The very same grassroots community of women who have been advocating for a public inquiry into the deaths and disappearances of women in the Downtown Eastside for over two decades are now denouncing the B.C. Missing Women's Commission of Inquiry as an insult to the women of this Vancouver community.
The verdict is in: Insite saves lives. A study by UBC scientists at the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS adds to the collection of data already showing that North America's first medically supervised safer injection facility saves lives and money.
The study, published last month in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet, concludes that the opening of Insite in 2003 was associated with a 35 per cent reduction in overdose deaths in the neighbourhood surrounding the facility. This reduction translates into real lives saved at no expense whatsoever to the federal government.
When it comes to considering the missing and murder women from the Downtown Eastside, these are the concerns:
• Why did so many things go wrong?
• A lack of trust for police still keeps women from reporting violence.
• What can we learn about solicitation laws and why they don't work?
• Jurisdictional issues need to be addressed.
• A necessary evaluation of any public program is needed.
• What can we learn about marginalized women and men?
• What do policymakers need to understand and learn?
• It's not about pointing fingers.
• Why are sex workers treated differently under the law and their safety not taken seriously?
