It's hard to take this article at all seriously. It's simply false equivalence to draw human trafficking with legal prostitution. The question isn't even whether children grow up with dreams of being a sex worker(although, it certainly isn't the case that absolutely no one has such aspirations). No one dreams of being a toilet cleaner, or living off the welfare state either. It's a question making the best choice for a person given a range of sub-optimal options. Even in a perfect utopia, with great shared wealth and minimal class hierarchy, some people would still choose sex work, while rather less would choose to be cleaners.

If you really want to see how to deal with sex work in a egalitarian way, Sweden, with all the problems it's introduced, is not the place to look. New Zealand is. In New Zealand, brothel workers can even sue for sexual harassment by management and win. Whereas in Sweden, if you do have to engage in survival prostitution, you can't go the police without endangering your family, who can be charged with living off the proceeds of a sex worker.

Additionally, 'trafficking' is an incredibly nebulous word. The author's meaning of the word should be better defined. Every country and NGO has a slightly different definition, which produces vastly different statistics. The ILO, for example, claims there are over 21 million people worldwide who are victims of forced labour, which would completely dwarf the trafficking statistics presented here, and vastly tip the problem away from sexual slavery. 'Trafficking' as being heavy on sexual slavery seems suspect, given the now common huge police operations based on such assumptions around major world sporting events. These always fail to turn up more than a handful of extremely tenuous cases. This is in spite of claims of thousands of women being 'trafficked' to the event's city before hand.

It should also be pointed out that 60 boys were killed by the same group that kidnapped the 200 girls in Nigeria just a couple of months before. Maybe if the world paid attention to the death of so many boys and young men in February, the girl's kidnapping would never have happened.

What happened in NZ after prostitution was decriminalized in 2003? According to the NZ Law Review Committee - “The majority of sex workers felt that the law could do little about violence that occurred.” (page 14) 35% reported in 2007 that they'd been coerced to prostitute with a given john in the past 12 months. (page 46) A majority of respondents believed decriminalization made no difference with respect to the violence of johns in prostitution – they felt that it was inevitably a part of the sex industry. (page 57) The Report noted “few” sex workers, regardless of whether they were prostituting indoors or outdoors, reported any of the incidents of violence or crimes against them to the police. (page 122) Many owners of brothels have the same exploitive contract arrangements that existed before prostitution was decriminalized. Often no written contracts or their questionable quality. (page 157) The Report is available at http://www.justice.govt.nz/prostitution-law-review-committee/publications/plrcreport/index.html

In 2006, an Auckland lawyer declared decriminalization a “disaster” which had resulted in an “explosion” of children in prostitution in Auckland and Christchurch, three murders of people in prostitution, and local businesses complaining of prostitution occurring on their premises and used condoms littering streets and doorways. (“Barrister labels prostitution law ‘a disaster’” http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3640007a11,00.html April 17, 2006

Mama Tere Strickland, a Maori street outreach worker stated that in 2005, the numbers of those prostituting on the street in Auckland have increased by 400% since decriminalization.

The New Zealand Prostitution Review Committee states that street prostitution in Auckland more than doubled in just one year, 2006-7. (page 118). “Estimates indicate that the number of street workers in Manukau City may have quadrupled since June 2003….”
Manukau City Council, Report of Manukau City Council on Street Prostitution Control available at
http://www.manukau.govt.nz/uploadedFiles/manukau.govt.nz/Publications/Plans_&_Policies/mcc-report-on-streetprostitution-aug-2005.pdf

The Trafficking in Persons Report of the US State Dept notes that New Zealand has internal trafficking of women and children for commercial sexual exploitation, and that there are instances of debt bondage and document confiscation, and women from Asia, the Czech Republic, and Brazil “working illegally” as prostitutes. OneNews (NZ) 2008 NZ a sex
trafficking destination.http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/1316907/1831498

If people consent to have sex that is nobody’s business but their own; and whether or not they agree to some kind of material exchange – which they usually do – it also none of the government’s business.

No-one dreams of being a fast-food worker, a tax accountant, a taxi-driver, or any number of jobs either, but the question is not whether people dream of doing a particular job, it’s whether they consent. Rape is already against the law, that is at it should be, and no-one is suggesting otherwise. Wendy’s article is about trying to ban consensual sex that she morally disapproves of, simple as that.

“In a society where everyone is equal, you cannot have a situation where you can buy a person's body and neither can you sell yourself.”

