SEX WORK AND THE LAW - HIV/AIDS Data Hub

provide a place to work or to protect them from police. But the 2009 Decree and the
enforcement around it have created a trend toward reliance on third parties – which
is defined as sexual exploitation. In other words it creates exactly the situation it aims
to prevent.
…Violence was a strong theme in each group with many anecdotes being recounted
about violence by local thugs, clients and uniformed men…[T]ransgenders appear
to be much more vulnerable to violence and HIV than female sex workers and find it
much more difficult to access quality treatment in health services. 639
7.4.3 Efforts to improve the legal environment
In 2011, a dialogue was convened to discuss sex workers’ rights. Participants included
a former High Court judge, Legal Aid Office Director, a police representative, a senior
officer from the Attorney-General’s office and representatives of sex worker groups such
as the Survival Advocacy Network, the national sex workers’ network. The dialogue was
organized for discussions on the impact of the law, legal aid services, sex workers rights
while been detained, police policies regarding sex workers and sex workers’ health and
violence. 640
Survival Advocacy Network (SAN) is a network of sex workers that advocates for the rights
of sex workers. SAN is a project of Women’s Action for Change; however, it operates as
an independent organization with its own guidelines and Rules of Management, with a
Management Collective made up of sex workers.
In 1999, the Fiji Law Reform Commission recommended that sex work be decriminalized
and instead be subject to a system of regulation and licensing to prevent the industry
becoming a vehicle for public nuisance or criminal activity. 641
7.5 Papua New Guinea
Illegal
SEX WORK IN
PRIVATE
Not Illegal
SOLICITING
Illegal
BROTHELS
7.5.1 Laws
The legal framework that applies to sex work was largely adopted from the laws that
Papua New Guinea (PNG) inherited from Australia at independence.
639 Ibid., pp.19-21.
640 Rina S., Sex trade persistent, Fiji Times Online, 6 June 2011.
641 Fiji Law Reform Commission (1999) Reform of the Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code: The sexual
offences report, Suva: FLRC, p.79.
186