Statement of Values

Last Updated: January 15, 2025

Our Mission:

Ottawa Independent Companions’ goal is to foster a sense of community among local independent sex workers and provide a warm and welcoming space to collectively organize with other professional workers in our industry. Independent sex work can be isolating. We believe that our collective power is more valuable when we work together rather than when we work alone. OIC is run entirely for-and-by sex workers ourselves.

To stay connected with each other we use a professional online private members-only platform called Slack, as our central hub for communications. This is where we connect on industry related issues, discuss OIC activities and matters, nurture social networks and support systems and cultivate safety structures. As members of OIC, we always conduct ourselves in accordance with our Statement of Values, both with our clients and with our colleagues.

Our Values

Ottawa Independent Companions’ Statement of Values was created collaboratively by the founding members of OIC and is always open for discussion and changes by our members as we grow, progress and evolve as a collective. All members must wholeheartedly agree to abide by the following:

  • Behave respectfully and conscientiously in our interactions with each other
  • Strive to support one another, reduce isolation, share information, share resources, and work collaboratively on issues that affect our day-to-day working lives
  • Encourage diversity in all forms within the collective (race, background, gender identity, ability, etc)
  • In our advertising and provision of services we do not discriminate on the basis of race
  • Respect confidentiality, privacy, and discretion as being vital for all members of this collective and our clients
  • Respect the autonomy that every provider has over their own brand, work, and protocols.
  • Recognize that OIC goes beyond an advertising platform. The advertising platform is a secondary benefit to OIC members, but not our primary goal as a collective.
  • Ottawa-based members should participate in on-going conversations about the direction of the collective, checking in on our members-only platform regularly to stay up-to-date on collective matters.
  • We stand in solidarity with other sex workers and do not publicly shame, humiliate, or comment negatively on the business practices of other providers in semi-private or public forums. For example, we do not post negatively about a member, or non-member’s website, photos, appearance, attitude, marketing, etc.
  • We freely give references to other members and non-members in the name of safety, regardless of our personal feelings for them, and we do not exhibit possessiveness or jealousy about our clients when they see other providers.

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