Sex Work in New Zealand

Auckland Council has backed a bill which could see prostitutes banned in any area of the city. The Regulation of Prostitution in Specific Places Bill was proposed by the former Manukau City Council. If the Bill is passed the Council will have the power to pass bylaws to ban sex work in any specific part of the city.

However councillors agreed that at this stage they will only use the bill to ban prostitution at the known hot spot at Hunters Corner and Manurewa.

The Bill would allow police to stop cars and make arrests without a warrant, purely on suspicion of street prostitution - and fines of up to $2,000 could be issued.

The bill has been met with opposition by the Prostitutes Collective, Family Planning and several councillors, who say it will drive sex workers underground and undo improvements set up through the Prostitutes Reform Act as set up in 2003.

Police are also not convinced of the merits of a ban and have made a submission to the Government Select Committee considering the bill pointing out that working with agencies may be a far more effective way to address the issue.

Business is slower than before, partly because of the bad economy but also, according to government officials, due to the Anti-Sex Trafficking Law, which was enacted five years ago amid great fanfare.

However, except for cosmetic changes, the lucrative sex trade is still very much around, experts say. The only difference is that since the law was enforced, the sex trade has evolved.

More visible outlets such as the one in Yeongdeungpo have taken the brunt of the law as have the once notorious neighborhoods of northern Seoul's Cheongnyangni and Mia-ri Texas, which are both scheduled for urban redevelopment.

A tell-tale sign that business was, if not booming, reasonably healthy came earlier this month when the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency announced it would transfer hundreds of police officers in southern Seoul. The move has been widely interpreted as an effort to sever ties between the police and entertainment establishments offering sex services.

Nowadays, adding to the sex-for-cash businesses, hyugae-tel (resting rooms), where customers can call up sex workers and then later join them at another venue, are expanding rapidly, while commercial sex offered online, which is harder to track, is also growing.

Still, government officials say the implementation of the law from five years ago has helped significantly reduce the scale of the sex industry.

If you look at the numbers, coming down from a 24 trillion won industry to a 14 trillion won one is a step forward, said Cho Sin-suk, an official at the Ministry of Gender Equality. According to ministry estimates, there were 269,000 active sex workers in Korea in 2007, a decline from 320,000 five years earlier.

To try to curb prostitution, Korea introduced a special law in 2007 that gave the authorities the power to deny the issuance or renewal of passports to men who had a track record of purchasing sex.

In addition, the Ministry of Justice is running an education and awareness program for men who have been prosecuted for buying sex. Last year, 17,956 men took part in the program.

One of the problems facing the police is that it is very difficult to prosecute an individual for buying sex services because of the lack of evidence, a point highlighted by an Asia Foundation study in 2006: It has become a new trend in the sex industry to use other body parts [hands] to perform sexual service without having intercourse. Up to now, the Korean courts have made different decisions on whether to regard this as sex trade or not, the study said.

A police officer who declined to be named admitted that the current focus of all crackdowns is geared toward the better known red-light districts as a successful campaign is more visible to the public.

We have limited resources and there is only so much you can do, said the officer: We know that when we close the red-light districts these women will just use another venue. There is no perfect solution.

The numbers seem to reflect the reality. In 2003, the number of men arrested for buying sex services stood at 12,737 but that number is expected to reach 40,000 this year.

Eradicating one of the oldest trades is perhaps a Sisyphean challenge for the government and law enforcement agencies, a task made doubly difficult by the ingrained attitude among many men that commercial sex is not wrong.

Three years ago, in a survey of 448 males by the Korean Institute of Criminology 58.5% said they had experienced buying sex at least once. In recent surveys conducted by the Ministry of Gender Equality that number still hovers around the 50% mark.

You can't put a plug on sexual desire. People who look like they never would buy sex suddenly go wild once they get some alcohol in their system, said a salon-owner: This is almost a recession-proof business.

What can the UK learn from New Zealand's approach to sex workers? Quite a lot, actually. On Wednesday June 25, sex workers and brothel operators mingled in parliament with a range of people – Catholic nuns, public health experts, and politicians – to mark the 5th anniversary of the decriminalisation of prostitution. Even the prime minister, Helen Clark, dropped in to pass comment on the success of giving rights to sex workers.

