Police push for background checks on brothel owners if sex work is legalised

POLICE want to enforce background checks on owners or operators of brothels if prostitution is decriminalised, to prevent bikies from running sex worker in SA.

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POLICE want to enforce background checks on owners or operators of brothels and retain the right to enter their premises if prostitution is decriminalised.

SA Police Assistant Commissioner Linda Fellows has suggested MPs consider a model similar to the controversial Tattooing Industry Control Act, which prevents people with organised crime links or who have committed certain offences from owning or running such businesses.

Status of Women Minister Zoe Bettison has backed the suggestion, saying if prostitution was decriminalised “common sense would dictate that the management of any brothels would be off limits to people of ill repute”.

“In order to police this, it makes sense that background checks should be conducted on people wanting to operate a brothel,” Ms Bettison told The Advertiser.

Ms Fellows recently gave evidence to a parliamentary committee examining proposed legislation which would decriminalise sex work.

The Bill, put forward by Liberal MP Michelle Lensink, is the latest in a series of attempts over the past decade, including previously defeated Bills proposed by Labor backbencher Steph Key.

The current Bill does not require background checks on brothel owners or operators.

The committee will deliver recommendations which may result in amendments to the Bill before MPs are given a conscience vote on the final proposal.

Ms Lensink, who chairs the committee, said she hoped it could deliver its recommendations before the end of the year.

Ms Fellows told the committee that elements of the current laws were difficult to police and “something needs to change”.

She said there were about 180 brothels operating in South Australia, about 30 per cent are Asian-owned and between five and 10 per cent would have links to outlaw motorcycle gangs.

“I think any regulation (of the sex work industry) needs to focus on the probity and the appropriateness of people who are in the roles of owning or operating and managing those businesses,” she said.

“There are people behind the scenes, and that is where I talk about the involvement of outlaw motorcycle gangs who ... may silently be a partner by providing funds or being paid protection money.

“From the point of view of preventing those workers from being exploited, keeping people with poor probity history out of the industry should be a priority.”

Those who oppose decriminalising sex work often argue it would enable trafficking of vulnerable women.

Ms Fellows told the committee police had “certainly” found evidence over the past year “of illegal immigrants in brothels” in SA.

She also relayed complaints she had fielded earlier in her career from residents living in areas which street workers frequent who found “used syringes left in their yards, that people were having sex in their yards and people were using vacant houses for sex”.