Prostitution Reform Bill
Sue Bradford - Green Party
First Reading Speech
Wednesday 8 November 2000

CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY

Mr Speaker

I am honoured to stand here tonight and speak in support of Tim Barnett's Bill to decriminalise prostitution.  Not only does the purpose of this Bill fit well with the pre-existing Green Party women's policy, it is also an issue on which I've had personal involvement through my work with unemployed people and beneficiaries - and as a consequence of that experience I believe full decriminalisation of prostitution is a long overdue piece of legislation whose time has come.

I think it is wonderful that the day has arrived when we can debate this issue as mature adults in the House of Parliament and in the community.  I respect absolutely the right of each MP to vote on this Bill in accordance with their own ethics and values, but at the same time I believe that, following a thorough Select Committee examination of the issue by next year, a majority of New Zealand's elected representatives will be able to make a decision that will have a profoundly positive impact on one of the most exploited and vulnerable groups of people in our society.

Prostitution has always been a career option for some people since history began and, nothing any law has ever done has changed or will change that. Even in today's world we have examples like that of Iraq  where only  last month thirty women were beheaded in a so-called 'clean up' of prostitution and their heads left on the doorsteps of their homes.  

We might like to think that the prevailing statutes in New Zealand are a long way from that primitive sanction in Baghdad and Basra but, in fact, our current legislative approach is simply the latest incarnation of a long history of punitive attitudes and laws which extend back to at least the
Bible of the Old Testament.

It is time for us to acknowledge as a society that while some people do still believe that adultery is a sin and prostitution a crime, not all of us in Aotearoa New Zealand subscribe to any one religion any more - we are a secular state within which people of many faiths, and those with none, coexist.

And even within a dominant belief system like Christianity there are a diversity of approaches to issues like prostitution.  After all, there are some Christians who do take on board certain injunctions about love and compassion, even for those who are less fortunate than ourselves.

I see our current laws as a relic not only of Biblical attitudes towards sin, prostitution and adultery, but also as reflecting our legacy of Victorian thinking which arrived with the settler colonists, bringing with it the entrenchment of the concept that in most cases whatever men did to women in relation to sex was OK, but what women did, even as adults and of their own free will, was not. 

I have had enough of this hypocrisy, and to me the move to decriminalise prostitution is as much a feminist issue as any other.

Women - and men for that matter - who are convicted of offences relating to prostitution under the present law are stigmatised for life.  I don't believe that those who choose  to take up this work should be criminalised for that choice.

Under present law prostitutes are de facto forced into some level of the criminal subculture, with all its attendant dangers.  Health and safety are huge issues, not just because of the risk of AIDS andother STDs but also because of a range of other dangers.

Decriminalisation would mean that sex workers could enter negotiations with employers not only over health and safety issues, but also over wages and conditions generally.   Workers would be less reluctant to seek help from state employees like police, health and social workers, and I hope we will also see a consequent culture shift in terms of acceptance that prostitutes can choose the terms on which they engage in sex. 

Coercion, abuse, rape and murder should no longer be the accepted fabric of
sex workers' lives.

To those who think that somehow this Bill will increase the number of prostitutes, or make it into a career option similar to any other regular  job, I'd say that your concerns are groundless. Prostitution is a demand driven industry and operates in a self regulating marketplace. The moral stigma attached to this choice of career will always be there at   some level - all this can Bill can do is remove the criminalisation of people for a victimless offence.

I certainly don't see anyone racing out to take up this work as a consequence of this Bill, should it be passed.

However, what must go hand in hand with this legislation and with the Crimes Amendment Act which is also before Parliament is a determination by Government to deal with issues around benefits for young people aged 16 and 17. 

If we are going to abide by the worthy international obligations which say we must make it illegal for people to use prostutites under 18 years of age, then we must also create a society in which all people in that age group have access to adequate means of support.

Over the years successive Governments have removed the sickness and unemployment benefits for 16 and 17 year olds.  We must restore these - or make sure that all people of this age have fully paid work and/or access to education and training and the means to live. 

It is not good enough to continue to abandon young people to life on the streets because they don't see any other options for survival.

I'd like to thank MPs from all parties in this House who are working towards the success of this Bill, especially Tim Barnett for the initiative he has taken, and I look forward to the day women and men in this country will no longer be persecuted because of outdated and inequitable laws.

ends