Throughout the day, participants heard from researchers who had been commissioned by the ministry of justice – included in the legislation was a requirement that a committee, appointed by the justice minister, be established to review the law and to assess its impact on the sex industry within five years. It was no surprise to me that these researchers found overwhelming evidence to contradict the wild claims of opponents to the Prostitution Reform Act. Opponents had claimed that, as a consequence of liberalising the law, brothels would create havoc in every neighbourhood, with thugs moving in to traffic women and children. Yet none of these claims came true.

The overwhelming response to the legislation has been positive. Police have moved from clogging courts with prosecutions for soliciting to preventing violence against sex workers. As one said: Now, if I have any trouble, I can pull out my phone and call the cops, and they will come.

We may be a small country, but we are part of the Asia-Pacific rim with its dynamic migration patterns. Motivated by claims of trafficking, immigration officials have raided brothels, seeking victims. They haven't found any.

The chair of the prostitution law review committee – a retired Police commissioner and one time vice cop – said that people were gobsmacked when he told them the committee had found that many sex workers enjoy their work. Researchers confirmed that many sex workers don't want rescuing – they want rights.

The committee concluded that the act has had a marked effect in safeguarding the human rights of sex workers and improving their occupational safety and health.

I believe the UK could reorient its laws to achieve this reality. And the sky won't fall in.

During the fifth anniversary of the legalization of prostitution in New Zealand, what has come to light are the positive feelings of sex workers who feel protected and safe under the new law.

The Prostitution Reform Act has put health and safety guidelines for prostitutes in place and according to the act, prostitutes must practice safe sex. They are also covered under employment law.

A follow up of the benefits of such an act conducted by the Justice Ministry found that 90% of sex workers were happy with the legislation. More importantly prostitutes were in a better position to bring violence and abuse to notice.

People in this business are now out in the light, there are many people and agencies who are able to help, committee chairman Paul Fitzharris said.

Prostitutes were happy that the law had enhanced their working conditions. A prostitute said: One of the biggest advantages of the law is having legal back-up. From time to time you get clients who want to have sex without protection. Generally they accept [having to wear a condom] but if they try and keep on arguing, you have some basis to tell them to leave.

A celebration is being held at Parliament today to mark the fifth anniversary of the decriminalisation of prostitution.

The day-long programme in the Beehive has been dubbed as Going all the way: an event to reflect on decriminalisation. It will involve panel discussions and will focus on the issues still affecting sex workers.

New Zealand became one of the first countries to decriminalise prostitution on this day in 2003. The new law only just passed through Parliament by 60 votes to 59, with Labour's Muslim MP Ashraf Choudhary angering many by abstaining from the final vote.

The number of sex workers in New Zealand does not appear to have increased since legislation decriminalising prostitution became law, according to a new report.

The Prostitution Law Review Committee was set up to report on the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 three to five years after the Act came into force.

Its report, published today, was based on work carried out by the Christchurch School of Medicine and Victoria University's Crime and Justice Research Centre.

The committee, chaired by former Police Assistant Commissioner Paul Fitzharris, said an accurate count of the number of sex workers was difficult. However, a comparison between the number of sex workers in Christchurch in 1999, before decriminalisation, and 2006 - after the Act was passed - showed the total had stayed approximately the same.

Around 93% of sex workers cited money as the reason for getting into and staying in the sex industry. The most significant barriers to exiting are loss of income, reluctance to lose the flexible working hours available in the sex industry and the camaraderie and sense of belonging that some sex workers describe .

The committee said a Christchurch School of Medicine survey of sex workers found that more than 90% felt they had legal rights under the Act. More than 60% felt they were more able to refuse to provide commercial sexual services to a particular client since the enactment of the law.

Prior to the Act, the illicit status of the sex industry meant sex workers were open to coercion and exploitation by managers, pimps and clients. Research indicated there had been "some improvement" in employment conditions but this is by no means universal.

Generally, brothels which had treated their workers fairly before the Act continued to do so while those that did not continued to have unfair management practices, it said.

Other findings included that the majority of sex workers felt the Act could do little about violence that occurred, although a significant majority felt there had been an improvement since the passing of the Act.

Other recommendations included that the Government provide additional funding to the Ministry of Health to enable medical officers of health to carry out regular inspections of brothels.

It also said the Government should provide funding so that non-government organisations could provide services to the industry, including assistance with exiting for those that wanted to get out of sex work.

Associate Justice Minister Lianne Dalziel said the report showed the Act had had a positive effect on the health and safety of sex workers and had not led to an increase in numbers of sex workers as predicted by critics of the law reform.