Bradford Sue: Prostitution Reform Bill — In Committee 
Bradford Sue: Prostitution Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:608;Page:5231] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 I would like to make a few points at this stage of the debate. Firstly in relation to the question of advertising which Mr Copeland and my colleague Sue Kedgley have already talked about I say it has become apparent following the process of considering the bill in the Justice and Electoral Committee that we should have paid more attention to that area. I have an amendment on the Table tonight that puts up an alternative to Mr Copeland’s amendment because if this bill does pass—and I certainly hope it does—it is important that we do something about the advertising situation. I certainly do not want to see the day come when there is full colour television advertising in prime time of brothels and so on. 
My amendment seeks firstly to ban altogether the broadcasting of advertisements for commercial sexual services on radio and television and secondly that the Minister of Justice within 6 months develops a code of practice for the advertising and print media regarding the advertising of commercial sexual services. That code would take into account things like a high standard of social responsibility—that such advertising should not target children and young people that it should not in any way glamorise prostitution and that it should not demean women or men. Of course other factors should be taken into account as well. I believe that that amendment provides a compromise between what Mr Copeland wants which is a complete ban and what the bill does not provide for at the moment and that is any indicative road forward on that issue at all. 
If we go Mr Copeland’s way there will be very real problems and there will be negative outcomes that he perhaps has not considered. For instance if prostitutes cannot advertise their services at all I believe we will see a proliferation of street soliciting and pimping and it will also put all the power into the hands of the large operators who can afford to put up billboards and massive signage outside their premises. 
The second area that I would like to address relates to the purpose of the bill and discussion around whether this bill sanctions or endorses prostitution. I would like members to note that during the select committee process we looked at that issue a lot. I do not think anyone on the committee wanted this bill in any way to convey a sense that somehow we thought this occupation would become normalised and sanctioned within the school system the career guidance services and so on. We amended the purpose clause to state that the bill does not endorse or morally sanction prostitution. That has been a critical clause to me. During the 1980s an incident occurred at the unemployed workers centre where I worked when a young woman was asked by the then Department of Social Welfare to take up a job in a massage parlour. That was one of the most disgusting things I had heard of. 
I would not like to see the day come when the Department of Work and Income the Accident Compensation Corporation vocational guidance services or any such bodies would ever think that sending people to work in the sex industry is a job just like any other job. It should never be that. That is why I have supported that change to the purpose clause: to make it very clear that in putting this bill together we do not endorse or sanction prostitution. We were also careful to refer to that in the commentary on the bill and to state that members of the select committee that worked so long and so hard on this bill were very clear they did not ever want to see careers advisers in schools advising young people that prostitution is an occupation that they should head for nor that people within the structures of the welfare or accident compensation systems similarly should ever be required or even advised to take up such work as an occupation. 
Thirdly on a connected issue we have the question of 16 and 17-year-olds in the sex industry. Although this bill aligns itself with the Crimes Act amendments that we passed a couple of years ago and brings New Zealand into line with international conventions on children and young people under 18—that is it will not be legal for people to have sex with prostitutes under the age of 18—I do think we have a real problem around 16 and 17-year-olds in this country. That has been an issue for a long time—since 1990 when the then Labour Government removed the unemployment benefit and the sickness benefit was later removed as well from 16 and 17-year-olds. At that time in Auckland there was an upsurge in prostitution—particularly among young women but also young men—in that age group because they suddenly had no means of support. What does the Government expect when young people of that age have no means of support? 
That is an ongoing issue as well as a historical one. Just a few weeks ago we had a case of a young girl in Auckland aged 17 who was trying to exit the sex industry—something one would think that a Government department would think was a good idea. The young woman attempted for weeks and weeks with the aid of a community organisation to get an independent youth benefit from the Department of Work and Income but was refused over and over again. I could not understand that such primitive attitudes still exist. That young person who had been in the sex industry was trying to get out of it and she wanted to look for training and/or work—something I think we would all agree is a good thing—but it was only after mighty efforts on the part of a number of people that she gained any support at all. 
I hope that the Government will look more closely at that because this bill does not stand alone. It sits in an environment where in terms of the economy we still have hundreds of thousands of people out of work and in which young people who are the people most likely to take up careers in sex work are still the most economically disadvantaged people. Those factors must be taken into account and this Government does need to look at changing the welfare system so that people in that 16 and 17-year-old age group who are without work or support from their families can have easier access to assistance from the State. 
To turn to the question of criminalisation itself among the many reasons that I strongly support decriminalisation is something that has not been talked about a lot in the course of the debate on this bill and that is the question of people with disabilities in relation to the sex industry. For many many years I have been aware of the problems faced by the people who care for people with major disabilities in that their carers often know that the only way some of those people will ever have access to sex or even to any kind of sensual or personal contact is through working with a sex surrogate or a sex worker. Some of those disability providers have ended up in a very invidious and ambiguous situation of acting basically as a procurer to obtain sex for their clients. Those people have talked to me in the past and they are very very unhappy about being in that position. 
Yet it is a very real issue. I do not think many people in this House can understand what it is like for someone who perhaps faces life as a quadriplegic for someone with a severe brain injury for a severely intellectually handicapped person and for many others who are in a situation where they may never have sex in their whole life or may never have sex again. For those people obtaining sexual services is a very fundamental human need. I believe that one of the real reasons that we must pass this bill is on disability issues alone. Those people should be able to access sexual services as a health service and the people who provide care for them should be able to do that in as sane as sensible and as healthy a way as possible without having to be contaminated by engagement with a situation that is illegal or semi-legal as is the case at the moment. 
Finally the basic question has been raised already about whether we do need decriminalisation because theoretically so few sex workers are criminalised at the moment. Well as some people have already mentioned last month in Auckland there were three separate sweeps on Auckland sex workers. Over 30 people were arrested and one of them was a 39-year-old woman who had not been arrested for prostitution before in her life. My heart broke when I thought of the impact that arrest would have on that woman and on the rest of her life. There is a lot of nice talk about people exiting the sex industry but once one has a conviction for soliciting or a similar offence on one’s record that is it. It becomes very very difficult to ever remake one’s life after something like that. There is the impact internally of that kind of arrest and court proceedings and possibly other outcomes in terms of penalties as well as the whole social stigma that goes with it and the effect on potential job opportunities. That is devastating for people. I hope that tonight or very soon we will see the day come in this country when women like that woman will no longer face that risk for having consenting sex with another adult.