‘Happy birthday whores’
INTERNATIONAL SEX WORKERS DAY, DREAMGIRLS and SWEDISH MODELS
BY BARBERELLA KARPINSKI
It’s been a busy month for sex workers but today is a day of celebration. Its International Sex Workers Day. Each year sex workers celebrate the occupation of Église Saint-Nizier in Lyon, France, on 2 June 1975 to protest police abuse and unfair laws and poor working conditions. In Germany, it is known as Hurentag (Whore’s Day). Germany has a regulated system of sex work.
Despite such French liberty, ironically only a month ago, France introduced the Swedish model.
The Swedish model is not a pop-diva that resembles Freda and Agnetha from Abba or even a tall, tanned Scandinavian Eurovision song contestant.
No, it’s something far more pernicious and a lot less sexy. It can’t even sing. It’s a legislative model of regulating sex work where clients are prosecuted for paying sex workers and sex workers have no freedom to work though they don’t get sent to jail. In April 2016, France followed Sweden, Norway and Northern Ireland, to name but a few of the countries that have introduced the Swedish model. But in NSW, there is cause for celebration today as The Brothel Enquiry of 2015/2016 has come out in favour of decriminalisation as a legislative framework where it has been in force since 1995.
Despite the international trend, Amnesty International voted to support decriminalisation as the best practice model in August 2015, at a meeting in Dublin in Southern Ireland. “Sex workers are one of the most marginalized groups in the world who in most instances face constant risk of discrimination, violence and abuse. Our global movement paved the way for adopting a policy for the protection of the human rights of sex workers which will help shape Amnesty International’s future work on this important issue,” said Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International.
The problem with the Swedish legislative model, according to pro-sex work campaigners, is that it makes sex work unsafe for workers, clients and the general public. This is because clients get paranoid, fear prosecution, and may insist on meeting in hidden locations where it’s harder to enforce safe sex and safety in general. It also makes it unlikely that convictions for assault will be enforced by “victims” meaning that the minority of clients who are in fact violent, will have impunity and be free to repeat offend.
Cameron Cox, CEO of Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP), a peer based support organisation comments: “It’s great to see common sense win through and for the NSW government to decide so emphatically to retain the current regulatory framework of decriminalised sex work in NSW. Not only does a decriminalised sex industry produce the optimal benefits for sex worker health and safety, it is also the most cost efficient and effective regulatory system available.”
According to Mr Cox, decriminalisation also enables all sex workers and sex industry operators to work with the experienced regulators of all work, such as WorkCover, Fair Work Australia, NSW Fair Trading and other relevant regulators.
SWOP further stated: “Decriminalisation is the only framework that promotes sex worker health and safety, and provides optimum outcomes for public health…Decriminalisation has the advantage of being an efficient and cost-free system of regulation. By working in similar ways to other industries, sex workers in a decriminalised environment also experience reduced stigma resulting from their occupation and better health outcomes. The report further states that the licensing model ‘would be high cost and risk creating incentives for non-compliance.’ “
Scarlet Alliance CEO, Jules Kim added, “It is a relief to see good sense has prevailed. Licensing and the re-introduction of the police as regulators would have been a significant step backwards. This is a happy occasion where the overwhelming evidence has triumphed. The response recommends that police remain in its role as enforcement of criminal law and not become regulators of the sex industry. One of the drivers behind decriminalisation of sex work NSW was the widespread police corruption in the sex industry.”
In spite of this unequivocal recommendation for decriminalisation, the abolitionist movement, in favour of the Swedish aka Scandinavian or Nordic model, also not tall Euro-pop-divas, still fights for total abolition of the sex industry, transforming workers into unemployed unwilling victims and clients into criminals to be placed in “re-education” programmes or jail for re-offenders. Given that many clients have disabilities, one could only imagine a person in a wheel chair being told in such a re-education programme that they now must stop paying the person who consensually gave them pleasure and should trawl the dating sites looking for true romance. Unfortunately true love does not resolve the practical issues of finding a sensual interlude or midnight assignation, if you are living with disability.
