Australia’s Northern Territory Passes Sex Work Decriminalization

Two weeks after the legislature in Australia’s state of South Australia voted down a bill that would have decriminalized sex work there, the country’s Northern Territory has moved in the opposite direction. On Monday, the parliament there voted 16-5 to repeal laws outlawing sex work, and put new rules in place removing criminal penalties, according to a report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.  The new decriminalization laws provide “a world-leading example of regulation for the sex industry and effective, practical and accessible protections for sex workers," said Jules Kim, chief executive of the Scarlet Alliance, Australia’s leading sex worker advocacy group. Under the new decriminalization laws, sex workers in the Northern Territory will gain “access to the same workplace health and safety protections as other Territorians,” the Scarlet Alliance said in a Twitter posting.  In South Australia on November 13, a 20-year campaign to end laws against sex work hit another dead end, as the 13th attempt to pass a decriminalization bill failed, as AVN.com reported.  Decriminalization in the Northern Territory is not the same as deregulation, however, cautioned NT Attorney General Natasha Fyles. "When you take the word 'sex' out of it, we are looking at it from a worker safety perspective and we are looking it from regulating it so our community has a say in it," Fyles told ABC. Brothels will not be allowed near schools or child care facilities, she said, though the exact distances of separation have not yet been determined. "I acknowledge this bill and subsequent debate has been contentious for some, but the ultimate goal is better health and safety outcomes for sex workers,” Fyles said. After the bill’s passage in the Northern Territory, which has a population of only about 250,000, Australia’s second-largest state, Victoria, said that it would begin a review of its own laws against sex work, according a Guardian newspaper report.  Victoria has a population of about 6.5 million, and is home to Australia’s second-largest city, Melbourne. The review of Victoria’s sex work laws will focus on “workplace safety, stigma and criminal activity within the industry,” according to the Guardian report. The laws also need to be brought up to date to recognize that sex workers now operate largely online, according to Fiona Patten, a Reason Party member of parliament in Victoria who will spearhead the review of the state’s sex work laws. Photo By kenhodge13 / Wikimedia Commons