Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello and welcome back to Behind the Paddle podcast with me Paulson, victoria. Oh my gosh, I don't know about you guys, but my week has been depressing. I don't get many days to myself, but it's currently the school holidays and I've had like nearly a full week to myself and, oh my gosh, I've had, I've done DIY and things, but my gosh, it's depressing doing not so much. So I hope everybody else's week is like going better. But this episode is going out a little bit later on today, thursday, because I just did not have it in me last night to make an episode. And we've got to remember we're all human, we have burnout and it's absolutely valid and, yeah, we just have to be patient. And thank you very, very much for the peeps on my instagram who have wished me well and everything like that and have been really patient with their next episode of revolting prostitutes coming out. I really really appreciate it and, yeah, should we get right into it? So we are reading revolting prostitutes the fight for sex workers rights by molly smith and juno mac. We're on page 193. It's work. It's working.

Speaker 1: 1:37

What is decriminalization? Decriminalizing prostitution is a process of overturning criminal laws, for example soliciting, and administrative or civil orders, for example ASBOs, that punitively target street work, collective work, employed work, advertising and so on. These are the laws designed to punish workers and eradicate workplaces. In a decriminalized system, the sale, the purchase and facilitation of commercial sex has largely been shifted out of the realm of criminal law and into the framework of commercial and labour law. The purchase and facilitation of sexual services remain subject to the same reasonable laws on coercion, exploitation, bullying, assault and rape that apply in other contexts. In New Zealand, street-based sex workers can work with groups of friends in brightly lit central areas of their choosing without fear that they or their clients will be arrested.

Speaker 1: 2:57

Public health researcher Lindsay Armstrong has found that quote sex workers now feel more able to work in well-lit, safer places. End quote Sex worker Claire says that prior to decriminalization quote we were in the darkest places, just real shady and contrasts this to the present where quote it changed. A lot of us had to hide before then. Armstrong writes that for street-based workers, the quote screening process of clients is less complex in a decriminalized context. 90 percent of street-based sex workers interviewed for a review of the PRA commissioned by the New Zealand Ministry of Justice told researchers that they felt law meant they had employment rights. Another 90% felt they had occupational health and safety rights. Impressively, 96% said they felt they had legal rights brackets. These high numbers are all the more impressive because they may well be better for workers and other kinds of precarious labor.

Speaker 1: 4:23

Call center work, for example, is quote designed in a way that strips workers of their rights. Catherine Healy, the national coordinator and a founding member of the New Zealand prostitutes collective, speaks to this enhanced sense of power for the worker. Decriminalization means that people have a higher expectation of things working well and working properly, an expectation that things can be put right. Who can I tell? Is the first response, instead of what we used to hear before. Decriminalization like well, there's nothing we can do about it. Indoor sex workers can work with friends from a shared flat as an informal cooperative without having to jump through bureaucratic hoops or fear raids or arrest. Both indoor and outdoor workers can communicate clearly and directly with clients regarding services, condom use and money, without having to rush or use euphemisms. As one worker said, quote I tell them from the start what they can and can't do. Really end quote.

Speaker 1: 5:44

Managers are accountable to labor laws designed to protect sex workers, and reporting a manager will not mean the loss of an entire workplace and job. Assaulting or abusing a sex worker as an employer or as a client remains criminalized, as does the assault or abuse of any worker, but the work of sex work is instead governed by the same labor laws and employment protections that apply to many other workplaces. Sometimes people aren't sure what employment protections might look like in the context of sex work. The idea of labor protections in brothels seems alien and strange, occasionally even risible. Indeed, one conservative commentator objected to the term sex worker precisely on the grounds that it quote suggests there's a union pension fund an absurd definition of a worker, given that many workplaces lack union representation and, increasingly, a pension pot. Needless to say, sex workers don't find laughable the notion that they should have access to workplace protections and security.

Speaker 1: 7:09

Some examples of labour rights that sex workers expect within a decriminalised context include protection from sexual harassment at work, adequate breaks on shifts and between shifts, a requirement for management to supply safer sex materials and to back up workers in insisting on safer sex with clients, provisions barring workplace discrimination and the right for sex workers to refuse clients and to receive support from their managers in doing so. Surveys have found that sex workers in all sectors feel more able to refuse clients since passage of the PRA, and workers in the managed sector are now far more likely to have actually done so. Are these laughable? Vicky, a managed sex worker in Wellington, says quote from what I hear from women who worked before the law changed it's a lot better for us and it's a lot more open and girls aren't having to fight their own battles every night between clients and employers. End quote it is worth remembering that there is an intrinsic class tension in all workplaces between the interests of managers or owners and the interests of workers.