Fortunately Touching Base, a sex work disability friendly referral organisation does. Clients come from a wide range of backgrounds, as do workers, and programmes like Touching Base, celebrated their success at Parliament House, on May 31, with the launch of some sexy new resources about hooking up if you so desire. Their progressive organisation links workers and clients. And it just goes to show that the abolitionist rhetoric that assumes all clients to be a cross between Jack the Ripper and Ted Bundy, simply does not fit the diversity of the sex industry in NSW today. In fact, the decriminalised framework means that not only can people with intellectual, mental and physical disabilities relish in their sensual side safely, but anti-social clients can be tracked and traced by the police. If the Swedish system was introduced here, one can only imagine once happy clients clogging up the jails, courts and police stations, while real crime goes unattended.
But let’s here the other side. Altmedia received a press release about a conference that was held at RMIT on April 9 and 10 in Melbourne. National Director of the Nordic Model Australia Coalition Simone Watson has called on the Australian Government to adopt stronger laws in response to the “growing epidemic of violence to women” stating that: “At a time when violence against women is being openly acknowledged as a significant social problem, Australia must enter the 21C (I think that’s the 21st century) with a broad legislative response similar to that adopted in 1998 by Sweden with the Women’s Peace and Security Law. Australia needs new legislation that not only protects women at risk of domestic violence or workplace harassment and discrimination but also those enduring harm in the sex trade”.
Ms Watson proclaims: “Women who have survived prostitution will be pivotal in advising on these new laws if we are to achieve real equality, opportunity, security and justice for girls and women in Australia into the future”.
Sex worker groups such as Vixen from Melbourne, where the Victorian system of licensing operates, did indeed voice their opinions, protesting outside RMIT. Slogans such as “sex work is real work” expressed the mood of the protesters. Similarly, the majority of public submissions by sex workers, of all genders, supported decriminalisation. NSW government representatives listened to that overwhelming response in its decision.
The Nordic model representatives also had an opportunity to speak at the Brothel Enquiry, along with the police, Touching Base, SWOP and others, and the democratic decision based on evidence, has now been made.
And even though Ms Watson makes a valid point about domestic violence being a large problem in Australia, conflating sex work and DV confuses the issue. Working in an illegal and criminal framework of legislation can indeed be violent. It’s about context and working conditions. Similarly, this argument does not consider that DV perpetrators and victims are male, female and transgendered and that although the majority of DV survivors are women and perpetrators are men, Another Closet, ACON’s programme, gives an alternative perspective and acts as a support network for all genders and sexualities. The gendered biased approach silences this subculture. Not all gay and lesbian relationships are happy ones.
Similarly it’s time that sex work was treated as real work, though recognising that sex work requires very specific skills and just as some people are not suited to telemarketing, nursing or law, some sex workers may wish to change jobs or study, but this does not mean they are victims, it means they may be bored with their job.
People with disabilities make up an important sector of the consumer market. Abolitionist rhetoric that stereotypes clients as all mendacious and male, and all workers as female, silences this sector. As the beautifully rendered and colourful art work on display at Touching Base’s event at Parliament House illustrated, workers are diverse, able bodied and disabled, and clients are just the same.
And more news from the sex industry, following Altmedia article earlier this year on the closure of Dreamgirls, meaning many sex industry dancers and entertainers out of a job. Well it looks like us lap dancers may have to find other venues and warmer laps.
According to a press release issued by Liquor and Gaming, the business owner of Kings Cross nightclub Dreamgirls, “Michael Frank Amante, has been convicted and fined $7,000 and ordered to pay $1,500 in legal costs for his leading role in setting up and operating an illegal unlicensed bar at the club. He pleaded guilty in Downing Centre Local Court and was convicted.”
THE SALVATION ARMY
And finally, Sex worker groups are locked in a stoush battling stigma produced by charity, Salvation Army. The promotional material about a 5 year old girl who is the daughter of a sex worker and addict who self mutilates, Salvo’s claim to be based on a true story, according to the advertising copy, and is emotively and evocatively designed to elicit sympathy and donations. No real names or cases are referred to and sex worker advocates not only dispute the reality of the claim but argue that this material causes stigma and discrimination to workers and their families.
Jules Kim, CEO states: “The Salvos had agreed to work with us on a policy for future promotion and for us to hold consultations with our members for this to happen. They had also said they wouldn’t be using anything about sex work without talking to us.