In a society where everyone is equal, you also cannot have a situation where anyone can buy anything from anyone else. You’re talking about a situation in which no-one could obtain any benefit from anyone else and human society would collapse, or perhaps a society of non-humans, disembodied wraiths. It might sound good in the abstract at first glance, but it’s actually anti-human.

Wendy of course doesn’t know every woman in the world who exchanges sex for material favours, and merely projects her own moral horror onto other people. Perhaps it’s right that no girl dreams of getting paid for sex. Perhaps it’s wrong. But plenty of girls dream of having a mobile phone or any number of treasures they can get with money, and the sexual nature of consensual services is not a warrant to use force and threats to try to suppress it.

It is nonsense to try to identify sex work with “slavery”. It is also false to say that sex workers sell “their body”. Yes a prostitute needs her body to provide the services she is selling, but so does a doctor, a waiter and a parliamentarian, and but we never get this absurd hyperbole of calling other services slavery – it is reserved for sex where people’s animal and irrational passions run highest.

Same with the expression “trafficked”, which suggests images of people being packed in shipping containers. Of course people who travel to work are no more being “trafficked” than employees are being trafficked when they travel to work. Employment agencies and the Department of Employment are not facilitating “human trafficking”. Its hyperbole.

Christians of course have always regarded human sexuality as sinful, dirty, loathsome, vile, repugnant and just horrible in every way. And throughout history they have always been active to try to suppress it. This article is just a novel attempt in that chronic line of intolerance backed by violence.

In any attempt to find the origin of this mysterious river of hatred, I followed the stream back up to its source in the book of Genesis.

The starting point is that God made everything, and behold, it was very good. Then there was original sin (eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil). Many Christians and Christian denominations have historically treated original sin as being intimately connected with sexs (even mentioning it is bad) even though Genesis doesn’t explicitly say the original sin was sex. Anyway next thing you know, Adam and Eve are ashamed of their nakedness. No reason why. And its downhill from then on. Everything that is not married monogamous heterosexuality is castigated and persecuted , including by killing gays and adulterers and prostitutes and even masturbators for God’s sake - literally. And can you imagine how many prostitutes have been persecuted by the Christians throughout history? But the interesting thing is, no *reason* is ever given in the Bible for this blind hatred of everything sexual. It just starts out sex-hating, intolerant and violent, and it goes on that way, and it continues sex-hating, intolerant and violent to this day up to and including Wendy.

Christians often say that non-married sex as a “distortion” of sexuality, which they define as monogamous heterosexual marriage by virgins for life. But in reality, only a tiny minority of Christians, let alone anyone else, actually complies with that concept idea of human sexuality. This is because the Christians’ theory of sexuality is wrong, which is because they’re taking a non-factual source as their guide. Yet they keep wanting to force everyone else into complying with it.

Having persecuted women for prostitution for centuries, the anti-sex brigade now want to persecute men for it. The concept of not attacking people for consensual sex never occurred to them.

And this latest form of censorious intolerance finds support in the alliance between the lemon-sucking Christians, and feminists who regard prostitution as abusive. But if women paid for sex are being exploited, it’s hard to see how women who aren’t being paid for sex can be in any better position. So it’s hard to follow their logic, but no doubt all sex should be criminalised.

Wendy’s entire argument depends on her supposition that no-one could sell sexual services voluntarily. But of course if that is true, then the law against rape is sufficient to satisfy all her concerns. The consent of the parties answers all questions of morality, and that is the end of the matter.

No doubt there’s lots of human misery in marriages. Should that be banned too? Oh that’s right, the answer is yes – but only for men!

Thank you for responding, Wendy. It's interesting that all but one of your links actually point to valid web pages. Your summaries of the contents of the links does seem suspect however.

The actual report on the 2003 ACT is available here:
http://www.justice.govt.nz/policy/commercial-property-and-regulatory/prostitution/prostitution-law-review-committee/publications/plrc-report/documents/report.pdf

It is incredibly obvious that you have either copy-pasted your criticisms from somewhere else, or have dishonestly cherry-picked from this report. The report definitely concludes that decriminalisation was an overall positive move, albeit does acknowledge that it does not magically eliminate all problems as quickly as hoped.

While it does say that that "sex workers felt that the law could do little about violence that occurred", it also says, in the *same* sentence, "though a significant minority thought that there had been an improvement since the enactment of the PRA".

Similarly, while the report does say that 35% felt they had to accept a client they didn't want, it also says that many felt this was a significant improvement from before, and more had the support of management now than previously when they refused business.

