Prostitution in New Zealand
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Currently prostitution and brothel keeping are legal in New Zealand, provided the prostitute is 18 or over.
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[edit] History and current situation
Traditionally, advertising the sale of sex ('soliciting') has been illegal, although the actual sale of sex itself was not proscribed. It was also illegal to run a brothel, and to live from the earnings of prostitution.
Prostitution still went on, although because of the laws on soliciting, it usually maintained a thin pretense of being something else. Prostitutes advertised their services as escorts. Brothels advertised themselves as massage parlours. Prostitutes are available from the same places as in most countries.
Street workers, typically on Auckland's K-road, Wellington's Vivian Street, and Christchurch's Manchester Street, are available for services and can either be picked up in a car, or the sexual act can be completed in a secluded place on the street. This is obviously the least secure location.
Prostitutes and escort agencies advertise in the newspapers, on television and on billboards. Motorcades of foreign dignitaries have been known to have been given elaborate routes to traverse Auckland without passing such advertising.
Brothels exist, sometimes attached to a strip club, as in Dunedin's Cleopatra bar, but often they are stand alone facilities. These are not advertised from the outside, and often serve as the homes of the prostitutes working there.
There is some high-class prostitution in New Zealand, involving women working from mobile phones.
The New Zealand Prostitutes' Collective is an organisation that supports the rights of prostitutes in New Zealand.
In July 2006 a police officer in Auckland was reprimanded for moonlighting as a prostitute without permission, but was allowed to keep her job as she had committed no crime.#1
In September 2006 a report [1]by the Otago University's Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences for the Review Committee indicated that the number of prostitutes plying their trade on the streets,since the changes of the Prostitution Reform Act 2003, has remained the same or reduced in some cases.
[edit] Prostitution Reform Act 2003
On 25 June 2003, a bill was passed in Parliament that legalised prostitution and brothel-keeping. Brothel keepers must apply for an operator's license although this is formality unless the person has a serious criminal conviction.
This bill passed narrowly; of 120 MPs, 60 voted for it, 59 against, and one politician, Labour's Ashraf Choudhary, the country's only Muslim MP, abstained. The result was a surprise as most commentators had expected the bill to narrowly fail. An impassioned speech to parliament by Georgina Beyer, the world's first transsexual member of parliament, was believed by many observers to have persuaded several wavering MP's, possibly including Mr. Choudhary, to change their votes at the last minute. The vote was a conscience vote, meaning that MPs voted according to their personal beliefs rather than following a party policy.
After the passage of the Prostitution Reform Act, the Maxim Institute and other conservative Christian organisations tried to gain an appropriate number of signatures for a citizens initiated referendum under New Zealand's Citizens Initiated Referendum Act 1993. Although it was allowed an extension, anti-bill groups fell well short of gaining the number of authenticated signatures required. In the current 48th New Zealand Parliament, the Prostitution Law Reform (Manukau City Council) Amendment Bill led to hearings before a select committee, but failed to pass its second parliamentary reading. In addition, it must be said that court challenges have usually failed to uphold restrictive council bylaws that try to obstruct the purposes of the legislation: decriminalisation, health and occupational safety for sex workers.
[edit] Child prostitution in New Zealand
ECPAT New Zealand [2] and Stop Demand Foundation have cited in a report “The Nature and Extent of the Sex Industry in New Zealand,” a police survey of the New Zealand sex industry that 210 children under the age of 18 years were identified as selling sex, with three-quarters being concentrated in one Police District. [3]. It should be noted that the Prostitutes Collective of New Zealand are also opposed to child prostitution, and campaign for stronger independent youth allowances as well as other measures intended to assist younger people at risk from undertaking child prostitution as an economic neccessity.
