Activist Jean Enrique speaks in Vancouver yesterday.

Many women in desperate situations are forced into the sex trade to survive, and until poverty and addiction are addressed women will continue to have to sell their bodies.

This was the message of several international feminist activists, who were at the downtown YWCA yesterday for an event hosted by the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter.

Jean Enriquez, executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking of Women-Asia Pacific, said when other options aren’t available, some women turn to prostitution.

“Because the Philippines is one of the major suppliers of domestic workers and caregivers (abroad), there will be a lot of them displaced and they will be vulnerable to prostitution,” she said.

Young Sook Cho, president of the Centre Of Human Rights in Korea, said Vancouver plays a direct role in the trafficking and prostitution of foreign women because many of them are lured here under the guise of a better life.

METRONEWS.CA