And again, while the report does highlight one respondent who feels the violence is inevitable, it also points out, on the *same* page, that 70% now feel that sex workers will be more likely to report violence to police.

It seems to me, that you are either incredibly dishonest, or you are an ideologue who is not interested in evidence.

No young boy or girl dreams of becoming a slave in a cocoa plantation, nor a child slave sewing, or busting a gut, dawn to dark, in a Asian sweat shop! In return for a meal and a place to sleep and a $7.00 co-payment!
It's almost impossible to imagine such generosity!
As for sex slaves, if there was no market, there'd be no trade!
Unfortunately, another ignored stat, is the inverse relationship between sex worker increases, and a general economic downturn!
What the country needs now, is more real education and legal work opportunities, not even more post code poverty traps!
And that can only be achieved by actually growing the economy, rather than trying to both contract it, and or sell it to the first foreigner, with a fist full of BORROWED dollars?
At least a prostitute is more honest and upfront, and fills a real need; rather than resort to weasel words, to somehow justify the unjustifiable.
And sex for sale is not all that's on the menu!
Sometimes all that is traded is a little human warmth and comfort, as a paid for service worker, just cradles a seriously disabled man in her arms, while she presses her naked body close to his?
Every person extant on the planet needs natural human warmth and comfort, and natural human affection!
I mean, there are two sides to this story, not all of which are evil, immoral or disgusting.
Finally, for evil to prosper, good men an women only need stand and do nothing!
And if you think that attacking the incomes and conditions of the most vulnerable, all while giving the well to do, in fair comparison, a virtual free ride, is okay; then you are a seriously substantial part of this very problem!
Rhrosty.

That should have been you're links were all 'invalid', not 'valid'. Only the final one worked for me.

I think I found where you copy-pasted your response from:
http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/Report%20on%20NZ%2010-29-2008.pdf
This is an ideological anti-prostitution website, founded by Melissa Farley. Farley is such a well known ideology that even the Canadian judicial system won't accept her as an expert witness because of her obvious bias. The judge's opinion of Farley's 'evidence' can be read here (From section 353):
http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2010/2010onsc4264/2010onsc4264.html

Thanks for the warning, I'll keep well clear of Sweden. And to think it used to be the home of free love. What is this world coming to?

But Come on love, what is a poor dumb girl to do.

If she can't get some bloke to look keep her, they can't all get a job in academia, or the bleeding heart industry, & there aren't enough rich people hiring domestic servants these days, to employ them all.

Then there are all those girls who find it very hard to get up in the mornings & get to work. In this line of work, they don't have to get up in the morning, or the evening either.

I have only met one call girl. She was at university with my daughter. I have no idea now, how the topic came up, but she made no bones about being a call girl to pay her way through her degree.

She reckoned it was better paying, & less time consuming than waitressing between lecturers or at night, & more pleasant. She had found she was expected to put out for every bloke who bought her a meal, or even a few drinks, & decided she might as well get paid for it. A very down to earth young lady.

My, my we are onto page two and I wasn’t expecting a comment!

I have to say that some of the comments have been less than flattering to the female of the species. For the record as a husband to two wives (not at the same time), father of three daughters and grandfather to four granddaughters (to date) the females of the species have given me great joy and I adore them all.

Hasbeen – Your last comment would categorise you as a fundamentalist Muslim that is a rev head. I gather you have no problem with Boko Haram abducting school girls.

Yuyutsu – Nice of you but no thanks!

As you the rest, it would seem enjoyment and challenge of individual physical activity rather than sport that is the big plus, to this I say good on ya. However there is also a bit of mistrust as far as the sheilas go. The general consensus is that there is a cost and risk is greater than the reward. Sorry chaps, I can’t agree with you!

The other thing is there is little support for commercial and organised advertising sold by parasites to the masses as sport. If I read you right I agree and also do not support the concept. Put simply, I believe sport is something you do for enjoyment (and cuddles) after your real job.

Spin it Jayb, say you where washing the floor and shampooing the carpet. Don’t forget to empty the tub first or you will blow it.

It would seem OLO has be infiltrated by a parasite advertiser miao520?

