My Baby Walked the Women's March... Friday, February 15, 2008 at 10:11am

So.. for Valentine's Day Abby and I walked the Missing Women's Memorial March.. well a portion of it.. We had to leave Carissa on her own to finish it off due to parking and swollen boob/hungry babe issues.FYI every year on February 14th hundreds of people gather at Carnegie Hall on Main and Hastings to take the time to talk, mourn and remember the missing women of Vancouver's DTES. It is a day of solidarity for women, their loved ones, residents of the DTES, and for me it signifies a day for Sex Workers to have a bit of a voice. The quilt, patches made by friends and family to signify each of the missing women is held in a circle in the full intersection of Main and Hastings and the Women Warrior song is chanted.. Elders are there to watch over the ceremony and I was told yesterday, by a woman who has attended this march every year since it started, that the circle is to provide healing to the family members who have outlived the women who have gone missing or where found murdered on the Pickton farm...Stopping at spots where women were last seen.. it's a bit eery, it's terribly sad... it's a beautiful thing to see hundreds of people take the time out to remember.. it's sad. I cried a little bit.. I cried for my sisters, for my mom, friends and for my daughter... Anyone can end up working on those streets in the sex trade.. it doesn't just happen to THOSE people.. with poverty taking over Vancouver and recruiters scouting out elementary schools, restaurants and even hospitals.. we are all at risk. It's scary. It's sad.. and it's so unsafe. The laws in Canada are not friendly to sex workers.. forcing them to work in unsafe conditions, places.. forcing men and women into the cars and arms of predators like Pickton..What got me was I didn't see or hear anything about this on the news.. maybe I didn't watch long enough.. but when "how much money the US spends on Valentine's Day" came on our local news before any word of this annual march that took over the streets of the DTES I got angry and changed the channels.. one day really isn't enough.. the hub-bub around safety in the DTES should never die.. we should stop turning our heads or cranking up the music to ignore the poverty that is only kilometors from where we live... it made me a little sick to not hear anything. Awareness people! Sure the march stopped traffic in the afternoon and people popped their heads out the window to see what all the noise and singing was about.. and it's a start if they investigate further but when you can't catch it in the first 20 minutes of the news where are you going to learn more? I know where.. but that's because I'm educated in parts of this issue... ahh forget me.. I'm just frustrated! Anyway, my activism has diminished over the years, due to working two jobs.. and now having my babe in my life... but it was important to me to take at least the day to remember that just because I'm not as involved the issues have not dissapeared... with the Olympics coming.. ahh.. I can't even talk about that! It was important to me to bring Abby because I don't want her to be ignorant to what's going on around her.. I'm not saying I'm taking her for Sunday drives in the DTES as soon as she's old enough to talk but I want her to feel empowered as an individual and I hope she grows up wanting to empower other people as well.She was the youngest marcher there.. with her little black skull hat... she liked the singing and the noise.. I like to think she's aware!