In an interview with Dean Lim from 3CR radio, MP Fiona Patten and Lisa Dallimore, sat down for a chat about the largest inquiry into prostitution Victoria has seen in 35 years. The inquiry is already well underway, and it is being spearheaded by Patten who has been a vocal ‘sex worker rights’ lobbyist for several years.
In this candid interview, Patten suggests the Victorian government is primed for a model into the decriminalisation of the trade, and says previous legislation regarding prostitution is ‘obsolete.’ She admits that ‘the inquiry has got the objective of establishing a model of decriminalisation of sex work in Victoria.’ This indicates that Patten sees the inquiry as an opportunity to explore the possibility of implementing even greater relaxation of the current prostitution legislation, that will see the culture spiral downwards into even more decay than it already faces with current law. She hopes to explore the possibility of coupling current prostitution issues with the topic of consumer and workers’ rights, rather than the issue of trafficking itself.
The inquiry is fundamentally flawed in that it is set up to achieve a desired goal no matter what dirt the process itself will uncover. It is however, not without some positive outcomes; it will engage directly with ‘sex workers’ and aim to shed light on their experiences in order to create legislation that potentially safeguards them. Patten wants to focus on achieving diversity and fostering the exposure of a broad range of voices. Hopefully some of these will be trafficked migrant women who make up the vast majority of prostituted individuals in Australia. We’ll have to wait and see whether Patten conveniently skips over the voices of these migrant females in order to paint the industry as one that is viable, and deserves even greater legislative relaxation.
The fundamental logical flaw within Patten’s objective to achieve decriminalisation, is the notion that she wishes to create a safer space for sex workers by creating legislative conditions that increase trafficking behaviours. The issue with this thinking, is that she will do this by creating even more hazardous legislation through a decriminalisation model, which according to Nordic countries, statistically results in an unwanted rise in sex trafficking. In order to generate the safest conditions for prostitutes, who are likely, according to a Curtin study, to be experiencing psychological distress, it is prudent to adopt the Nordic approach to prostitution by making it illegal to purchase sex instead of selling it, thus reducing the demand for it. This in turn, protects the prostituted individuals, who would otherwise face legal penalty if legislation made sex work absolutely illegal for all who engage with it.
Not only will Patten’s vision for relaxed legislation foster the very issue she wishes to prevent (unsafe conditions for prostituted individuals) but she hopes to amend the discrimination act so that it would constitute an offence to not hire (in a workplace environment for example) a person such as a prostituted individual, who may be addicted to drugs and facing other issues that result in an employer not wishing to hire them. If these changes to the discrimination act are implemented, society may see the rising acceptance and destigmatisation of sex work, thus creating an environment where people are desensitised to the issue. Once people are desensitised to ‘sex work’ in a society, they will begin to accept it, and then inevitably foster it or engage in it themselves. This will only breed additional problems to what our society is already facing in regards to this criminal enterprise.
In order to stop prostituted individuals from being abused in future, it is thus of paramount concern that the community fights against the relaxation of legislation concerning sex trafficking, across all states within Australia. In the aforementioned interview, Patten asks those interested in the inquiry, to email her office.
Why not send an email to her or your local MP, expressing your concerns over the decriminalisation of the industry?
Make your voice heard.
Adopt the Nordic approach to prostitution and get active in exposing the detrimental reality that is the sex trafficking industry, preferably before Patten reports back to parliament come August 2020.
Send her a letter of concern or contact her through this link: https://fionapatten.com.au/contact/
