SEX WORK AND THE LAW - HIV/AIDS Data Hub

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Laws State / Territory Legislation Model Requirements Australian Capital Territory New South Wales Northern Territory Prostitution Act 1992 Disorderly Houses Amendment Act 1995 Prostitution Regulation Act Registration Partial decriminalization. Licensing proposals are being debated. Licensing Queensland Prostitution Act 1999 Licensing South Australia Tasmania Victoria Western Australia Summary Offences Act 1953; Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1976 Sex Industry Offences Act 2005 Prostitution Control Act 1994 Prostitution Act 2000, Criminal Code 1892 Criminalization Partial criminalization Licensing Partial criminalization. Licensing proposals are being debated. It is legal to work privately as a registered sole operator, or in a registered brothel. Street work is illegal. Working in a brothel is legal. Brothels require local government consent. Working as a sole operator is legal but subject to local government planning requirements. Use of premises as brothels is regulated by councils under the development control provisions of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979. 693 Street work is legal, subject to exceptions. (In 2012, the government announced plans to establish a Brothel Licensing Authority) Sex work is legal if delivered as part of a licensed escort service. Street sex work and soliciting are illegal. Brothels are illegal. Sex work is legal in a licensed brothel. To work in a licensed brothel, a sex worker needs a current sexual health certificate. Private sex workers (sole operators) are allowed to work by themselves. Brothels are illegal. Receiving money from sex work, soliciting and procuring are illegal. Laws are rarely enforced. Brothels and street-based sex work are illegal. Laws are rarely enforced. Private sex work is legal if no more than two sex workers work together. Licensed brothels and licensed escort agencies are legal. Private sex workers must register with the Business Licensing Authority. Street sex work is illegal. Advertising is restricted. Sex work in private is legal. Brothels are illegal, but police allow brothels to operate in prescribed areas. A licensing system for brothels is under consideration. Factors that contributed to this success include the mobilization of sex workers to participate in the HIV response, establishment of safe sex as a norm among sex workers, community-driven health promotion and peer-based interventions. Law reform and changes to law enforcement practices also played a key role. Leadership was provided by the state of New South Wales, which decriminalized most aspects of the sex industry in the mid-1990s. Decriminalization was critically important to ensuring that HIV prevention efforts led by sex workers were successful. 196
Each of Australia’s eight states and territories have a different legislative framework for sex work (see Table above). Australia’s six National HIV/AIDS Strategies implemented since 1989 have encouraged sex work law reform so as to provide a more enabling environment for health promotion. Jeffreys and Perkins describe the diverse legal environments of these jurisdictions as follows: Australia Sex work in South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania is largely criminalised. Toleration operates in Western Australia, where criminalising legislation has not been implemented by the police for some time. In South Australia, brothel raids and criminality has been a regular feature of sex work for over a century. In Tasmania, brothels are illegal, however private workers are permitted to work legally either by themselves or in pairs. In Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory sex work is licensed. In those states and territories sex work business owners are required to undergo probity checks and to license their businesses with an external authority in order to gain approval to operate. Owners are also required by law to enforce mandatory HIV and other STI testing of sex workers who work in licensed businesses, which is a counterproductive and expensive measure. In the Northern Territory sex workers who work within licensed businesses are also required to undergo probity checks and to have their sex-work status added to their police record, as a form of registration. New South Wales has decriminalised brothel, private sex work and street sex work; legislated bodies that oversee the regulation of other businesses regulate sex work just like any other work. This includes zoning, industrial relations, occupational health and safety, tax and more. The Australian Capital Territory has mostly decriminalised sex work, requiring private sex workers to register. Similarly, in Victoria private workers are expected to register. 694 Licensing models versus decriminalization Victoria, Queensland, Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory all have forms of licensing or registration of sex workers and/or the premises where sex work occurs. The governments of Western Australia and New South Wales are proposing to introduce brothel licensing laws in 2012. Sex worker organizations (e.g., Scarlet Alliance), sexual health physicians and researchers have expressed serious concerns about licensing models. The Law and Sex Worker Health (LASH) Team at the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research provided the following recommendation to Department of Health of Western Australia: Licensing of sex work (‘legalisation’) should not be regarded as a viable legislative response. For over a century systems that require licensing of sex workers or brothels have consistently failed. Most sex workers remain unlicensed, so criminal codes remain in force, leaving the potential for police corruption. Licensing systems are expensive and difficult to administer, and they always generate an unlicensed underclass. That underclass is wary of and avoids surveillance systems and public health services. Thus licensing represents a potential threat to public health... 695 Evidence confirms that decriminalization has been a successful approach in reducing opportunities for police corruption and improving the coverage of health promotion 693 See: Crofts P., Maher J., Pickering S., Prior J., (2012) Ambivalent Regulation: The Sexual Services Industries in NSW and Victoria — Sex Work as Work, or as Special Category? Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 23(3):393-412. 694 Jeffreys E., Perkins R., Sex Work, Migration, HIV and Trafficking: Chinese and other Migrant Sex Workers in Australia Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, Issue 26, August 2011. 695 Donovan B. et al. (2010) The Sex Industry in Western Australia: A report to the Western Australian Government, Sydney: University of New South Wales, p.viii. 197
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SEX WORK AND THE LAW IN ASIA AND TH
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SEX WORK AND THE LAW IN ASIA AND TH
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Table of contents 7. PACIFIC Overvi
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ACRONYMS AND KEY TERMS Term Definit
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PLHIV People Living with HIV PLRI P
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Legal terms Law: Laws are rules pre
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xii AN INDIAN HEALTH WORKER EXPLAIN
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India, Nepal and the Philippines).
