Rights, not Rescue: SWAP Hamilton
Sex Workers' Action Program (SWAP) Hamilton, since its inception in 2018, has supported the safety and wellbeing of Hamilton sex workers from multiple angles. Initially focusing on providing harm reduction and safer sex supplies to street-based workers, the organization has expanded to broader goals: building strategic relationships with public institutions and politicians, conducting research to support political action, and more. Jelena Vermilion founded SWAP Hamilton on an ethic of care and responsibility towards all sex workers; acting with consideration to their marginalization and towards the goals of destigmatization and decriminalization.
SWAP’s Grand Opening event for its drop-in space in 2022.
Reproductive health supplies distributed by SWAP Hamilton, 2021
When funding allows, such as in 2022-2023, SWAP has hosted a physical space for community gatherings and counseling services. During this time, SWAP also partnered with the Greater Hamilton Health Network to provide community health services at the centre free of charge. Supplementing this, the organization has distributed reproductive health supplies such as Plan B, medication to treat yeast infections, pregnancy tests, vaginal contraceptive gel, and prenatal vitamins.
Jelena Vermilion on CHCH Morning Live in 2023, discussing different areas of sex work, the need for decriminalization, and Working It: Sex Workers on the Work of Sex.
Acting as SWAP’s Executive Director, Vermilion provides businesses and organizations with professional training and public speaking engagements on sex workers’ rights. She has also given interviews and engaged with news outlets to argue for decriminalization of sex work and to promote SWAP’s work, keenly aware of the news media’s potential to influence public attitudes.
Vermilion’s media engagement coincides with changes in local media’s attitudes towards sex work/ers, as seen through what words journalists use, who they interview, and how they approach the topic. In the past five years, centering the voices of sex workers themselves in topics affecting them has become the new norm in Hamilton news media.
Cover of A Brief Introduction to FOSTA-SESTA, a zine describing how the FOSTA-SESTA bills have affected sex workers’ livelihoods and wellbeing.
A particular focus of this media engagement over the last few years has been on a recently-implemented set of bills that impact sex workers’ livelihoods—even beyond the bills’ jurisdiction. FOSTA (Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act) and SESTA (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act), brought into United States law on April 11, 2018, explicitly criminalize the online facilitation of sex trafficking, with the nominal intention of protecting its victims. In practice, this has resulted in the shutdown of online platforms, such as Backpage, used for selling sex—sometimes by traffickers, but mostly by autonomous sex workers, American and Canadian alike. As activists such as Vermilion have argued, barriers to selling sex online have resulted in sex workers moving to street-based work—which, due to the lack of privacy and screening opportunities, presents significantly more danger.
More locally, SWAP Hamilton participated in a constitutional lawsuit and charter challenge against PCEPA (Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, formerly Bill C-36), a set of Canadian laws which criminalize the communication, advertisement, and facilitation of paid sexual services. As with FOSTA-SESTA and other laws claiming to protect individuals in sexually exploitative situations, PCEPA effectively criminalizes tools and strategies used by sex workers to negotiate with clients, keep themselves and each other safe, and make autonomous professional choices.
Research Partnerships
SWAP Hamilton’s outreach includes partnerships with local community and educational institutions, such as the YWCA and McMaster University, to conduct research on the dimensions of sex workers’ marginalization and access to public services. This research has been used to inform policy recommendations and advocacy, such as a delegation to the Hamilton Police Services Board which included a set of evidence-based recommendations to better protect and support sex workers’ safety and wellbeing.
Infographic summarizing the results of McMaster Research Shop's 2024 literature review for SWAP Hamilton.
McMaster’s Office of Community Engagement and their Research Shop collaborated with SWAP Hamilton to conduct a literature review, published in 2024, of data on Canadian sex workers’ experiences with police, healthcare, and social exclusion. The review found that the well-being of sex workers was negatively affected by:
- Social stigma;
- A lack of access to nonjudgmental healthcare and social services; and
- Experiences of adverse police interactions.
To address these issues, the researchers proposed recommendations of decriminalization, anti-stigma and anti-racism training for public servants, and funding for community advocacy.
The following photographs feature four sample responses from SWAP Hamilton's 2024 photovoice research project, conducted in collaboration with YWCA Hamilton's gender-based safety audit. Jelena Vermilion and her colleague Stephanie Milliken consulted forty sex workers living outdoors in Hamilton to address the question: What makes us safe?
