Lobbying for Prostitution Reform

Prostitution reform is an issue that is up for serious consideration in the UK with a proposed bill soon to be presented before the House of Commons. Last year, New Zealand effectively legalised Prostitution under certain conditions after the passing of a Private Members Bill which I supported and actively campaigned for after being approached by the Bill's sponser to actively lobby MP's on behalf of the Bill, after it began to look like the Bill may be defeated in it's last reading through the New Zealand parliament, thanks to a very well organised and well funded anti-bill lobby group called Maxim that were funded by an amalgamation of New Zealand Church organisations.. The Bill eventually passed by one vote after the most rigorous lobbying campaign I have ever seen since the Homosexual Reform Bill was passed in the 1980's. I thought I would include some examples of the kind of lobbying material that I prepared for the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective and Tim Barnett MP on this site to give an idea of the sorts of debate that the UK parliament can expect to have over this Bill.

Tim Barnett, the Bill's sponser, gave me a list of nine of the most common questions asked of him in his capacity as sponser of the bill, and here is a sample of the nine ‘answers’ in response that I wrote for him.

(1) What does decriminalisation actually mean?

• Decriminalisation means removing the hypocritical legal barriers surrounding solicitation, procurement and brothel keeping.
• Decriminalisation means acknowledging what has been an industry in all but name only.
• Decriminalisation means removing the last of the chauvinistic, Victorian moral laws that strongly disadvantaged mainly female sex workers in favour of mainly male clients and brothel owners.
• Decriminalisation means that street workers can begin to build constructive relationships with police and state agencies enabling them to actively seek help and assistance in times of need, where currently their status under the law in effect prevents that. This would likely reduce the incidences of unreported rape, assault and coercion.
• Decriminalisation means an equal footing under the employment law allowing sex workers to claim their full entitlement of employment, health and safety, and personal security and workplace rights. Making it harder for brothel owners and ‘pimps’ to bond and traffic sex workers and controlling when sex workers enter and exit the industry and removing the unofficial rule that currently exists in the industry where a worker must sleep with any and all clients by guaranteeing workers the basic right to say No.
• Decriminalisation means that the high incidence of drug use in the sex industry in the sex industry can be properly addressed by national and local drug dependency agencies such as the needle exchange association.
• Decriminalisation means reducing the rates of sexuality transmitted diseases as the introduction of Occupational Safety and Health requirements coupled with increased competition amongst brothels makes sexual safety a top priority for brothel owners as it did in New South Wales when similar legislation was introduced.
• Decriminalisation means increased support for young Maori and pacific Island sex workers, isolated from their families and traditional support networks such as the Church, to gain easier access to agencies such as the Maori wardens.
• Decriminalisation means society accepting the fact, no matter how unpalatable, that there are men and woman in society whose occupation is directly related to satisfying the drives and desires of a significant number of their fellow citizens. And that at the very least society should recognize these people as being as much a part of their society as anyone else.

(2) Won’t it normalise prostitution?

“If we view prostitution as violence against woman, it makes no sense to legalise or decriminalise. Decriminalisation or legalising prostitution normalises prostitution, normalises practices which are human rights violations, and which in any other context would be legally actionable (sexual haressment), physical assault, rape, captivity, economic coercion) or emotionally damaging (verbal abuse).” (Melissa Farley, Prostitution Research & Education, San Francisco, Maxim Institute 2003)

Critics of the proposed bill like Miss Farley assume that such activities are just inherently part and parcel of being a sex worker and little or nothing can be done to change that. However that is something that this bill challenges by arguing that the environment which sex workers are now forced to operate in can be cleaned up, that the criminal element can be reduced, that they can regain the basic right of their bodies under the law, that safe, clean, properly monitored workplaces can be established, that drug use can be tackled, that rape and abuse can be reduced by effective relationships with the police being established, and these all these things together can do something to change the norms that far from being inherent, only exist because they are tolerated by a legal system that refuses to grant the basic protections and rights of every other workplace in New Zealand.
The proponents of this bill understand that by removing the “nudge, nudge, wink, wink” element of the industry which literally exists in dark alleys, backrooms, and abandoned playgrounds, the norms that only exist in the industry because clients and the criminal element have been able to take advantage of them, can be then properly acknowledged, challenged, and if not completely removed, then at least greatly reduced. In the process hopefully removing the kind of damaging environment that Melissa Farley describes today.