Speaker 1: 8:46

The structural role of managers and owners is to extract as much profit as possible from the labour of employees. In theory, decriminalisation brought sex workers' workplaces in New Zealand up to the legal level of other workplaces in terms of workers access to rights and safety. This is not to say, however, that decriminalization has eliminated exploitation any more than other workplaces, for example, restaurants or construction companies, are free of exploitation simply because they are not criminalized. Decriminalization cannot wash away class conflict between the interests of management and employees. Instead, it aims to mitigate the intense workplace of exploitation that is propped up and fuelled by criminalisation.

Speaker 1: 9:47

To be able to work indoors with friends without fearing arrest adds to a worker's power in their relationship with their manager. Ultimately, if they need to, the worker can leave and work with friends. This power is reflected in the data. Since New Zealand implemented decriminalisation, fewer people are working for managers. More are working in shared flats with friends. Managers even complain about this when working together is criminalised. When working together is criminalised, predators can use the threat of arrest against workers, as we've seen throughout this book. In contrast, in New Zealand, small co-op workplaces are not vulnerable to violent men using the law against them in this way.

Speaker 1: 10:46

As a worker in this setup, told by the prostitution law reform committee quote I feel more confident now. I know I've got rights. There's no fear now of being caught by the police. It was difficult when I was younger. I felt like a criminal and was less assertive. End quote. Petal, another private worker, says I just think the biggest thing with the law change is emotional support for the girls to say, yeah, you're not doing anything wrong, you're only doing a job. I think that's the biggest thing saying it's not illegal. That's what I like about the law. It's supportive.

Speaker 1: 11:35

New Zealand implemented some additional forms of regulation which, unlike German or Dutch laws, are designed with the benefit of sex workers in mind, rather than profiteering, control or punishment. Access social security immediately, without facing the temporary penalty to which they would have been subject. Have they quote voluntarily left another job? How did this come to be? In 1988, the new zealand government started funding a newly formed sex worker led group, the New Zealand Collective of Prostitutes. The NZPC was funded as a health promotion group. Its founding basis was that sex workers should be able to quote take control of their own health programs as much as possible in order to determine the direction those programs should take. The NZPC immediately identified the criminalization of prostitution as a serious problem in the lives of sex workers and pressured the government to take up a committee to investigate decriminalization. To take up a committee to investigate decriminalisation. Throughout the 1990s, the NZPC worked on bringing their bill to Parliament.

Speaker 1: 13:14

In 2000, tim Barnett brought forward a proposal to decriminalise sex work. It passed in 2003,. Significantly helped by the intervention of MP Georgina Beyer, a Maori trans woman and former street-based sex worker, I might have been able to approach the authorities and say quote I was raped, and yes, I'm a prostitute. And no, it was not right that I should have been raped. The law was shaped by sex workers themselves, beyond any one specific regulation. This was crucial. The extensive involvement of sex workers in putting together the law and the focus on the safety of people who sell sex are what distinguish decriminalization from other legal models. Indeed, the context of the PRA describes its first priority as being, to quote safeguard the human rights of sex workers. It is extremely unuseful for legalization that deals with the sex industry to explicitly conceive of people who sell sex as having rights at all other than the right to be rescued from being quote sold.

Speaker 1: 14:46

Toppling police power. Decriminalization, first and foremost, displaces the police as the de facto regulators of sex work. This is their role in systems where some or all aspects of the sex industry are criminalized. In other words, in every legal system discussed so far in this book, decriminalization rolls back a police officer's powers to make an unfair but lawful arrest and reduces their window of opportunity to bully, exploit, harass, extort or assault a person with considerably less power. In New Zealand, like everywhere else, the police would use their power over sex workers to humiliate. Shania, a street-based worker in New Zealand, says quote, some would just be pricks and take you in, and I think the worst thing was that you'd get taken in and then you'd have to go to court in the morning in your working gear and it was just like degrading, end quote.