Very tricky , I see how one could arrive at that 80% figure, in fact it's in bold letters in this document:
http://research.icmpd.org/fileadmin/Research-Website/Publications/THB_extent/Study_extent_of_THB_final_26Nov2010.pdf
Yes, it's alleged that of the victims of trafficking detected in 11 European countries 80% in the years 2003-07 were involved in the sex trade and that the number of victims detected in the Eurozone has increased fourfold over that period of time, but..
Number of victims detected in those 11 countries:
2003, 1008 persons.
2005, 4259 persons.
2007, 4247 persons.
According to this document about 120,000 people are illegally trafficked into Europe per year:
http://www.undocumentedmigrants.eu/library/r81814_3.pdf
There's also a vast difference in the numbers of trafficked people seeking repatriation compared to claiming asylum when confronted by EU immigration authorities.
So we have to define some of these people as undocumented workers and asylum seekers who work as prostitutes, they're not all slaves.
Further muddying the waters is that problem that the EU contracts out demographic research and analysis to Anti Racist and Feminist "Think Tanks" who habitually fabricate data and inflate or skew numbers and their interpretation, even the studies I've linked are basically useless but they do add to the discussion.

Sorry last post, wrong thread!

Sorry, the qualification of the first set of figures I gave relating to victims is "Force, deceit or intimidation", I meant to include that but forgot.

It's unfortunate - for wendy4senate, at least - that the internet is so efficient in exposing blatant cherry-picking of comments and statistics.

Here's the question, followed by a load of negative stuff from various places.

>>What happened in NZ after prostitution was decriminalized in 2003?<<

According to the official review, which was alluded to but not specifically cited:

"14. Conclusion and Future Review

The PRA has been in force for five years. During that time, the sex industry has not increased in size, and many of the social evils predicted by some who opposed the decriminalisation of the sex industry have not been experienced. On the whole, the PRA has been effective in achieving its purpose, and the Committee is confident that the majority of people involved in the sex industry are better off under the PRA than they were previously."

http://www.justice.govt.nz/policy/commercial-property-and-regulatory/prostitution/prostitution-law-review-committee/publications/plrc-report/documents/report.pdf

Seems pretty clear-cut to me.

Hasbeen:
If we had a government, with enough real smarts, to make us the preferred destination for seriously self funded retirees, there'd be plenty of menial work for the less qualified female workers.
Vast tax reform and the roll-out of Govt energy projects that more than halve power prices, are part of the necessary formula!
As is a return of housing affordability, and rapid rail commuting options!
Given all are actually self funding projects; all very doable with the right mindset and financing instruments; like say, thirty year self terminating govt guaranteed bonds!
Foreign capital is great, debt laden foreign speculators are not, be they slant eyed, black, white or brindle!
And a huge and very pragmatic improvement on the self defeating ideological and incredibly unimaginative mindset, of a veritable tea party, that has all but stolen our govt, with a virtual layer cake of patently false promises; and, who's only real goal seems to be the fire sale of our income earning assets, or our economic sovereignty, or both?
Rhrosty.

I wonder if this article had been written by a socialist, if the same people responding would have commented differently. Prostitution is not a purpose for which we are created, mostly men use these women (and boys) for greed. It is largely driven by profit at the expense of people who are powerless to find a way out. Very possible to make life better for them and family. The solution recommended here is one that addresses freedom for those trapped in a secretive industry equal to slave trade, in that many girls are lured on false pretences. All sides of politics should shun inhumanity. Great reporting Wendy, trust leaders will have courage to adopt these measures ASAP.
Credit to On-Line Opinion on this one.

I have a very strong suspiciin that the trafficing aspect is dramatically overplayed to divert the discussion about prostitution into something that's a lot more clear cut for most. I've not seen any convincing evidence that a significant proportiin of sex workers inour country are there against their will (any more than a lot of workers do jobs that are not something they would ever do by preference).

The push against legal prostitution between consenting adults (and it's sister anti-porn campaigns) appear to be founded on the idea that women ar far less capable of making adult choices for themselves than men. They ignore the harm that lack of intimacy does to those who can't get it - and not everybody has access to consentual unpaid physical intimacy. Paying someone for sex may be a dodgy substitute for the intimacy between a loving couple but for some it appears to be the closest they can get.

Yes where there is evidence of actual coercion use the law to protect people from that coercion but otherwise accept that women are capable of making choices that are not your dreams or most peoples dreams for their daughter or sister. Accept that generally there are differences between the sex drives and needs on either side of the gender divide as well as a significant difference in the ease in finding a willing partner for the physical part.

