Strip club sign near Project Devote billboard angers some Winnipeggers

Some Winnipeggersare outraged to see a billboard for a strip club placed neara sign for Project Devote, a police task force dedicated to solving Manitoba's missing and murdered women's cases.

The billboards are located across from each other along the Salter Street bridge in the city'sNorth End.

The Project Devote billboard asks for the public's help in solving the murder of Evelyn Stewart, a 25-year-old sex-trade workerwho was killed in March 1998.

• Police plead for info on 1998 murder of Evelyn Stewart in Winnipeg
• Missing and Murdered: Unsolved cases of indigenous women and girls

On the other side of the bridge is a billboard for Lipstixx, an exotic night club and sports bar on Arlington Street.

Nanette Swain, who lives in the North End, says she was surprised to see the signs positioned in such close proximity to one another.

"I don't think it makes sense to kind of advertise sex on this side. This is a whole different thing," Swain told CBC News on Thursday.

Diane Redsky, executive director of Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre Inc., a resource centre that supports and rebuilds aboriginal families in Winnipeg, says she was disgusted when she first saw the strip club sign a couple weeks ago.

"My first problem with it is that the sign on the right-hand side, when you're travelling south over the bridge, is a sign for an exotic dancer bar," she said.

"To us, because we know so much about sexual exploitation of women and girls, that is sexual exploitation of women and girls."

Swain said she already worries about the safety of her 15-year-old daughter because of the number of missing and murdered indigenous women's cases.

Redsky said advertising sex next to a Project Devote sign is not only offensive, but it undermines the work being done in the city to protect vulnerable women.

• Aboriginal women more likely to suffer violent death, RCMP says

She added that an RCMP report found that women who are most at risk of sexual exploitation are those who work at exotic night clubs.

She is calling on the owner of the strip club billboard to remove it.

"Have some respect for our community, have some respect for the work that we're trying to do in protecting our girls and our women from sexual exploitation, and immediately remove the sign," she said.