Speaker 1: 15:57

What can decriminalization do to address these harms? Bianca, a street-based sex worker, tells researchers quote I didn't used to call the police, I would just call my friend, but now it's changed. The police are watching out for the safety of us, which is quite good. Shannon, a street-based sex worker, describes a bad experience of reporting rape to the police prior to decriminalisation, saying quote well, that was was shit. But adding to that, now that the laws changed, it's different. If it had been decriminalized back then, it would have been different. Dora, a street-based trans woman in new zealand, says quote you can work now. That made me feel safer. It made me feel better about the police. I used to hide from them before, especially after being done for soliciting, but I mean I feel much better about being on the street, just more legitimate, just more like yeah, I'm allowed to be here. This is reflected in the data 65 percent of street-based sex workers told researchers that they felt the police had improved as a result of the law and about 70 percent said that they feel quote most or all cops now look out for their safety.

Speaker 1: 17:33

This unusually positive sex worker cop relationship made headlines around the world in 2014, when it was reported that a police officer had helped a woman get the money that she was owed by a client by escorting the client to a cash machine. The police spokesperson told journalists quote it sounds remarkable, but it is a routine thing. Police would help any citizen having a disagreement, whether they were a sex worker or working in a pizza shop. A sex worker or working in a pizza shop? It's important not to get carried away. The New Zealand model hasn't solved every problem. G-a-a-t-w Observe that, in not going far enough with decriminalising sex work, the New Zealand model fails to protect migrants.

Speaker 1: 18:28

The prohibition of migrants engaging in sex work has created a contradictory context in which new zealand born sex workers enjoy the benefits of a work context that is characterized by openness and transparency. Why? Migrant sex workers are essentially forced quote underground and are vulnerable to exploitation and violence as a result. Migrants in new zealand say that their criminalization makes reporting crimes difficult and they report precarious and exploitative working conditions. Sex worker Amy explains how she has encountered this kind of pressure. Quote One client will say they will think that you don't have a proper visa here and they will say give them a good service, and if not, they will tell the police. Will say give them a good service and if not, they will tell the police. Clients and employers alike are able to prey on their precarious status. Healy from the NZPC says, quote I think it's important to remember that the law facilitates the conditions that are required for trafficking by rendering the sex workers who are working as migrants illegal.

Speaker 1: 19:54

The concern is very, very real. In a recent survey of sex workers in New Zealand, 3% had been raped by a client in the last year and the majority of that 3% had not reported it to the police. Street-based sex workers were more likely than indoor workers to be victimised and significantly less likely to report. This is unsurprising. Street-based sex workers are both more likely than others to have mental health problems and more likely to use drugs. In other words, they are more likely to have fewer resources and to be living within a nexus of stigmatized and still criminalized experiences and communities. As with many nations, the shortcomings of New Zealand's criminal justice system mean that complainants who use drugs or are mentally ill are more likely to be disbelieved at the time of initial reporting and more likely to be knocked back or to step away from the system. This is not specific to sex workers. The vast majority of survivors of sexual violence, both in New Zealand and around the world, do not report their experiences to the police. Survivors are well aware that the criminal justice system is more often a site of further trauma than a site of healing or justice.

Speaker 1: 21:31

Sex workers have many reasons to mistrust the police. Decriminalization addresses one of those reasons. A street worker, sally, tells researchers quote I don't really relate well to the police, but I've never had a problem when I'm out working. They're really good. They're just like are you alright? And you know they've never asked for my name. Fellow sex worker Holly says I still don't trust them. I mean a cop's a cop. But yeah, they try and talk to me and make sure I'm alright. And I'm just like yeah, just leave me alone, I'm fine. End quote.

Speaker 1: 22:15

Decriminalisation has given sex workers like Holly and Sally the power to keep the police at arm's length. Pannier also speaks to this theme saying, quote they come round heaps but like like, they all know what I'm doing, they see me and they'll just blabber or something and I'm like well, can you go away. Now you're going to stop a client from coming and they're all good about it. The power to keep the police at arm's length is a power that criminalisation largely denies to sex workers and other over-policed populations all over the world. However, new Zealand workers appear to have and exercise this power to avoid police intrusion at least some of the time.