R0bert

Prostitution and human trafficking cannot be separated. The official number of trafficking victims in Europe is about 23,600, according to a 2013 E.U. report, but because sex trafficking is so difficult to trace, the European Commission estimates that the official number doesn’t come close to documenting what they believe are hundreds of thousands of trafficked men, women and children in Europe, most of whom come from East European nations recently admitted to the union. The E.U. study found that human trafficking increased by 18% between 2008 and 2010 while the number of convictions for the crime fell by 13%. About 62% of all those trafficked are exploited for sexual purposes, according to European Commission data, and 68% of sex-trafficking victims were women, 17% men, 12% girls and 3% boys
The Swedish view on prostitution is that it presents a serious obstacle to
• social equality,
• gender equality and
• enjoyment of human rights

It is not a human right to purchase or get sex.
Prostitution is exploitive.
The sex trade is dehumanising.

Perhaps it might be better if the author campaigned for all brothels to be made single storey. It would keep down the f...ing overhead.

As far as paying for sex is concerned, I am reminded of this old joke:

A gentleman said to a lady:

"If I give you a million dollars will you have sex with me?"

The lady replied "Yes"

The gentleman then said "If I give you one dollar will you have sex with me?"

The Lady replied "Of course not! What do you think I am?"

The gentleman then said "We have already established that. We are now negotiating the price."

I listened to an interview on radio national, and from what I understood, the Swedish model is a failure and prostitution has simply gone underground. The Swedish model where anyone who does not conform to their ideals of sexual etiquette can be accused of rape (just ask Julian Assange) is going too far.

Saw an article a while ago on the happiest (and unhappiest) jobs in America. Not many of them are jobs that I've heard kids mention dreaming of doing.

http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6130-happiest-unhappiest-jobs.html

Wendy you can repeat your slogans endlessly but that does not actually contribute to the debate. It's a difficult area which in a world where we were all well balanced and having our financial and emotional needs met by other means could well fade away. Thats not the reality for many people.

If prostitution is exploitive then the exploitation is probably the exploitation of those who are sexually vulnerable enough to need those services more often than exploitation of those charging for the service.

Personally as long as those involved are adults and not being coerced then it seems to be none of yours or my business. Their bodies, their choice.

Making criminals of the male clients and not those offering the service reeks of a very paternalistic view of women or a dogma driven approach rather than one founded on any sense of human compassion.

R0bert

Robert,
There are basically two camps among Leftists when it come to the question of prostitution, some Feminists see prostitutes as somewhat akin to strike breakers, scabs in other words while others see it as women taking control of the means of production in the sex trade.
On slavery there's a widely vilified but nonetheless valid argument from George Fitzhugh that the slave is is freer than the worker labouring under capitalism and that a slave owning society fosters a stronger sense of community concern for the welfare of those less fortunate than that which is is found in capitalist societies.
Who's better off, the Tanzanian girl "enslaved" in the Belgian brothel who at least has a roof over her head and is eating every day or the Tanzanian girl selling herself on the free market on Hyena Square in Dar es Salaam?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UODCeqpVEEE
Unfortunately for most of the people in the world there are no good options, only bad and less bad and there's nothing Western liberalism can do for them short of re colonising the third world and taking matters in hand.
Then again, remember Gordon Of Khartoum? He met a sticky end while attempting to end slavery and human trafficking in Africa.

How about looking at all so called models of the catwalk, are they not prostituting themselves and looking for wealthy men to marry and then divorcing them just as quick to get a lot of that lovely loot, then they look for the next wealthy man, easily opening their legs, just for that lovel loot again, high class prostitutes love what they are doing, take a look at some high class prostitutes in Australia.

Just ask Donald Stirling and all the other rich old fools how that scenario plays out, eh Ojnab ;)

Wendy, by deliberately confounding consensual sex with rape, employment with slavery, work travel with human trafficking, peaceable relations with violence, sexually mature people with children, mutually beneficial transactions with exploitation, and so on, and by meeting rational objections with merely repeating your tactics, all it means is that you're knowingly dishonestly spewing hate speech.

When Jesus was asked about the woman taken in the act of adultery, did he say:
"Yeah! Good idea! Stone her!"

No he didn't Wendy, did he?

And did he say "I'm so clever, I've got an ever better idea! Let's lock up her sexual partner in a prison and sneer at him being raped while he's in there!". No he didn't, did he?

What did he say Wendy?

Jesus never said anything, there is no such person, the book you are referring to the Bible is a book of fiction, nothing more, nothing less.

Tell that to Wendy; she and her allies in intolerant bigotry are trying to use that the fictions of that religion as a base to launch real persecutions.

Gibbon said of the Christians of an earlier age - "They defended nonsense with cruelty".

That applies just as much to the contemporary alliance between the lemon-sucking sex-hating Christians and the the lemon-sucking sex-hating feminists.