No sympathy should be wasted on these people; they are illegal entrants to Australia who are rewarded with a visa if they are caught. Portraying them as victims just doesn’t wash.

It would seem that there will always be a class of students of dubious merit are forever going to be telling women what they can and cannot do with their bodies.

When comparing Helen Pringle's article with that of Elena Jeffreys, I must say the latter displays better rational and empirical judgement.

Jeffreys states that: "If the Federal Government wants to improve the conditions of migrant sex workers, it needs to protect their rights as workers.... The health, safety and human rights of the migrant sex workers in Australia must be prioritised" and because she's more acutely aware of the issues, she's come to right conclusion. Her claims concur with the briefing paper of the Australian government (http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/CIB/2002-03/03cib28.htm)

Pringle on the other hand glorifies the miserable failure of Swedish model of prostitution, a model which is condemned by sex workers themselves and by a government report of the Netherlands.

http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/kilde/jd/rap/2004/0034/ddd/pdfv/232216-purchasing_sexual_services_in_sweden_and_the_nederlands.pdf
http://sensuellqkonsult.wordpress.com/2007/05/26/lies-about-sexwork-in-sweden/
http://www.petraostergren.com/content/blogcategory/20/38/
http://www.bayswan.org/swed/rosswed.html
http://www.bayswan.org/swed/swed_europap.html
http://www.bayswan.org/swed/nordicpros.html
http://www.bayswan.org/swed/livjessen.html

I am also flabbergasted that Ms. Pringle seems to imply that Jeffreys is "viciously defamatory" because the latter recognises that "abduction, fraud, deception" etc are acts of force. I am interested in what Ms. Pringle thinks that such things are, if not force.

Finally, I note the terrible misuse of Mill and Kant. Even as a first-year student in political theory I did not ham-fisted as this. An even casual reading makes it obvious that Mill was criticising the situation not the act. Mill's well known Harm Principle from On Liberty explicitly states the limits of government coercion. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harm_principle).

Kant, on the other hand is an interesting case. Whilst there is no doubt that he had a broomstick up his rear, his condemnation is usually of prostitutes themselves for lowering themselves. Neverthless, it is quite possible within the Kantian framework to come to a completely different conclusion than Helen Pringle's. But it does require to admit that women have the inherent dignity and worth to control their own body and to respect them for whatever decisions they make. (http://www.philosophynow.org/archive/articles/21madigan.htm).

Lev

‘When comparing Helen Pringle's article with that of Elena Jeffreys, I must say the latter displays better rational and empirical judgement.’

Really? Like this comment from Jeffreys:

‘The time has come for a new kind of response to trafficking, grounded in labour rights rather than moral hysteria.’

Nice either/or empiricism here. If you don’t agree with her, you must be a ‘moral hysteric’ or someone who doesn’t want labour rights for sex workers.

And this…

‘[Puangthong Simaplee’s] story was given under duress, after the Department of Immigration had taken her into detention, during the first phases of the pneumonia that eventually killed her.’

And how does Jeffreys know that the story was given ‘under duress’?

And this quote:

‘Even when the federal police uncovered the Thai woman's high school diploma, proudly displayed in her family home, and discovered she did not arrive in Australia until aged 21, the image endured of pre-pubescent Asian girls chained to beds in back rooms with barred windows.’

Typical nudge-nudge-wink-wink, say less and imply more. Perhaps the parents were telling the truth. Perhaps they weren’t. Selling your daughter into prostitution is not something a parent would openly boast about. Also, many women are not directly sold into prostitution but indirectly end up there through the parent’s actions – some are just sent away to the city to provide for the family and are expected to sink or swim; some parents are remunerated by an employer and then the girl is expected to work off the debt; and so on ...

I also think Pringle’s comment about Jeffreys being ‘viciously defamatory’ was fair. Jeffreys could have made all the same arguments minus the contemptuous, snide moralising – all made at Puangthong Simaplee’s expense

SGF,

When I say that Jeffrey's displays better empirical judgement I mean that what she proposes correlates with available studies (of which I provides the APH briefing paper and the several references therein as example).

The experience of Simpalee in the Immigration centre is also well known and a modicum of research will reveal it. The NSW Coroner's (Carl Milovanovich) report was particularly damning. She was in detention, being threatened with deportation, undergoing heroin withdrawal. The forensic report states that if she had been taken to hospital, she would have survived.

