This is the fourth of five parts in paNOW’s series on prostitution in Prince Albert
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Daphne* crouched by the North Saskatchewan river and gathered some water in a spoon. Even though she knew it was dirty, she needed it to cook heroin.
When the mixture was ready and the syringe was full she pulled out a mirror. She had been a full-blown junkie since she was 16. The veins in her arms and legs had long since collapsed.
She needed the mirror so she could inject the heroin into her neck.
Her growing addiction would be her greatest obstacle for escaping prostitution.
“I’d sit up for days and days and days just doing the pavement and just getting high and getting high and getting high and chasing the dragon,” she said.
To afford it she had to walk the streets as what she called a “troll stroll.”
She’d walk the same streets 20, 30 times getting tricks, to buy drugs, shoot up, then do it over and over again.
She wasn’t alone. The Prince Albert needle exchange has 530 to 550 regular users per week. This includes people from the city and the surrounding area.
Angela Di Paolo drives the PA Outreach Van helping women on the streets. She sees the drug use with her contacts.
“I think that the girls are just trying to forget everything that they’re going through,” she said. “That’s typical of substance misuse. It’s to cover up and forget everything that you’re going through.”
But the circumstances working women find themselves in vary.
For Donna Lerat, a former prostitute now working in HIV health promotion, poverty was what kept her working the streets.
“I used to say a trick a day kept the bills away,” she said.
Homelessness is another obstacle. It affects the safety of prostitutes and their ability to break the cycle.
Once someone is homeless, prostitution is one of the few careers available.
“It would be very impossible to get a job,” said Di Paolo. “Where would they phone you for the interview? How would you set your alarm to wake up for that interview? Where would you shower? Where would you launder your clothes? Where would you be meeting your basic needs? It’s impossible.”
Those with low income jobs often struggle to find affordable housing. Prince Albert’s vacancy rate was 3.9 per cent in April.
The city saw the second highest year-over-year rent increase in the province. Average rents increased by eight per cent to $817 per month. Only Yorkton was higher.
Donna Brooks is the Executive Director of the YWCA which runs the homeless shelter.
“If they want to get out of the sex trade and can’t find a place to live, they’re not getting that basic need met,” said Brooks. “If you can’t meet that, you can’t move onto anything else.
“You’re not going to be able to exit. You’re not going to be able to deal with other addictions issues because you don’t have that basic need met.”
The YWCA women’s shelter turned away 623 women due to lack of space from April 1, 2011 to March 31, 2012. They also turned away 640 children and 38 men.
Executive Director of the YWCA Donna Brooks said she sees women trade sex for temporary housing. In Saskatchewan’s winter, it becomes a necessity.
“You end up in that situation where you’re here, and you don’t know where to go, and yeah, hey this nice man, he can provide a place to stay,” she said.
“But you’re going to pay for it. And you don’t have money.”
They don’t exchange sex for money, they do it to meet their basic needs.
Daphne’s addiction, like so many others addicted to hard drugs, was so strong that she would do anything to meet that need.
She moved cities, following the strongest and cheapest drugs. For her it was LSD, heroin, and sometimes a mixture of Talwin and Ritalin, known as poor man’s heroin.
She could afford the habit by making up to $1,600 a day working the streets or committing other crimes.
“As soon as I was done shooting up I’d be out there again,” she said. “Or I’d be at a bar trying to mark somebody in. And if that didn’t work then I went to an armed robbery. And then I went to home invasions…
“I didn’t give a shit how cold it was out there. It was only 42 this last winter in December and I was out standing those corners in Regina.”
She was working in Regina when she decided to come to Prince Albert where she has family.
“My family was scared I was going to come home in a casket. And they knew that I was a junkie.
“And one day I just got up and I just said I can’t handle, my body can’t fight this anymore.
“And it gave up on me and I thought I’ve got to get home before I get put in a casket.”
Tomorrow continues the fifth part of paNOW’s five-part series on prostitution in Prince Albert.
* Daphne's name has been changed to protect her identity
With files from Brent Bosker.
news@panow.com
On Twitter: @princealbertnow @tiffcassidy @drewdesouza
See related:
– Trading Sex in Prince Albert pt. 1 – What brings women to the street.
– Trading Sex in Prince Albert pt. 2 – Portrait of a life in prostitution
– Trading Sex in PA pt. 3 – Daily game of Russian Roulette
– Trading Sex in PA pt. 5 – Healing from the scars
