Auckland Council has backed a bill which could see prostitutes banned in any area of the city, a move a number of groups fear will mean transgender street workers are further marginalised. The Regulation of Prostitution in Specified Places Bill was proposed by the former Manukau City Council as a way to deal with specific complaints and concerns about street workers in Hunters Corner and Manurewa. The Super City changeover means if the Bill is passed the Council will have the power to pass bylaws to ban sex work in any specified part of the city. However councillors agreed that at this stage they will only use the bill to ban prostitution at Hunters Corner and Manurewa. The Bill would allow police to stop cars and make arrests without a warrant, purely on suspicion of street prostitution - and fines of up to $2,000 could be issued. The bill has been met with opposition by the Prostitutes Collective, Family Planning and several councillors, who say it will drive sex workers underground and undo improvements set up through the Prostitution Reform Act in 2003. There are major concerns about the impact the law change would have on transgender street workers in particular, some of whom Family Planning Chief Executive Jackie Edmond says have been marginalised socially and economically, and may experience further exclusion as a result of being labelled 'criminal'. "Due to their social and economic situation many of these workers are not able to work from home or from a brothel setting, and criminalisation could lead to further economic hardship and abuse without continued police protection," she says in a submission. Police are not convinced of the merits of a ban and have made a submission to the Government Select Committee considering the bill pointing out that working with agencies may be a far more effective way to address the issue. In October, Auckland Mayor Len Brown told GayNZ.com Daily News the bill was a local solution to a local problem. "We are not asking for it to be localised. But the behaviour is just atrocious. It's just reasonable normal families who have to deal with some really bad stuff. We just could not think of any other way to deal with it," he said.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Saturday, 29th January 2011 - 8:20am