Basically, they failed utterly in their duty of care.

Thank you for your contribution.

For every sex worker, there has to be more than one paying customer and the number of sex workers required is a matter of supply and demand

A tiny minority of plonkers who were traded against their will are now to be used to champion 'workers rights.' Typical.

And Sweden being advanced as some sort of blueprint for community. Too funny.

That is a very cynical article.

Easier tho, to condem the cough for the cold. This issue is not really a domestic one, it speaks to the cultural and socio-political backdrop of the countries being left. And woe unto any liberal who would dare to speak the truth about foriegn cultural bias and prejudice.

Euphemisms abound.

Simply purporting to represent sex-workers does not establish expert credentials on trafficking. The mainstream sex industry has taken little interest in trafficking since 1992. Jeffreys comments exemplify such factual ignorance, for example:

“..the coroner found no evidence that Simaplee was trafficked”

The coroner was never going to “find” either way that she was trafficked, that was not his job. Even so, he was unsure if she had been trafficked and was concerned about it. Three years later I established that she had been trafficked. The coroner made a recommendation concerning trafficking victims in migration custody. He did not dismiss the trafficking issue as implied in article.

“…first phases of the pneumonia that eventually killed her”

Pneumonia was the second of two antecedent causes of death. The coroner actually found that narcotic withdrawal was the direct cause of death with malnutrition and early acute pneumonia as tertiary causes. There was also strong evidence that Simaplee had received inadequate treatment. The coroner made recommendations aimed at improving medical treatment at Villawood. There has been no hysteria surrounding her death, just facts, facts showing she died under appalling conditions. That’s what the fuss was about.

“…decriminalising the sex industry in all states”

The highest concentration of trafficking victims in this country is in Sydney where the sex industry has been decriminalised for years.

Jeffreys focuses on the Simaplee case, a case in which a 26 year old victim told immigration she had been trafficked here when she was 12, when in fact she was trafficked here when she was 21. Jeffreys makes no mention of another significant case, the case of Ning who was trafficked here when she was 14 after being sold by her father. Nings case is backed by irrefutable evidence including the filmed admissions of her father and had had wide media coverage including the Herald. Also ignored are the reported prosecutions by the Commonwealth DPP for people trafficking and the many associated victims.

Seems to me the Herald published Jeffreys piece as a wind-up.

Chris,

1) The comments regarding the coroner's role does not mean that Jeffreys made an error of fact, as you have claimed. Indeed her statement is factually true. It may fall in the category of "true but irrelevant", but nonetheless it is true.

2) Your selective quotation “…(d)ecriminalising the sex industry in all states” seems to exclude the very important boolean operative AND.

The full quotation is "Decriminalising the sex industry in all states, and protecting workers from discrimination, would improve conditions in the long term."

In other words, if the sex industry is decriminalised AND working visas were availble, what would happen to forcible trafficking?

I should not be required to inform people of the logical construction of a proposition.

3) Your comment "The highest concentration of trafficking victims in this country is in Sydney where the sex industry has been decriminalised for years" also falls under the category of "true but irrelevant". Sydney also has the highest concentration of people in Australia for years as well.

Lev, Chris. I must be missing something. What is the relevance of the this discussion?

I gather the woman was an illegal sex worker in Australia. How she was induced to come here is a matter debate. It appears it is generally agreed she wasn't physically forced, but the amount of deceit involved is the subject of considerable speculation. In any case she entered the country illegally, worked in the sex industry, became (or possibly was induced to become) addicted to heroin. Eventually she was discovered by the authorities and jailed. While in jail she died, evidently because of near criminal negligence on the part of the people charged with her care.

Chris and Pringle seem to haggling about how "virtuous" this woman was. Is this relevant to anything? Whether she came here with the intention to be a sex worker or not, I am sure she did not come here expecting to get addicted to heroin, catch pneumonia, and then die while in the care of the Australian government. If she did in fact come here with the intention of being a prostitute, does that make what happened or more to the point the failure of our society to stop it any more excusable?

Lev, I agree Jeffreys presented a much better argument. It had logical progression ending in a recommended course of action that may well address the problem. Only problem is, Australia opening up its borders to sex workers seems about as likely as the seas turning to ginger beer.

Thanks Helen for this article. Clearly the sex industry, which profits from women's bodies, and also its advocates, are not interested in the truth about sex slavery. I suppose it might make the industry look bad.