We had been continuing on in good faith with the negotiations but obviously their word mean nothing because they have been using this material delivered to households around Australia during their door knock appeal with a detailed case story extrapolating on the offensive material that had been the cause of the issue in the first place. Obviously they must think sex workers aren’t part of the community and won’t see it or that it really doesn’t matter what we think. The material is STILL online.
….They were using this during the doorknock campaign during the weekend and many households in Australia received this slipped under their doors …. When it comes to sex workers, obviously the Salvos finds it acceptable to continue to lie, stigmatise and exploit us for financial gain”
In a narrative called “Becky’s Story” the copy takes the reader on a journey into the mind of a child of a sex worker. I have edited sections of self-harm out due to media guidelines about reports of self-harm: “I know my mother was a prostiture. She’d bring ‘clients” to our house and lock me in the bathroom while she did what she did. I hated that bathroom. There was no way out. The window bustered but up way too high. The toilet stinking of strangers. I hated that bathroom. …. Find a way to heal my heart. I hated the bathroom. …..The bathroom my room while mum goes to work in her room. My mother was a prostitute. She’d lock me in the bathroom. ..”
As well as not adhering to guidelines in the media industry when reporting stories about mental health, self-harm, suicide and vulnerable people, this copy futher stigmatised sex workers and their kids.
According to Cameron Cox, CEO of SWOP: “The Salvation Army has since issued an apology, saying the language included in the advertisement will not be used in future promotional materials.” In an email of May 31, Mr Cox reported that the organisation has claimed that “some direct marketing material had already been distributed – predominantly in Qld, NSW and ACT – and could not be retracted” but (they) “were however, able to retract what we could, which was 2.1 million direct marketing pieces”. Despite this claim, many people I have spoken to in Sydney have received the marketing material.
There is a big difference between the real lives of sex workers and the media representation. This is a prime example. As part of investigative research exercise, I visited a rural brothel. I remember one mother and sex worker who had been up all night working hard to pay for her family, having a loud conversation at 7 am by phone with her baby sitter, about what should go in the lunch boxes for the day and whether pig tails or plaits were best. The worker was paying a live-in child minder while she was working. The mother was a single mum working to pay both the sitter and the rent and the kid’s education.
Many sex workers who are excellent parents. SWOP sent me some comments from social media: “They reflect the level of hurt your campaign generates when sex workers feel they need to justify being a good parent simply because of their occupation”.
Another comment on social media. “Dear Salvos… As a sex worker and parent to five children, I resent the implication that my choice of employment is somehow synonymous with sub-standard parenting. Sex work is valid work, and communicating this fact to my family and friends takes ongoing effort, given the strength of tired stereotypes and assumptions that deserve no place in our community. This being the case, it is extremely disturbing that a major charitable publication would choose appeal to the public in such an uneducated, inflammatory way. I have been a regular visitor to Salvation Army opportunity shops for many years and have always trusted the Salvos name for occasional donations. This will no longer be the case.”
However the damage of increasing stigma has been done and much promotional material is being circulated and there is no way to estimate the harm.
Also the reportage of self-harm by a child also has the possibility of causing copy cat behaviour and the Salvation Army has not addressed this possible breach of guidelines. According to the Australian Press Council, revised reporting guidelines on suicide in August 2011 refer to the Mindframe National Media Initiative as a source of information for the reporting of suicide. The APC calls on the press to continue exercising care and responsibility in reporting suicide and mental illness.
Because the media has an important role to play in influencing social attitudes towards suicide and mental illness, the Salvation Army is naïve in publishing material that may cause distress to vulnerable groups that their organisation is funded to “help”. Many sex workers are fantastic parents and take on sex work as a job because it is flexible and suited to the needs of parents trying to balance home and work life. Such representations may cause problems for children of sex workers and lead to bullying at school. The Salvation Army should not only retract their material but set up a phone line to deal with any distress.
Any one experiencing distress is encouraged to call
Life Line – 131114
ACON – Phone: (02) 9206 2000, 1800 063 060
SWOP – (02) 9206 2166, 1800 622 902
