Public urged to comment on planning guidelines for prostitution

This is STOP's response to the draft planning guidelines: http://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/Pages/Results.aspx?ItemID=130572

I am writing on behalf of a group called Sex Trade Opposition Project (STOP). STOP is a group of Perth women who formed last year to oppose the Prostitution Amendment Act 2008. We oppose the decriminalisation of brothels from both a human right and a women’s rights perspective. Please find below our comment on the draft planning guidelines which require local governments to control the location of brothels.
The guidelines state that local government schemes will regulate the use and development of land for sexual service businesses and planning approval will be required for sexual service business. This is inherently problematic, given that most local governments have openly stated their opposition to the legislation and reluctance to grant permission for brothels and sexual service businesses to operate in their area. There is considerable evidence to show that the clientele of even single operators in residential areas causes significant problems. A number of STOP members attended a council meeting at Melville where male punters were coming and going from one residence at all hours of the day and night, causing parking and noise problems to local residents and with reports of men who had been drinking, harassing young girls and women in the street. This will be increasingly problematic not solely in residential areas, but also areas that are non residential, or in fact any public area where women are likely to be. Research had found that when brothels proliferate, which always occurs following the decriminalisation or legalisation of prostitution, that there is a corresponding increase in the sexual harassment and sexual and assault of women in these areas.

STOP wonders exactly what measures the State Government are likely to take if local Governments consider all applications to them for sexual services businesses to be a nuisance or incompatible with the local character. Many have indicated that they will do so, which is unsurprising given that most councillors would consider sexual harassment to be a nuisance and certainly not in keeping with the character of their locality. In fact, the State Government’s own admission that local Government should give consideration to the proximity of sexual services business to ‘sensitive uses’ including child care facilities, indicates there is concern that the clientele of these establishments are unsafe.

STOP advocate for the Swedish model of legislation which more and more countries who’ve seen the endemic of sex trafficking in their borders have now adopted. This model has at its core the principle that the institution of prostitution is violence against ALL women and that legal penalties imposed upon those who purchase or who profit from a person who provides sexual services and at the same time decriminalises the provision of sexual services.

Before the proclamation of this legislation, STOP urge the State Government to consider the implications of this legislation on the women of Western Australia, especially those in the most vulnerable sections of the community who are likely to be drawn into this industry through it’s inevitable expansion. Most of the STOP members would consider themselves to be of the left of politics and be traditional Labour voters, however given the proposed demise of women’s human rights that Labour will be sanctioning with this legislation, if this legislation is proclamed, then we can only hope that Labour will not be re-elected.