Legal prostitution increases trafficking - Salvo

by Caroline Smith

April 16, 2008

THE issue of human trafficking is not only globally, but locally, relevant and may get worse with the  decriminalisation of prostitution in WA, says the Salvation Army’s Robert Maley.

“People will go and see a film like Amazing Grace and think that slavery is over, and they don’t realise that it’s infinitely worse now than before abolition,” Mr Maley said.

Although he concedes “the magnitude of trafficking here is unknown”, he says Australia is a destination point for people in slaver-like employment, mostly women entering the sex industry.

The removal of legal barriers to prostitution is likely to magnify the problem, he says.

“I think now that it’s legal, it would be easier to traffic people.”

Sheila Jeffreys from the Coalition Against the Trafficking of Women agrees, saying legalisation will strengthen the sex business, which will “need to find new ways to bring women into the industry”.

“In Germany, where prostitution is legal, there are between three and four thousand women trafficked every year, but in Sweden where buying sex is a crime, the proportion of trafficked individuals is very small,” Dr Jeffreys said. “Trafficking is very little understood in Australia.”

Recent complaints of Kalgoorlie madam Maryanne Kenworthy about the number of Asian women in the local sex business had indicated trafficking existed, Dr Jeffreys contended.

“How do you think they get here?” Dr Jeffreys posed. “If you’ve got a large proportion of women of Asian origin in the industry, there has to be trafficking involved somewhere.”