Speaker 1: 23:10

No change in the law can fundamentally alter the attitude of a police officer and they will continue to symbolise intrusive violence to the poorest and most vulnerable. But decriminalising prostitution offences explicitly removes one of the tools in their arsenal. Police officers in decriminalized jurisdictions find that an avenue to exploit or bully is closed off to them, a strategy far more effective and radical than trying to quote sensitize machismo outlooks and seize mentalities. It is closing off avenues to abuse by rolling back police power. That will reduce harms against sex workers. This must be implemented with a slew of other reforms that address the other vulnerabilities of over-policed populations, such as indigenous sex workers and sex workers of color. Those who will continue to be treated as troublesome and disorderly, like drug users, queer migrants or other homeless people, know that decriminalization is not enough by itself, as Alex Vital writes. Quote reforming police forces to make them better trained, more accountable and less racist are laudable goals, but they leave intact the basic institutional functions of the police, which have never really been about public safety or crime control. When people like drug users and sex workers are made vulnerable are made vulnerable by the denial of their basic human rights and when an officer can easily gain cash or sexual gratification from their compromised position, it is not enough to hope that those tasked with controlling their lives will simply be nice Feminist skepticism.

Speaker 1: 25:29

Debunking the misconception that decriminalizing sex work is the same thing as legalizing it is one of the biggest frustrations of sex worker advocacy. The two words are deceptively close in what they suggest and many people use one in error when they mean to use the other. The thinking is understandable. Surely both terms simply mean something is legal, so it's worth going over the difference once more. Decriminalisation positions workers within the sex trades as primarily right holders, with primarily rights holders with who need additional support, while legalization or regulationism, as seen in the previous chapter, positions prostitutes as unruly, alarming and needing to be controlled through specific punitive measures. What flows from the perspective of decriminalization is a system where the knowledge, safety and rights of people who sell sex are prioritized. And in order to do this, the regulations placed on the sex industry are shaped by sex workers themselves. As well as genuine error, this quote mix up is often the useful bit of lexical sleight of hand. One anti-prostitution journalist, for example, writes, quote if you think decriminalization will make prostitution safe, look at germany's mega brothels. An incoherent argument that smears the failings of the latter onto the former.

Speaker 1: 27:17

The New Zealand model is often dismissed out of hand, with opponents paradoxically arguing that giving workers rights to people who sell sex will increase the exploitation of prostitutes. New Zealand's approach to sex work stokes fear among anti-prostitution feminists. They often worry that if prostitution were decriminalised, job seekers would be forced into prostitution by job centres or at high school careers fairs. In reality, no such thing happens. New Zealand job centres do not display sex industry related job ads, and forcing sex workers to start or stay in sex work, including under the threat of losing out on unemployment benefits, is banned. The prostitution reform act states that, quote a person's benefit or entitlement to a benefit under the social security act 1964 may not be cancelled or affected in any other way by his or her refusal to work or to continue to work as a sex worker. End quote. This is not an unfamiliar system. In the uk, working in a strip club or on a webcam is completely legal. Yet jobs in strip clubs or on webcams are not foisted onto job seekers or high school students. The current legal status of porn and peep shows does not result in office job candidates being obliged to provide a lap dance or naked selfies in a job interview.

Speaker 1: 29:07

Decriminalized prostitution, it is argued, would mean no sex workers could ever be protected from sexism and abuse in the workplace. The national director of the nordic model australia commission asks quote what can police do if sexual harassment is part of your working conditions? You can report rape, but it's already a form of rape". Recognising something as a job in some contexts and sexual harassment in others is something we as feminists collectively manage to do all the time. For example, it is already part of some people's jobs to give massages, but if you do an office job and your boss asks you for a massage, that is harassment. Such as occurrence is not a legitimate argument against allowing people to sell massages. It is striking and painful that these concerns about sexual harassment are so back to front. Far from failing to grant such protections to sex workers, decriminalization is the only measure that can start to make these workplaces protections possible. Far from making the concept legally meaningless, the decriminalization extends protections against workplace sexual harassment to sex workers.

Speaker 1: 30:42

In some ways, the repeated construct of quote all sex workers rape is reminiscent of sexist teenage boys quote joking about whether the sexual assault of a prostitute constitutes rape or quote theft. Both rely on the idea that because you sell sex, it is intrinsically absurd to imagine that society might recognize harm to you as a real violation. In fact, in 2014, a sex worker in a brothel in New Zealand took her manager to an employment tribunal for sexual harassment and won her case. Such a ruling would be unimaginable anywhere that sex workers' workplaces are criminalised. There is no labour law in a criminalized workplace. The tribunal ruling in the case commented quote sex workers are as much entitled to protection from sexual harassment as those working in other occupations. Sex workers have the same human rights as other workers. End quote.

