Red-Green politics retrograde on prostitution

So far three Australian states and one territory have liberalised sex laws through brothel legalisation, in each case these laws have been passed by Labor governments.

The ALP is affiliated to the Socialist International (SI) comprising socialist, social democrat and labour political parties from across the world.

The rationale of the left in Australia has looked at the issue of prostitution from a free market, economic approach to the sex industry backed by libertarian arguments, which rebadge prostitution as another form of employment and promoting user access.

By contrast many of the ALP’s sister parties in the SI have taken a broad based community approach to the issue of prostitution and have sought legislation to end exploitation, commodification, and sex trafficking.

The Swedish Social Democratic Party, the Labour Party of Norway, and Iceland's Social Democratic Alliance have all introduced legislation criminalising the purchase of sexual services while decriminalising prostitution and offering genuine choices for exiting the industry including support, education, and retraining.

On the Nordic model, Icelandic Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir has stated “The Nordic countries are leading the way on women's equality, recognising women as equal citizens rather than commodities for sale”. In 2010 Sigurðardóttir’s government brought the sex industry to the brink of closure after the introduction of a bill that banned employers profiting from employees' nudity. This led to a complete overnight closure of everything from strip clubs to topless bars.

A number of SI affiliated parties are pushing similar legislation to bring their countries laws in line with the Nordic model. These include the Socialist Party of France, the Labour Party of Ireland, the Scottish Labour Party, and Denmark’s Social Democrats.

The ALP has taken a superficial approach to the issue of prostitution and failed to respond to the wider social problems that are symptomatic of legalisation of the sex industry. Such problems have included the expansion of the illegal sector alongside the legalised sex industry, as well as the problem of human trafficking and sexual slavery.

According to a German study by the University of Göttingen of 2012, Australia is rated as a high trafficking nation. The report examining trafficking in over 150 countries had found that nations that had legalised prostitution did have an expansion of the prostitution market and larger inflows of human trafficking.

This shows the failures of the Australian Left to step back from the pro-legalisation mantra and examine the broader human rights issues at play in the prostitution debate.

The ALP has ignored the voices of prostituted and trafficked people and consistently opposed examining the Nordic model by stating their belief that it pushes the sex industry underground.

The ALP is not alone in their blind adherence to pro-industry legislation. The Greens are also out of touch with many of their sister parties through their international affiliation to the Global Greens.

The charter of the Global Greens states that affiliates “will work to ensure that all men, women and children can achieve economic security, without recourse to personally damaging activities such as pornography, prostitution or the sale of organs”.

The Australian Greens policies have often appeared out of line with this aim, specifically in states like Western Australia where the Greens have pushed for the establishment of red light districts. WA Greens leader, Giz Watson also attacked state Liberal MP’s for what she called “holding notions of perceived third party exploitation in prostitution”.

NSW Greens MP Cate Faehrmann also defended the industry when she warned lawmakers against reacting harshly to recent investigations of human trafficking and sex slavery.

Faehrmann opposed the NSW government’s attempts to create a brothel licensing authority arguing that New Zealand and NSW provided two working decriminalised models.

The Australian Greens also use the term ‘sex work’ in their policy detail and support a push to end criminalisation of consensual adult sex work and support the purchasers of sexual services. The question that this policy does not address is how much sex work is actually consensual? And how they plan to help prostitutes who are not consensually working in the sex industry?

Other Greens internationally oppose the ‘sex work’ terminology used by the left in Australia. The Greens USA believe this terminology masks violent and illegal trafficking and state that research is continuing to show that only a minority of prostitutes genuinely choose to work in the sex industry.

Equally The French Green Party make an interesting point that free choice in prostitution is relative, in a society where gender inequality is institutionalised.

While the debate rages on in Australia, what’s striking is the major disconnect in policy between Australia’s mainstream left with their international counterparts.

Through adopting a libertarian approach to prostitution, Australia’s left have promoted a belief that access to sexual gratification is a human right and that the trade of sex consists of an equal and consensual power dynamic.

International evidence consistently shows the belief of equality in the sex trade to be false with the majority of prostitutes having faced higher instances of disadvantage, trauma, sexual abuse, and mental health disorders.

The attitudes of Australia’s left are not only blind the international problems of trafficking but are a broader betrayal of traditional left values of solidarity with those who are disadvantaged or oppressed. 

This belief also fails to recognise that consent provided through vulnerability is exploitative and something which many of Australia’s progressive counterparts consider a form of slavery.