User:Sidney Gordon/Downtown Eastside

Sex work
Vancouver has an estimated 1,000 street-based sex workers and according to police, most of them work in the DTES. They call the neighbourhood, and contiguous industrial areas near Vancouver's port, these outdoor workers, previously referred to using more stigmatizing language including "low track" workers, where they typically earn $5 to $20 for a date. Most are survival sex workers who use sex work to support their substance use; up to two thirds say they have been physically or sexually assaulted while working. Sex workers, particularly women with children, find it difficult to find housing that they can afford, and often have difficulty leaving the industry because of criminal records or addictions that make it harder to find jobs.

Although Aboriginals make up only 2% of Vancouver's population, approximately 40% of Vancouver's street-based sex workers are Indigenous. In one 2005 study, 52% of the sex workers surveyed in Vancouver were Indigenous, 96% reported having been sexually abused in childhood, and 81% reported childhood physical abuse. Some researchers and Indigenous advocacy groups have attributed the over-representation of Aboriginals in Vancouver's sex trade to transgenerational trauma, linking it to Canada's colonial history, and in particular to the cultural and individual damage caused by the residential schools, which previous generations of indigenous Canadians were forced to attend.

Displacement
After the displacements that occurred on Dupont and Davie Street, Vancouver's outdoor sex workers were pushed to the streets of the Downtown Eastside. Here they are facing more violence than ever before. Neighbourhood harassment, policing and developmental changes are all contributing factors to these conditions. Throughout all of the areas that sex work has been present, the city has been critiqued for backing up property owners to collectively harass workers. In the Downtown Eastside, these behaviours have continued to persist. A study published in 2017 containing interviews with thirty-thee sex workers addressed concerns with changes in construction, surveillance, and security measures that have pushed workers into isolated areas where they are put at greater risk of harm. The growth of new businesses in the area have also required workers to develop good relations to prevent frequent police calls. These conditions have also forced workers to rush forgo screening and negotiation processes that increase the risk of bad dates and sti contractions. This disproportionately impacted the safety of oppressed communities such as indigenous, substance dependent and transgender workers who are often restricted to this area. Over the years, this has also contributed to the many missing and murdered indigenous women and girls (MMIWG) cases, including those involved in the mass killings by serial killer Robert Pickton.