Speaker 1: 31:55

Some feminist reservations about decriminalization seem at times to be a little out of touch with sex workers' lives. One campaigner, for example, worries that under the new zealand model, we'd be obliged to pay taxes and that quote as a regular quote worker, she could be pursued for non-payment by the tax authorities. Sex workers actually already are obligated to deal with taxes and tax penalties, whether their work is legal or illegal, including in the UK currently, and in the Nordic countries whose laws she is advocating. To be treated as a regular worker under decriminalisation might mean that sex workers have the opportunity to benefit from their contributions in the form of labour rights and workplace protections, benefits currently denied to them in Britain, sweden and Norway are misplaced. It is nonetheless crucial for us to examine decriminalization with a rigorous eye. Will people who are struggling in the sex trade under decriminalization get meaningful assistance to leave or otherwise change their situation? And what does quote meaningful assistance look like? In New Zealand, the single strongest initiative to help people leave sex work is the sex workers do not receive a quote voluntary unemployment penalty upon quitting and so can apply for benefits immediately. Other than this and the decriminalisation removes the obvious impediment of a criminal record for prostitution it is unclear whether enough has been done to make provisions for people who want to transition into new work, aside from a handful of shelters run by religious groups, ngos or individuals. Lauren, a sex worker and activist who has worked in both UK and New Zealand, says quote. I feel like.

Speaker 1: 34:20

It's difficult to separate a shortage of funding for services from a broader social context. In New Zealand, where homelessness is extremely high and domestic violence, services for migrant women have been cut and, after years of neoliberal government, has destroyed social welfare, as we saw the example of Sweden in the previous chapter. Inadequate provision in this area is not unique to new zealand's sex work model. It could easily apply in the uk, where cuts to welfare and services are increasingly harsh. Sex workers needs are diverse in ways which aren't necessarily covered by genetic quote exit funding covered by generic quote exit funding. In South Africa, for example, people in sex trade identify intersecting health issues such as TB, hiv and mental illness as factors that impede their ability to leave sex work. Indigenous sex workers of Canadian group Sex Workers United Against Violence note that services should reflect their specific needs as Indigenous people, such as funding to Indigenous communities for self-administered education and vocational training and other programs related to housing, health, income assistance and child care that are based in indigenous traditions.

Speaker 1: 36:03

So this is the end of this episode, I think, without doing really quick math, because I can't do that. Okay, so we have one more episode left. I think I'm gonna make that one an hour episode, um, just to get through it all. And yeah, I am so, so happy to be nearly done with this book and I cannot believe how amazing this book has been in education and I love it. It's so great. Thank you guys for listening. Yeah, maybe one or two more episodes, but yeah, if you haven't already heard, then right now in the UK the government is trying to bring in the Nordic model.

Speaker 1: 36:56

We do not want that. If you did see the quick snippet of um Scotland for Decrim on the channel 4 news, it was literally like a minute and a half, but we got the word out there. Um then, thank you so much for looking and watching. And yeah, we do not want legalization, we do not want criminalization, we want decriminalization, decriminalization. And if you want to support that, then you can go on the English Collective of Prostitutes website and you can actually email your MP and tell them hey, we, you know we don't want this, we want decriminalization rather than the Nordic model. You will be able to find a default letter email that will go to your MP with the English Collective of Prostitutes website. If you just type in your postcode, it will default a letter and you know you can sign it off with like a fake name and a fake email. That's up to you and, yeah, make sure you definitely help the cause, because I don't know what I'm going gonna do if this is criminalized or legalized. It's not good, obviously, and right now, with the crime and policing bill of april 2025, they are trying to prosecute people who are web developers of um sex workers, the landlords, the partners um anybody and everyone basically, and they want to stop us from advertising on online. So, again, you can go on the ecp website and um fill your details and, yeah, help, because it's very much what sex workers need these days.

Speaker 1: 38:59

If you want to follow Scotland for decrim, you can find us on a very easy google search and also, we're on instagram and, of course, behind the paddle is on. Can you hear my frenchie snoring? Um plus, and you can find behind the paddle on instagram. You can find us on spotify apple podcasts please remember to give a like and a review and yeah, you can even find us on youtube as well every now and again. So thank you very much for listening to revolting prostitutes. If anybody does have any suggestions on topics of the next podcast episode or books that I read next, then please, please, um email in comment in if you want to be on the podcast. You are more than welcome to be on the podcast and, yeah, this has been behind the podcast when we post in victoria and goodbye.