European blood
12-02-2011, 07:06 PM
The sex industry is pushing for changes to Australia's immigration system to give migrant sex workers the same visa rights as other professions and trades.
Campaigners say a legitimate visa category for sex workers would strike at the heart of trafficking from South-East Asia, while opponents say the move could contribute to exploitation.
The United States, spurred on by the conservative Christian lobby, has for several years been leading a global push to eradicate prostitution around the world.
By contrast, in some Australian states prostitution has been decriminalised and largely brought into the open.
But even in legal brothels, the problem of sex slavery and women being sold into servitude persists.
Jules Kim, the migration project manager at sex workers association Scarlet Alliance, says the current approach to trafficking is punitive rather than preventative.
She says discriminatory visa restrictions force women to go to intermediaries, leaving them vulnerable to traffickers.
"Sex workers are having great difficulties in accessing visas and are in fact often refused visas when their sex worker status is known," she said.
"This, actually more than anything, is causing people to then having to engage third-party agents or traffickers in order to travel and work."
Ms Kim is pushing for sex workers be given the same access to employment visas as other professions and trades.
And she is calling on the Government to make immigration information available in other languages.
"A crucial and a very simple reform would be for the Government to provide properly translated forms and information to sex workers seeking a visa," she said.
"Currently that information is not available translated. Even stamps in the visas are only available in English and this opens the doors to deception."
'Psychological slavery'
Shirley Woods, a Melbourne-based community outreach officer with Project Respect, works directly with victims of trafficking.
She estimates 80 per cent of women who come to Australia to work as prostitutes know that is what they have signed up for.
Ms Woods says the proposed reforms could lead to an increase in the numbers who are deceived into sexual servitude.
"I think if traffickers are no longer to make money out of trafficking and you're talking billions of dollars... they'll find other ways to make it," she said.
"What will come of that will be that the smaller percentage of 20 per cent that we're seeing now who don't know that they're coming out to do prostitution will rapidly increase."
Of the 14 human trafficking cases heard in Australian courts since 2009, 13 involved the sex industry.
But as transparency grows, Ms Woods says the criminal networks become more sophisticated in the way they trap women in the sex industry.
"It's all in response to particularly what happened in the Wei Tang case and the questions that were asked in court," she said, referring to the 2006 conviction of a Melbourne brothel owner.
"It's a way of the traffickers being able to say, 'oh, no, no, no - we paid them' - didn't pay them accordingly, but paid them.
"There tends to be more of a psychological enslavement where they don't really need to remove the passports because the women's families are threatened.
"It's very much psychological slavery, which the traffickers are well aware is a hell of a lot harder to prove in court than physical enslavement."
Harm prevention
Jennifer Burn, associate professor of law and director of Anti-Slavery Australia at the University of Technology Sydney, agrees there needs to be a human rights and harm prevention approach to dealing with trafficking.
But she dismisses visa reform as a solution.
"I'm not convinced that having a legal visa is sufficient protection," she said.
"We've seen a number of cases where a visa is in fact no protection. We've had people exploited in a range of industries, commercial hospitality for example, and other industries where the migrant worker has held a valid visa that has authorised them to work in Australia."
Ms Burn says that regardless of a person's visa status the key is access to information about their rights.
"There may be a very good argument that there should at least be basic information provided to every person coming into Australia about these critical elements in our democratic system," she said.
"These elements include that we are all entitled to the protection of the law, the police can be contacted, that it's a crime to inflict assault and other types of grave exploitation on people, that the Fair Work Ombudsman has a role to achieve a civil remedy in many cases where migrant workers are being exploited."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-18/industry-calls-for-migrant-sex-worker-visas/3680954
Campaigners say a legitimate visa category for sex workers would strike at the heart of trafficking from South-East Asia, while opponents say the move could contribute to exploitation.
The United States, spurred on by the conservative Christian lobby, has for several years been leading a global push to eradicate prostitution around the world.
By contrast, in some Australian states prostitution has been decriminalised and largely brought into the open.
But even in legal brothels, the problem of sex slavery and women being sold into servitude persists.
Jules Kim, the migration project manager at sex workers association Scarlet Alliance, says the current approach to trafficking is punitive rather than preventative.
She says discriminatory visa restrictions force women to go to intermediaries, leaving them vulnerable to traffickers.
"Sex workers are having great difficulties in accessing visas and are in fact often refused visas when their sex worker status is known," she said.
"This, actually more than anything, is causing people to then having to engage third-party agents or traffickers in order to travel and work."
Ms Kim is pushing for sex workers be given the same access to employment visas as other professions and trades.
And she is calling on the Government to make immigration information available in other languages.
"A crucial and a very simple reform would be for the Government to provide properly translated forms and information to sex workers seeking a visa," she said.
"Currently that information is not available translated. Even stamps in the visas are only available in English and this opens the doors to deception."
'Psychological slavery'
Shirley Woods, a Melbourne-based community outreach officer with Project Respect, works directly with victims of trafficking.
She estimates 80 per cent of women who come to Australia to work as prostitutes know that is what they have signed up for.
Ms Woods says the proposed reforms could lead to an increase in the numbers who are deceived into sexual servitude.
"I think if traffickers are no longer to make money out of trafficking and you're talking billions of dollars... they'll find other ways to make it," she said.
"What will come of that will be that the smaller percentage of 20 per cent that we're seeing now who don't know that they're coming out to do prostitution will rapidly increase."
Of the 14 human trafficking cases heard in Australian courts since 2009, 13 involved the sex industry.
But as transparency grows, Ms Woods says the criminal networks become more sophisticated in the way they trap women in the sex industry.
"It's all in response to particularly what happened in the Wei Tang case and the questions that were asked in court," she said, referring to the 2006 conviction of a Melbourne brothel owner.
"It's a way of the traffickers being able to say, 'oh, no, no, no - we paid them' - didn't pay them accordingly, but paid them.
"There tends to be more of a psychological enslavement where they don't really need to remove the passports because the women's families are threatened.
"It's very much psychological slavery, which the traffickers are well aware is a hell of a lot harder to prove in court than physical enslavement."
Harm prevention
Jennifer Burn, associate professor of law and director of Anti-Slavery Australia at the University of Technology Sydney, agrees there needs to be a human rights and harm prevention approach to dealing with trafficking.
But she dismisses visa reform as a solution.
"I'm not convinced that having a legal visa is sufficient protection," she said.
"We've seen a number of cases where a visa is in fact no protection. We've had people exploited in a range of industries, commercial hospitality for example, and other industries where the migrant worker has held a valid visa that has authorised them to work in Australia."
Ms Burn says that regardless of a person's visa status the key is access to information about their rights.
"There may be a very good argument that there should at least be basic information provided to every person coming into Australia about these critical elements in our democratic system," she said.
"These elements include that we are all entitled to the protection of the law, the police can be contacted, that it's a crime to inflict assault and other types of grave exploitation on people, that the Fair Work Ombudsman has a role to achieve a civil remedy in many cases where migrant workers are being exploited."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-18/industry-calls-for-migrant-sex-worker-visas/3680954