Western Australia to legalise prostitution
samsung1
Ohio
Western Australia is set to legalise prostitution in a bid to improve health standards and keep brothels out of residential areas.
Hundreds of suburban brothels are expected to close when WA Attorney-General Christian Porter ends decades of "turning a blind eye" and starts regulating the sex industry next year.
Prostitution is illegal in WA but police rarely lay charges unless they are related to underage sex or unsafe practices.
Under the new legislation, brothels will be licensed and confined to designated commercial and industrial areas, and police will be given powers to investigate and forcibly close those which fail to comply.
Sex businesses will need to follow health and safety standards to obtain and maintain their licences.
Individual sex workers will need to register with a central agency and will undergo compulsory health and blood checks.
They may also be required to carry ID cards.
Mr Porter said suburban operators would be given a grace period from next year to either close or move to a licensed area.
Applications for brothels would first be put to local councils and then assessed by state regulators.
Mr Porter said the new regulations would limit problems in non-residential areas.
WA brothel madams welcomed the move over the weekend but feared the bid to register individual prostitutes would drive some underground.
While most agreed the new regulations would improve health and safety in the industry, they said some sex workers would be loathe to have their personal records on file.
"This will lead a lot of workers into going underground," North Perth brothel owner Donna McGuirk told The West Australian newspaper on Saturday.
"We are quite lucky in WA in that we don't have girls working with organised crime, but the sensitivity of this information that they want the girls to hand over means that many will try to work outside the system."
Kalgoorlie madam Bruna Meyers told the paper she was opposed to a central register but welcomed plans for a licensing system and health checks.
She said it would crack down on operators advertising unsafe sex, which was currently illegal but not widely policed.
Opposition attorney-general spokesman John Quigley said confining brothels to industrial areas would create "sex ghettos".
June 20, 2010
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-nat…
Hundreds of suburban brothels are expected to close when WA Attorney-General Christian Porter ends decades of "turning a blind eye" and starts regulating the sex industry next year.
Prostitution is illegal in WA but police rarely lay charges unless they are related to underage sex or unsafe practices.
Under the new legislation, brothels will be licensed and confined to designated commercial and industrial areas, and police will be given powers to investigate and forcibly close those which fail to comply.
Sex businesses will need to follow health and safety standards to obtain and maintain their licences.
Individual sex workers will need to register with a central agency and will undergo compulsory health and blood checks.
They may also be required to carry ID cards.
Mr Porter said suburban operators would be given a grace period from next year to either close or move to a licensed area.
Applications for brothels would first be put to local councils and then assessed by state regulators.
Mr Porter said the new regulations would limit problems in non-residential areas.
WA brothel madams welcomed the move over the weekend but feared the bid to register individual prostitutes would drive some underground.
While most agreed the new regulations would improve health and safety in the industry, they said some sex workers would be loathe to have their personal records on file.
"This will lead a lot of workers into going underground," North Perth brothel owner Donna McGuirk told The West Australian newspaper on Saturday.
"We are quite lucky in WA in that we don't have girls working with organised crime, but the sensitivity of this information that they want the girls to hand over means that many will try to work outside the system."
Kalgoorlie madam Bruna Meyers told the paper she was opposed to a central register but welcomed plans for a licensing system and health checks.
She said it would crack down on operators advertising unsafe sex, which was currently illegal but not widely policed.
Opposition attorney-general spokesman John Quigley said confining brothels to industrial areas would create "sex ghettos".
June 20, 2010
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-nat…
Got something to say?
Start your own discussion
7 comments
"Do you come from a land down under?
Where women glow and men plunder?
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover."
http://prostitution.procon.org/sourcefil…
------------------------------
"Obama lama ding dong likes regulation"
...since the rampant deregulation of the GOP has gotten us into quite a few HUGE messes so far.
----------------------------
"Does Nevada require prostitutes to register? I believe that they require monthly, or some other relatively frequent, tests for STDs and general health, but I don't recall ever seeing a registration requirement."
Yea, they do. Eleven rural counties in NV require registration & health checks.