by Gregory Beatty
Escort agencies, like those listed in Regina’s Yellow Pages, operate in legal limbo in Canada. They provide prostitutes a measure of security compared to working the street alone. But they also rarely report bad clients to police because they can be charged at any time with living on the avails.
Other jurisdictions treat prostitution differently. In the Australian state of New South Wales, for example, it’s been decriminalized since the late ’80s, while in Victoria prostitution is legal. SPOC champions the former approach.
“Legalization views sex work as a vice that needs to be contained and controlled, while decriminalization views sex work as a legitimate business that may need some regulation, but regulation that’s based on practical realities — not hysterical moral reactions,” says Scott.
In Melbourne (Victoria’s capital), she says, to have a brothel you need a licence. “There’s no fee. Except, there is a fee. You’re routinely turned down, so you hire a battery of lawyers and grease palms, and about $100,000 later, if you’re lucky, you’ll get a permit. Sex workers don’t have that type of money, so they don’t ever end up owning the brothels. It’s outsiders, often rather unsavoury people.”
Women who work in the brothels, says Scott, are exploited. “It’s 12-hour shifts. You have no right of refusal, so if a client wants a type of sex you’re not comfortable with, you have to do it anyway. That’s sexual assault.”
In addition, workers are charged exorbitant fees for things like clean sheets and food, and are routinely fined for things like having messy hair and being late for a line-up.
“Who in their right mind would work under those conditions? Well, in Victoria it’s women from Thailand. The Australian women, they all work illegally. They wouldn’t be caught dead in a brothel.”
In New South Wales, conversely, all that’s required to open a brothel is a basic business licence. At any given time in Sydney, between 70 and 75 brothels are in operation. Prostitutes are free to work where they want and even open their own brothels.
Prior to New South Wales moving to decriminalize prostitution, says Scott, “there was an insane amount of policecorruption. Each brothel had to pay police $1000 a week. Each street girl paid $200 a week. Cops were selling heroin out of the back of their cruisers.”
When a new Labour government was elected, she says, it held an inquiry. “It wasn’t like the ones we have in Canada, where inquiry is another word for coverup. Heads rolled. Cops went to jail. And the government decriminalized a whole bunch of things.”
Brothels are restricted from operating near schools and churches, but otherwise can open where they wish. And while they are regulated under the Disorderly Houses Act, says Scott, “the Supreme Court of New South Wales has ruled that you have to be a true nuisance.
“People can’t shut you down because they don’t like you.”