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brothels, consent, discrimination, feminism, laws, money, rants, sex industry, Sex Work, south australia, stigma, the boss, unions, work, workers rights
This is part three in my series of posts about trafficking. I previously wrote about my suspicions in regards to the portrayal of sex trafficking in the media, and the motivations of the anti trafficking industry in Peak Hour, and the negative outcomes of the trafficking hysteria in The Car Crash. This post is the answer. A green light for migrant sex workers and a red light for trafficking.
If you follow on from my original post the answer seems really obvious to me. There are many sex workers all around the world who travel or would like to travel. Just let them do it.
Let people apply for working Visa’s in Australia as a sex worker. As I have mentioned, I personally have the contact details of at least 10 sex workers currently working in China who would love to come to Australia to work in your brothel, if they could get a Visa. The barrier is that they are unable to get a working Visa as a sex worker. Not to mention the process of applying for Visa’s to enter Australia is extremely difficult because we conveniently do not translate the required documents, so people who do not speak or read English, often need a third person to help them apply for their travel documents. Some of the sex workers I referred to have considered paying a third person a lot of money to assist them in travelling to Australia to work, and some knew other workers who had done that. Obviously being in a lot of debt to the person assisting you travel or your employer does create vulnerabilities for the worker though, it can take away a some of their bargaining power and in some cases could restrict the sex workers choices. A few simple changes could allow sex workers from around the world to come to Australia willingly to work. There would be no demand for stolen or coerced non sex working Asian women in the sex industry, because lets face it while having sex slaves in place of willing workers might be slightly better for short term profits, it has got to create some serious challenges. Cut out the middle man and the demand by allowing migrant sex workers to enter and work in Australia legally and independently.
That is ofcourse if your concern is stopping trafficking, and not stopping sex work.
It might also be useful to educate all sex workers, our employers, our clients and the general community about our rights, in appropriate and useful ways. Through our peer organisations and that are supported to make sure they can outreach to all sex workers from all backgrounds making sure people know their rights. Make sure we all know what we should expect and what is not OK at work so that we are less likely to be exploited or treated badly and we know what to do or who we can get more information or support from if we do have problems at work.
Of course, where I live in South Australia that would mean giving us some rights in the first place. Decriminalise sex work, and give us our rights!
Educate the wider community, health and welfare services and the police to treat sex workers with respect. Help break down the stigma of being or seeing a sex worker, so that we can talk to people about what’s going on without fear of being judged. The discriminatory perceptions that exist about sex workers and our clients doesn’t make it easy for us to share anything openly or honestly, or to voice our concerns.
Take crimes against us seriously. Dont turn it into a witch hunt on an entire industry, or blame my choice of work, just give me the support I need and deal with the crime at hand. Create safe spaces for people to report crimes, concerns or suspicions and then treat those reports seriously, and respectfully, like you would if the crime or complaint had been committed in a restaurant.
Encourage and support our organising. In Australia, we havent got our own union, but we have our own workers rights groups and organisations. Many sex workers are members of those organisations and many many many more sex workers receive support, information or advocacy around workplace issues from these groups and organisations. They are also fighting for our workers rights at a state and national level. Strong sex worker organising reduces the risks of us being exploited at work.
Stop the police raids. Stop pushing us and our workplaces, industry, employers and clients so far underground that we can barely see the light. Change the approach and try protecting sex workers instead of scaring us. Save the raids for actual crimes.
Is it really that difficult? Want to stop slavery? Free the slaves.
Seriously, allow sex workers to travel to Australia and work in the sex industry legally, educate them on how to do that, give us rights, make sure we know our rights, create safe and supportive spaces for us or our clients to report crimes or concerns or to make complaints, treat those reports with respect and take them seriously, stop thinking and suggesting that being treated badly is part of doing sex work, support us to organise to improve our work conditions for all sex workers and make the cops protect us instead or raiding us.
