Lynda Hansen, Brisbane
The Selling Sex in Queensland report, commissioned by the Prostitution Licensing Authority 18 months ago and independently prepared by researchers from the University of Queensland and the Queensland University of Technology, was released on June 28.
The report claimed that legislative changes made in 1992 and 1999 provided some health and safety benefits for women working in brothels but that street-based sex workers continued to be "disadvantaged in multiple ways".
Sole operators — who are allowed to legally operate from their homes under the 1992 laws — suffer more violence than brothel workers.
According to the report, 88% of street-based sex workers surveyed had been charged with prostitution-related offences, compared with only 3% of brothel workers.
More than half of all street-based workers had been bashed or raped by a client and one was murdered during the period of the survey.
Street-based sex workers were exposed to more sexually transmitted infections and, along with sole operators, engaged in more dangerous sexual practices than legal brothel workers.
While the report provided some useful information about the new "two-tiered system" in the sex industry, and it is commendable that it calls for establishing safe houses for sex workers, the report does not go far enough.
In its Gender Agenda policy statement, the Socialist Alliance calls for the repeal of "all laws against prostitution in order to end the criminalisation and victimisation of sex workers, and publicly fund comprehensive health-care, legal and personal support services, and alternative employment opportunities, for sex workers".
[Lynda Hansen is the Socialist Alliance candidate for the federal seat of Griffith.]
From Green Left Weekly, July 7, 2004.
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