By VERNON SMALL deputy political editor
Sex workers have backed a bill decriminalising prostitution, saying it will improve public health and establish their right to say "no" to sex.
But moral campaigners opposed to the planned reform said prostitution was a cancer on society and prostitutes were predators.
Prostitutes Collective national coordinator Catherine Healy told a parliamentary select committee yesterday that the Prostitution Reform Bill was a long time coming and would drop the centuries-old double standard that protected clients but punished prostitutes.
The bill, prepared by Labour MP Tim Barnett, would make it an offence to coerce any person into prostitution or to take the proceeds of prostitution off that person.
It would prohibit anyone paying for sex with a person under 18 and require brothel operators and other prostitution businesses to promote the use of condoms and to provide information on safe sex.
Sex workers would have the right "to decline to provide, or continue to provide, commercial sexual services."
The sex industry would still be subject to laws which prohibit street harassment and money laundering of ill-gotten gains.
The Resource Management Act deals with the potential nuisance caused by the siting of a sex work venue.
Ms Healy said sex workers who suffered violence or coercion in their work could not report it to the police.
If the law was passed the police would still be involved but could focus on protecting those involved in the industry.
Under the present law some women had been fired from their jobs or had been docked wages for not working, even when they were ill. A nurse who worked with the collective said one woman had been been refused time off even though she had just had a miscarriage.
Ms Healy said prostitutes opposed legalisation because licensing massage parlours had not worked.
"If that's delivered us fit and proper people, I'll be blowed," she said.
By decriminalising prostitution, the bill aims to bring sex work within the scope of existing laws such as the Employment Relations Act and the Health and Safety in Employment Act.
But David Lane from the Society for the Promotion of Community Standards said the bill was a de facto legalisation of prostitution.
"The 'profession' of prostitution is a cancer on society and women sex workers are among the many victims," he said.
The bill allowed "open slather" in prostitution and opened a Pandora's Box.
"Prostitutes are predators and their trade is morally repugnant," he said in his submission.
However, in oral evidence to the committee he said he felt sex workers were also victims.
He said the bill would not improve safeguards and health.
It would promote the denigration of women and their treatment as objects of sexual gratification, and undermine marriage and family bonds.
Christian Heritage Party leader Graham Capill also opposed the bill, saying it would exacerbate sexual health problems.
"Clearly the promiscuity inherent in prostitution is the major source of health risk," he said.
The bill flew in the face of international human rights law, which argued against protecting the right to be a prostitute.
But he welcomed the move to end the double standard against women sex workers.
"It should be changed so men are just as culpable as women."
He was also concerned that coercion, punishable by seven years in jail, could become a lesser version of rape, which carried a maximum sentence of 20 years.
A majority of MPs are likely to support the bill in a conscience vote when it comes before the House this year.
Sex workers say bill long overdue
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