Skilled employment
If “sex work” is just another job, then the state should be promoting it as such, right? Julie Bindel says Nah.
Now it would appear that the New Zealand immigration service has added “sex work” (as prostitution is increasingly described) to the list of “employment skills” for those wishing to migrate. According to information on Immigration NZ’s (INZ) website, prostitution appears on the “skilled employment” list, but not the “skill shortage” list. My research on the sex trade has taken me to a number of countries around the world, including New Zealand. Its sex trade was decriminalised in 2003, and has since been hailed by pro-prostitution campaigners as the gold standard model in regulating prostitution.
The promises from the government – that decriminalisation would result in less violence, regular inspections of brothels and no increase of the sex trade – have not materialised. The opposite has happened. Trafficking of women into New Zealand into legal and illegal brothels is a serious problem, and for every licensed brothel there are, on average, four times the number that operate illegally. Violent attacks on women in the brothels are as common as ever. “The men feel even more entitled when the law tells them it is OK to buy us,” says Sabrinna Valisce, who was prostituted in New Zealand brothels both before and after decriminalisation. Under legalisation, women are still murdered by pimps and punters.
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Any government that allows the decriminalisation of pimping and sex-buying sends a message to its citizens that women are vessels for male sexual consumption. If prostitution is “work”, will states create training programmes for girls to perform the “best oral sex” for sex buyers? Instead of including prostitution as a so-called option in its immigration policies, New Zealand should investigate the harms, including sexual violence, that women in prostitution endure.
If prostitution is “sex work”, then by its own logic, rape is merely theft. The inside of a woman’s body should never be viewed as a workplace.
Or as a public utility that everyone needs and deserves “access” to.
WTF! There has been no public debate or discussion around this that I have seen. Also, when I try to follow the link to INZ it’s broken. I then went to the website and tried searching for the relevant keywords. Nothing.
Not saying it wasn’t there, but it seems to be gone now (quite rightly).
As I’ve said before, when the change was made I supported it. However, I now believe this to be a failed experiment. It has provided very little in the way of benefit to the vast majority of women involved and has continued to allow harm to occur. The biggest winners have been those running the brothels and pimping the street workers, Johns and the police, who have been able to redeploy vice staff onto other work.
I’ve never understood the argument for regulation of prostitution for two reasons: first, illegal prostitution is always going to be more profitable than legal prostitution and pimps are really good at getting away with illegal prostitution anyway, as they’ve been doing it for years. Why start paying tax and not trafficking people and protecting women from violence and not getting them addicted to drugs just because some aspects of the trade are now legal? It would be a terrible business decision. I could perhaps understand the argument if the police and courts increased their efforts to punish pimps and punters of illegal prostitutes but as Rob says, they don’t. That would be a poor business decision for the police, in fact.
Oh, and second: you know, people aren’t things. Bindel’s quote about men feeling even more entitled to women’s bodies says it all.
Its hovering on the edge of ‘gun control won’t work because there’ll still be Bad Guys With Guns.’ But good on Bindel for calling the bluff of all the apologists.