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Laws, policies and practices that a
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opened a bar in Chiang Mai that pro
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8 SUSPECTED SEX WORKERS HIDE THEIR
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ii. iii. consultations with sex wor
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1.2 International legal and policy
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iii. the report of the Independent
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into commercial sex and by whom, an
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UN Trafficking Convention The UN Co
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20 SEX WORKERS WAIT FOR CLIENTS ON
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to police for fear of further abuse
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social security laws that do not re
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example. However, as these programm
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Jagriti Mahila Maha Sangh (Federati
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organize within their communities a
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32 KUAN HSIU-CHIN, ONE OF TAIWAN’
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Where governments have recognized t
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1.2 Laws that criminalize sex work
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4.2 Donors should support NGOs and
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40 NEARLY 2,000 SEX WORKERS SHOUT S
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e.g., devadasis, jogins, bhavins. T
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TABLE 1: LEGALITY OF ADULT SEX WORK
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The Local Government (Zila Parishad
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Despite the Court’s ruling, a stu
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order to ensure smooth operation of
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4.3 Bhutan Illegal SEX WORK IN PRIV
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State laws relating to public order
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The Act provides institutional reha
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Convention for Suppression of Traff
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4.4.2 Law enforcement practices Pol
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A study of 673 female sex workers i
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Kotiswaran has conducted a detailed
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involving power analysis, implement
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HIV/AIDS coordination committees we
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…The community mobilization effor
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The DMSC approach has reduced the n
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4.5 Maldives Illegal SEX WORK IN PR
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4.6.1 Laws The Trafficking and Tran
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false arrest for carrying condoms,
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2. The government, donors and UN ag
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Section 371A and Section 371B of th
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Sex workers are routinely harassed
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fine. 261 An ‘incorrigible rogue
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The UN Committee on the Elimination
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90 Caption for photo here SEX WORKE
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TABLE 2: LEGALITY OF ADULT SEX WORK
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or accommodates a woman for sex wor
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there are many illegal practices pe
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of police misconduct reported by se
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All pilot projects recognized that
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5.3 Hong Kong Special Administrativ
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5.4.1 Laws Sex work in private is l
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In 2011, the Legislature amended th
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y a television crew, which then bro
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others, inducing a person to be a s
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STI examinations show a rapid decre
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A SEX WORKER STANDS IN A DOORWAY AT
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deportation, with limited access to
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6.2 Cambodia 371 Legal SEX WORK IN
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Prior to 2008, research documented
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5. Targeting of sex workers reduced
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involved in drug use, special inter
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educate about the situation of sex
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such as streets and parks are a bar
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of Rp 5000 before leaving.…Securi
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100% CUP 100% CUP approaches have b
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young, poorly educated Khmou women
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6.4.3 Efforts to improve the legal
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There are periodic police crackdown
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Several workers in all groups raise
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The government issued an Administra
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Sex workers in many countries have
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Page 164 and 165: Other examples of local ordinances
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Page 170 and 171: If sex work is conducted in a ‘pr
Page 172 and 173: Suppression of Human Trafficking Ac
Page 174 and 175: According to the Empower Foundation
Page 176 and 177: and STD awareness, limited access t
Page 178 and 179: including sex workers, on a volunta
Page 180 and 181: 2010. 584 A raid in 2011 by police
Page 182 and 183: The National Programme aims to free
Page 184 and 185: 6.11.3 Efforts to improve the legal
Page 186 and 187: TRANSGENDER SEX WORKER, SHEENA, HAS
Page 188 and 189: antibodies. Certification may engen
Page 190 and 191: continued Sub-region / country / te
Page 192 and 193: continued Sub-region / country / te
Page 194 and 195: 7.3 Kiribati Legal SEX WORK IN PRIV
Page 196 and 197: The HIV/AIDS Decree 2011 provides t
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Page 200 and 201: provide a place to work or to prote
Page 202 and 203: of discrimination and police brutal
Page 204 and 205: Another man described a raid on the
Page 206 and 207: and key populations, including sex
Page 208 and 209: The purpose of this Act is to decri
Page 212 and 213: programmes. 696 New South Wales dec
Page 214 and 215: testing increased, with the regular
Page 216 and 217: ANNEX I: SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY Abel G
Page 218 and 219: National Network of Sex Workers and
Page 220 and 221: Violence from police (e.g., Republi
Page 222 and 223: Theme: Economic Rights/Right to Liv
Page 224: ANNEX III: LIST OF ORGANIZATIONS PA
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