Nordic/Equality Model needed to end sexploitation of women and girls
Melbourne uni students - young, female and predominantly Asian - are being targeted by the predatory sex industry during COVID-19.
The Herald Sun investigation documented dozens of illegal brothels posing as ‘massage parlours’, luring uni students via job ads with promises of earning ‘hundreds of dollars a day’.
Details of the illegal brothels were found on an online sex forum, where men ‘rate, shame and demean’ prostituted women. The forum revealed that the industry intentionally targets students who will offer lower rates to secure customers during vulnerable COVID times.
Quoted in the Herald Sun, Campaigns Manager Caitlin Roper who has conducted extensive research on one of Australia’s top sex buyer review websites and authored a chapter in Prostitution Narratives on men who buy sex, said:
There are a lot of women who are vulnerable right now. The sex trade is built on using women who are economically disadvantaged, students, women of colour … the sex industry in Australia is built on the exploitation of vulnerable women.
Read the full article here.
We can’t address men’s violence against women without addressing men’s paid sexual access to women in the sex trade, which is itself men’s violence against women. The sex trade is premised on the idea that men are entitled to sex and an underclass of women must be made available to provide it.
We need to implement the Nordic/Equality model of prostitution legislation which focuses on ending male demand for women and girls for sexual exploitation, while decriminalising individuals selling sex and offering them pathways to leave the industry.
See also
Vic Government review to decriminalise pimps excludes sex trade survivors
Submission to the National Action Plan to Combat Modern Slavery 2020-24
Submission into Victoria Review into Decriminalisation of Sex Work
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