SA Law Society comes out in support of making sex work legal in South Australia
CONTINUING to criminalise sex work in South Australia is robbing women of dignity and discouraging them from reporting aggressive clients, the head of the Law Society says.
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CONTINUING to criminalise sex work in South Australia is robbing women of dignity and discouraging them from reporting aggressive clients, the head of the Law Society says.
Society president David Caruso is calling for Parliament to finally pass laws that would decriminalise prostitution, after a string of thwarted attempts in recent years.
A parliamentary committee is examining a Bill, currently before Parliament, which would decriminalise all forms of sex work for people aged 18 and over and make it illegal to discriminate against a sex worker.
Mr Caruso says SA’s current law “leaves women, and some men, in a position of segregation and stigma from society, which only serves to sustain the limited choices they have and ... robs them of a dignity which they should not have stolen”.
“Criminalising sex work does not protect the workers — indeed it may make them less likely to call police if a client is inappropriate or aggressive,” he writes in a column for The Advertiser.
MPs will be allowed a conscience vote on the Bill, which would quash current laws prohibiting living off the earnings of a prostitute — for example, working as a receptionist in a brothel or as a driver for an escort service.
Past sex work convictions would also be wiped clean.
The parliamentary committee has received more than 80 submissions on the Bill from sex workers and their family members, academics, health professionals, unions and advocacy groups.
It has also heard evidence from SA Police, international experts and disability advocates.
Committee chairwoman and Liberal MP Michelle Lensink said she was hopeful of delivering a report and recommendations to Parliament by the end of the year.
It is believed there are about 2000 sex workers in South Australia but few working on the streets.
Most work in brothels or privately.
Many MPs who oppose decriminalisation fear it will encourage a surge in prostitution in SA.
Premier Jay Weatherill has said in the past that he supports prostitution law reform in general.
A previous Bill put forward by Labor MP Steph Key in 2012 was defeated by one vote.
