Advocacy
One of my great passions is advocacy in the sex work space. Sex workers have been disadvantaged at every turn by legislation, and by stigma and discrimination. I find it important to get involved in law reform and advocacy to lift up the community who has done so much for me. Below are some past and current projects I’m involved with, and I urge my wonderful clients and peers to get involved too - I have outlined some options for you!
Something to note: it is no secret that I used to have a different name. Part of the reason I decided to rebrand, other than my own personal growth, was to separate my activism from my advertising. I share it here because clients have indicated that they are interested, but it’s safer for me to have a different name listed in my submissions.
Current Projects
Decriminalisation in QLD.
Sex workers are working towards the full decriminalisation of sex work. This legal model allows sex workers to operate in the same way as any other business, while retaining the obvious federal legislation around things like human trafficking, forced labour, and child exploitation. It removes the police as the primary regulators of our businesses, and replaces them with government entities like Worksafe and the Department of Health. It grants us access to industrial rights and protections and removes burdensome restrictions that require police to extensively surveil and entrap sex workers. For information about the difference between decriminalisation and various ‘legalisation’ or ‘licensing’ models, please read through this resource written by Scarlet Alliance, Australia’s national peak body for sex workers.
This has been referred to the Queensland Law Reform Council (QLRC) for review. Submissions are due in June 2022.
What you can do:
Watch and wait! This has closed as of June 3rd.
Past Projects
Review of the Anti Discrimination Act in QLD.
Sex workers face a lot of discrimination for their chosen field. Unfortunately, if you choose to exit the industry, that does not mean this stigma will not follow you afterwards. Former and current sex workers are routinely denied housing and access to financial institutions, are discriminated against by employers, healthcare professionals, and law enforcement, and they have little to no legal recourse.
Respect QLD and Decrim QLD are partnered with Scarlet Alliance in the push to review the Anti Discrimination Act in QLD and include ‘sex worker’ and ‘sex work’ as specifically protected attributes so that workers have avenues to seek justice for being treated unfairly.
This has been referred to the Queensland Human Rights Commision (QHRC) for review. Submissions were due in March 2022, and the review is ongoing. There may or may not be future opportunities to submit to this process. When the submissions are published, I will link to the extremely comprehensive one from Respect Inc for you to peruse.
Decriminalisation in Victoria.
Victoria has achieved the decriminalisation of sex work! The Bill was passed in February 2022. I’ll post a bigger breakdown soon!
Decriminalisation in the NT.
In 2019, the Northern Territory decriminalised sex work; it was the third jurisdiction in the world to introduce a legislative framework that supported this - quite an achievement for a territory of less than 300,000 people!
This was the result of years of tireless work from sex workers and sex worker advocacy groups and stakeholders, including SWOP NT, the SWRG NT, and Scarlet Alliance.
The Sex Industry Act 2019 was implemented in June of 2020, to much adulation!
My submission is number five in the link listed.