our Outreach Team! You’ll meet women where they work and deliver safer sex supplies, collect samples for STBBI testing, and provide client-centered support, advocacy and case management. APPLY NOW: swanvancouver.ca/who-we-are/#careers

Our 2024–2025 Annual Report is here! This past year, we: • Expanded services beyond the Lower Mainland • Launched an Advisory Group pilot project • Diversified funding to secure programs and organizational stability • Welcomed more supporters to SWAN FULL REPORT: swanvancouver.ca/wp-content/u...

"The women who work here are not forced to do anything [...] if they want to leave, they can leave anytime." @swan-vancouver.bsky.social showed women Canadian news stories about sex work, which was often conflated with human trafficking. Here's what they said: swanvancouver.ca/resource/cur...

The Washington Post reports that the woman arrested was born into poverty in South Korea and was a sex worker for years before becoming a madam. She screened clients, workers kept half the proceeds of services and they were allowed to refuse any services. www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/...

“Despite many of the sex workers involved being Asian—a fact that greatly increases the odds of a prostitution bust being called a 'human trafficking sting'—news reports have largely refrained from trying to portray the women involved as hapless victims of sexual servitude.” - @enbrown.bsky.social

Reporters dropped the "sex slave" narrative while covering the Boston brothel sting, and Journalism Professor Elizabeth Nolan Brown says it finally cleared the air for the public to ask, What's the point? reason.com/2025/04/09/c...

"The closure of the PACE Society and the Wish Drop-In Centre leaves sex workers in Vancouver with even fewer options to turn to when they need support." via The Early Edition

How do Canada’s sex work and immigration laws affect massage parlour workers? Im/migrant women who are simply trying to earn a living face arrest, detention and deportation when police enter their workplace. Learn more: swanvancouver.ca/resources/

"Perhaps the money going to the RCMP’s new human trafficking operation would be better spent supporting organizations that worked directly with the people most likely to be victims. Organizations that work with [TFWs] for example, or migrant populations or sex workers..." tinyurl.com/y6xd4aa8

Look at the sticker my roomie picked up for me at Vancouver Dyke March & festival 🥹🌈☂️♥️ @swan-vancouver.bsky.social #sexworkiswork #vancouverpride #vancouver

Have you noticed headlines and quotes about human trafficking are getting increasingly more alarmist? They’re contributing to a moral panic and don't actually help victims. Learn more about ways to address trafficking without harming im/migrant women in sex work, at ResponsibleReporting.ca

"The closure of critical services is not a sign of individual organizational failure. Rather, it is a direct consequence of a system that prioritizes investments in policing and property development over sustained investment in community well-being [...]" theconversation.com/service-clos...

TW: Mentions of serial killer, gender-based violence " [...] the case is a searingly stark reminder of the contempt with which sex workers are often treated by the police, and the dehumanisation they face at the hands of the media, even when they’re victims of violent crimes." tinyurl.com/2w869jk7

Who is behind unfounded claims that sex trafficking spikes during large sports events? Learn about this myth’s ties to Vancouver, Calgary and racist stereotypes about massage parlour workers from Southeast Asia. SIGN UP: swanvancouver.ca/events2024/

Border officers pushed a trans woman from the Philippines to admit she was a sex worker after searching her phone. She refused, and was held for days at an Australian immigration detention centre. Sonya shared her story with Pride in Protest: open.spotify.com/episode/3oG9...

Chevranna Abdi, a Black trans woman, was outgoing, loving and a staple in the community. Her friend Monica says Abdi was beautiful inside and out. She was inspiring and supported many trans women, but that's not how journalists wrote about her. #TransDayOfVisibility www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities warned that asylum seekers and migrants with disabilities are disproportionately detained, often in correctional facilities where they may be placed in solitary if they experience a mental health crisis. www.hrw.org/news/2025/03....

‪TW: Sexual violence, police violence, racism and transphobia. A transgender woman named Sonya contacted Pride in Protest's Damien from Villawood Immigration Detention saying that she would be deported tomorrow. open.spotify.com/episode/3oG9...

Racist stereotypes are often used to portray Asian im/migrant sex workers as victims and justify inspections, enforcement, arrests and deportations. Push back against this false narrative on the #InternationalDayForTheEliminationOfRacialDiscrimination

On March 16, we remember eight people, including six Asian women, who were killed in the Atlanta spa shootings. They include a migrant supporting family in China and a single mother who tirelessly worked the overnight shift at a massage parlour. LEARN MORE: www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/03...

Joy Smith always wants you to look at posters but never wants to change policy. A UN Special Rapporteur described the TFW program as a “breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery” and called for an end to closed work permits which give employers all the power and suppress worker rights.

Migrants are being blamed for everything from the housing crisis to hospital wait times to joblessness—and it couldn’t be further from the truth. In our new video, migrants and advocates debunk the myths that Canada’s elite are using to distract and divide the rest of us.

I spoke with CBC about #Anora, solidarity with sex workers & the im/migrant women @swan-vancouver.bsky.social supports. "This is an incredible recognition for a film, whereas the women that we support [...] the work that they do is not even recognized as a job." #Oscars www.cbc.ca/player/play/...

"Workers reported that after 2013, officers became more likely to demand that they show proof of immigration status, or officers would contact the Canadian immigration control agency to check on a worker’s immigration status or turn them over to immigration control." breachmedia.ca/for-migrant-...

Backstage at the Oscars, ‘Anora’ director says sex work “has an incredible, unfair stigma applied to it.” #InternationalSexWorkersRightsDay apnews.com/video/anora-...