Wow! I think it’s great that you are bloging and I hope you get a lot of readers! You bring up some really interesting points that I think I will try out in conversation with my friends – if we can get people talking maybe we can stop being scared of you and what your doing and try to see how and where we can work together. I have some questions but am going to read more to see if you have already answered them!
I agree with everything that you say here Jane, except possibly about allowing overseas sex workers to work here under a Visa. Is there really a shortage of workers from overseas, or if the industry was legalised and respected Australia wide, would there not be more accountability & more protection for minority ethnic nationality workers already within Australia? (I hate the word minority, as it already implies disadvantage.) If nation-wide the rules were the same, there would be far more transparency. I for one, would hate to think that a sex worker was working as a slave in any otherwise legal establishment. Specialist enforcement agencies, who know and understand your industry, rather than local councils and state police, who fulfil the role in addition to their myriad other duties, I feel may be ill equiped to deal as they should in “policing” sex work. Sorry, if I ranting on your opinion page, but wanted to express a view, but I accept that you know more about your industry than I do.
It’s funny how things develop politically, NSW laws developed out of a need to reduce police corruption and i’m sure many in South Australia and other states where illegality remains politicians would happily follow suit but it is a brave politician especially male that would bring decriminalization to the table when so many male pollies get caught. It would seem to me that you best chance is to lobby women politicians to make the step from a health & safety & women’s rights point of view but that means you have to win the hearts and minds of your sisters the hardest audience of all. Maybe Sydney is different but lately I was pleasantly surprised when vitriolic articles in newspapers regarding illegal brothels or asian girls giving natural french as the latest health threat just seem to fall flat on their face these days. Even the today tonight, a current affair have all but given up apart from the odd sexual slavery story but thankfully they seem to have genuine concern for the girl(even if just cynical ratings grabs). Even in polite society in Sydney it is not that frowned upon with often the response from women being ‘if you were a bloke why wouldn’t you’ or more bitchy ‘god a hooker would be better than that slag’ .I sometimes admit to guys and girls that i am happy to pay for sex. I never get a directly negative response even from girls although im careful who i tell and not generally shouting to the rooftops. I am impressed that as a white working girl you are very open to the asian invasion. I have been a ‘client’ forever sampling all types of women and i usually settle on slightly older & cost effective who can act like they like me. I’m single so not harming anyone and I find the chinese ladieswho are normally supporting a family the ones i get on with well with, I drive one home once a week after her shift and have another couple of good friends. I think they actually do find this strong ozzie man quite attractive and they find it easy to have sex work with those of another race as it doesn’t remind them of the stigma that exists in their soceity too. Prostitution is tricky, infidelity probably is the major fear if you scraped everything else away& perhaps the fear of competition. The health argument is just a smokescreen. Sexuality is changing & let’s face there’s no such thing as free sex even rock gods pay with their soul. Keep talking you are winning!
Jane, I so, so agree with you! Yes,it is the way. In fact, NZPC (New Zealand Prostitutes Co-operative) headed by fiery Catherine is lobbying exactly this: availability of work Visas for sex workers!
@Average John, it makes me smile – the asian sex workers you speak of being friends with have you in the palm of their hands…
Does it not strike you as hypocritical to agree with Jane’s articles citing the submissive act asian sex workers find use for and then in the same breath mention them being attracted to you as a ‘strong aussie male’? Hilarious.
Im just not quite sure what your point is but i’m guessing your use of ‘asian sex worker’ is a veiled derogatory term attempting to dehumanize a group you either don’t like or see as competition. I certainly know the pitfalls of paid sex as well as taking relationships beyond the parlour, Occasionally women want me to marry them for their visa and will handsomely pay but its not my thing unless it was actually love and we all know how tricky that is in any situation. Be cynical if you must but i find them really honest both financially and emotionally but then again i am no easy target. Good luck with your ‘submissive act’ stance how is Jane different?