Damned if we do, damned if we don’t - the West Australian approach to sex workers

Last months' decision by Ontario's Superior Court of Justice, with ramifications for all of Canada, ruled that laws criminalising activity associated with sex work were in contravention of the Canadian Bill of Rights. In short, the laws put sex workers' health and lives in danger: compliance meant huge risks for sex workers, non-compliance meant criminalisation.

Thus their sex work laws have been struck down - a huge win for the sex worker community there, clients and those associated with sex work in Canada; drivers, accountants, brothel owners, receptionists, cleaners and sex workers' partners.

In Western Australia, Liberal politicians are determined to make moral judgments about our work, continuing to ignore all evidence supporting the basic human rights of everyone associated with sex work.

In 2008 legislation decriminalising sex work passed through WA parliament in the sunset of the previous Carpenter Labor Government, only to be stymied by a Liberal election win, resulting in the historic laws never being declared. Status quo- toleration of sex work within a grey area of criminality and policing, continues to this day. At least until the current Government gets its way.

A recent letter to a sex industry operator in WA foreshadows law reform. Premier Colin Barnett claims he is committed to "ensure sexual service businesses are contained to a number of areas where they will be tolerated. The Government is currently developing a proposal for a regulatory scheme that will ensure that no form of prostitution is legal in residential areas."

It's a no win situation, with sex workers and our clients being placed at risk. Sex work is a service based industry that prizes privacy, accessibility and anonymity. Not so much when the client is expected to trek to industrial areas out of regular commercial activity, or when private sex workers are criminalised for working from home or a quiet suburban location.

Inner city apartment where a client can drop in for a lunch time quickie? Illegal.

Brothels melding with other commercial businesses on the high street? Illegal.

Working from a hotel room to ensure maximum discretion for worker and client? Illegal.

Operating from home as a private business, like any other business? Illegal.

Accessing the same industrial, civil and human rights as any other worker? Illegal.

Accessing justice when experiencing crime, exploitation, police harassment, corruption or violence? Not illegal but pretty bloody unlikely considering the rest of the laws sex workers would be subjected to.

Even more outrageous is the police powers Barnett will bestow in order to implement such a huge range of new criminal offences sex workers would be facing. "[We will give] police the powers they need to successfully investigate and prosecute individuals engaging in prostitution outside [industrial areas]." Considering that police already have the power to enter premises without a warrant, stop and search people on suspicion that there is the intent to commit sex work, pose as clients and entrap sex workers into a criminal offence,\ (Prostitution Act 2000) what other police powers could the WA Government be considering?

Coming up with such laws surely is a tall order even for the WA police - they already have the power to go after soft target sex workers using publicly accessible advertising as intelligence, pose as clients over the phone to obtain sex workers' addresses and then choose to either raid and use condoms as evidence or to pose as a client and entrap their target. All obscene exploitations of sex workers' vulnerability as an already marginalised group.

As the decision in Canada highlights, laws that force sex workers to choose between compliance and safety are in violation of human rights. The Liberal Government may be looking for an electorally popular issue but they've chosen the wrong population to pick on. Sex workers are affected by HIV and increased criminality is in direct opposition to  health and human rights - these truths are acknowledged everywhere from the National Centre for HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research to Ban Ki Moon in the UN. And as the decision in Canada highlights, laws that force sex workers to choose between compliance and safety are in violation of human rights.

Barnett may be looking for an electorally popular issue but he has chosen the wrong population to pick on. Sex workers have more friends and support than he has counted on - a recent poll by saw more than 66% of WA voters were in favour of removing criminal sanctions, and all research and health policy is pointing in that direction too. Get with the times WA - decriminalise sex work; less police powers, not more.