Keep talking about rights, workplace safety, access to healthcare and justice and repealing prostitution laws and the immigration ban on sex work. People who paint im/migrant sex workers as victims are often trying to suppress discussions about their basic rights. #InternationalSexWorkersRightsDay

Winnipeg police arrested seven men for buying sex, then presented it as a human trafficking sweep in a news release to journalists. Purchasing sexual services is NOT the same as trafficking. Let's see how local media reported the story...

“I really hope that ‘Anora’s’ success and Mikey Madison’s success mean that sex workers can play leads in their own stories. Because there are so many of us paying our way through drama school or supporting our careers through sex work. We should be first in line.” ca.news.yahoo.com/hollywood-lo...

Sook-Yin Lee speaks about the media's conflation of sex work and trafficking: "They’re completely different things, and it disables us from having a conversation about labour rights between consenting adult people and it just continues to put them in harm’s way.” tinyurl.com/54sj3f4s

Leading up to #HumanTraffickingAwarenessDay, many anti-sex work campaigners are disguising themselves as anti-trafficking heroes and asking the public to look for “signs” that someone is trafficked. But there's no evidence that says visible “signs” can indicate someone is a victim.

Will journalists seek out experts or alarmist spokespeople for National Human Trafficking Awareness Day? The first news release from a mainstream anti-trafficking organization was just posted to the national newswire, claiming trafficking is one of Canada's "fastest growing crimes."

Our workshops are back to their regular lunch slot. Join us online on March 6 and March 20. These workshops are open to journalists, the public, frontline workers and anyone hoping to learn more. Register now: swanvancouver.ca/events2024/

Two years ago, a woman in our media focus group reviewed sex work news. She was disappointed and questioned why reporters don’t consider the other aspects of workers' lives or how this job allows them to provide for their families. CBC Saskatchewan just wrote that story: www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

“…sex workers are being counted as "rescued" victims, even if the only rescue involves handcuffing them, questioning them, and giving them the phone number of some local social services group.”https://reason.com/2025/02/05/human-trafficking-sting-yields-547-arrests-but-only-1-for-human-trafficking/

Filipinos do sex work too, and it can lead to isolation from their communities because of cultural stigma. So when laws, policies and police fail to keep them safe, remember that Filipinos have always taken care of their kababayan. www.youtube.com/watch?si=fmC...

Do you have extra PPE that you’re not using? We’d love to take it out of your hands! If you have these items, you can drop them off at our office on Wednesdays. Contact us if you have a large quantity and we can arrange a pick-up in the Lower Mainland.

“Because the community that we support are within the intersections of sex work, race, gender and also potentially precarious status with immigration, or migration status, there are many different challenges they face when accessing health care in general.”

SWAN is working to bring low-barrier mobile testing to immigrant and migrant women who do indoor sex work. via @thetyee.ca thetyee.ca/News/2025/01...

天鹅祝您们蛇年吉祥 ，事事顺心，身体健康! SWAN wishes you good luck, success and good health in the Year of the Snake! SWANは皆様の幸運、成功、そして健康を祈っています！For Lunar New Year, consider giving a gift to the Asian im/migrant women we support by donating to SWAN's programs and services: swanvancouver.ca/donate/

This story is part of a series that was made possible through an award from the Lieutenant Governor of B.C. and the Jack Webster Foundation. Journalists receive up to $25,000 to research, produce and publish a project. ltgov.bc.ca/wp-content/upl…

You could have interviewed B.C. trafficking experts (Annalee Lepp, @GAATWCanada.bsky.social, Hayli Millar, Tamara O'Doherty) but you travelled for spokespeople to tell you “everywhere you look someone’s being trafficked.” Then you rode in tuk tuk saying Asian women “look like they’re 14.”

Not to give too much credit to the police, but VPD and RCMP would not participate in CTV’s human trafficking series. So journalists went out of province for a law enforcement agency that was happy to spread misinformation and talk about how emojis are evidence of trafficking.

I’m so disappointed that a whole team of journalists could not see any harm in a police ride-along where they deceived sex workers in the hopes they could get a “rescue” for the cameras. How did no one flag how problematic this is? www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/ar...

It’s hard to believe a reporter would follow police while they pose as clients to trick sex workers into meeting them, just so officers could question women about being trafficked. But CTV Vancouver found nothing unethical about this story or the actions of police: www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/ar...

Black cop is accused of trafficking his white wife - "The passenger claimed Williams, 63, was transporting Shasholka, 34, against her will, an obvious example of racial profiling and abject discrimination..." ca.news.yahoo.com/black-cop-ac...

We have new evening slots for our workshops! Learn why many police trafficking raids aren’t finding any victims and how a commonly cited report on Canadian “trafficking corridors” didn’t turn up any evidence to prove they exist. REGISTER: swanvancouver.ca/events

"Different cultural customs, language barriers, and Canada’s failures in recognizing overseas education all leave im/migrants with limited options for work – which is why sex work can be an accessible option for them." -Steph Sia for @georgiastraight www.pressreader.com/canada/the-g...

SWAN Vancouver and many of the im/migrant women we support are celebrating Lunar New Year later this month! Our Peer Program will be running activities while our Outreach Teams deliver small gifts to women leading up to January 29. Drop off donations or send $5 to swanvancouver.ca/donate

To those who travelled to explore opportunities, study, earn a living, reunite with family & make a life for themselves: You deserve safe workplaces, protection from violence and exploitation, access to healthcare & justice & community acceptance. #InternationalMigrantRightsDay

Thanks to your donations, we raised $5,165 for English Class! Your generous #GivingTuesday gifts will support the January 2025 semester of classes. If you haven't donated already, you can give a gift to SWAN this holiday season: swanvancouver.ca/donate/