Sex work.
Yes, you read that right and whether you are comfortable with it or not, it exists – and it’s not going away. In Australia, there are thousands of sex workers and many more around the world.
In many of those countries, including Australia, we are discriminated against and criminalised simply for making our own choices about our own lives.
The legislation regime in Australia is complex. In New South Wales, along with New Zealand, sex work is under full decriminalisation. NSW and New Zealand are the only two places on earth where, for the last 20 years, sex work has been fully decriminalised. This should not to be confused with the rest of Australia, where Federal and State laws either legalised or criminalised sex work.
So what IS the difference?
In July 2015, Amnesty International released their draft policy calling for the global decriminalisation of sex work. Since its release, the document has received a wave of criticism from the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) who wrote an open letter in retaliation. The CATW sought support from some human rights groups and signed on big name celebrities like Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Lena Dunham and Angela Bassett to further their cause.
Sex workers loudly denounced the CATW letter, and regarded the high profile support by these Hollywood celebrities as yet another ploy to give credence to the underlying aim of this “anti” stance. That aim is not to protect sex workers, but to garner money and power in order to bully Amnesty International into rejecting the draft policy on decriminalisation.