In response to the program “Sex Slavery” by Four Corners and all other associated media coverage, NAUWU thinks it’s important to send an open letter to the Australian Federal Police (AFP). The Four Corners program sensationalised the issue of trafficking in the sex industry and the AFP plays a major role in regulating this aspect of the sex industry.

Media campaign in response to Four Corners “Sex Slavery” program can be found below. Includes links to print, online and radio broadcasts, link to Four Corners program “Sex Slavery” and sex workers responses.
http://nothing-about-us-without-us.com/media-campaign-trafficking-and-regulation-in-australia/

NAUWU’s written complaint to Four Corners “Sex Slavery” program can be found here:
http://nothing-about-us-without-us.com/media-campaign-trafficking-and-regulation-in-australia-october-2011_-nauwu-complaint/

The Four Corners program has been the catalyst in a wave of raids by AFP and other regulatory bodies across NSW and VIC. These raids have targetted migrant sex workers. NAUWU feels it’s important to make all regulatory bodies aware of the facts and lobby for the rights of all sex workers, rather than regulatory bodies participating in knee jerk reactions to biased, blatantly incorrect media.

The following open letter was sent by NAUWU to the Australian Federal Police
NAUWU_Open letter to the Australian Federal Police_26 October 2011

As of 30th January 2012, we have had no response. We will keep you updated!

Note: below is a link to the Scarlet Alliance resource “Guide to your rights and responsibilities when dealing with Police, Immigration and Taxation Officers“. The resource contains links to the resource translated into Chinese, Thai and Korean. The AFP raids are impacting on ALL sex workers not just workers from overseas. This resource is worth a look for all sex workers.

If you are a worker from overseas, or know of any international workers caught in a raid who need assistance, please let them know they can call Scarlet Alliance directly and speak to one of the peer workers from the Migration Project. They have lots of resources in different languages, useful contacts and loads of experience in many areas. They also do outreach and speak many languages. They are a National organisation meaning they work with sex workers across Australia (so even though their phone number is in NSW, you can call them and they’ll love to hear from you no matter which State you’re in).

Scarlet Alliance 02 9690 0551

http://www.scarletalliance.org.au/projects/migration/News_Item.2010-12-09.4018

Note: NAUWU makes every effort to ensure the quality of the information available on this website. Before relying on the information on this site, however, users should carefully evaluate its accuracy, currency, completeness and relevance for their purposes, and should obtain any appropriate professional advice relevant to their particular circumstances. NAUWU cannot guarantee and assumes no legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, currency or completeness of the information.

Disclaimer: Images used on this site have been used with the permission of all parties pictured. If you happen to find an image of yourself and do not wish for it to appear on http://www.nothing-about-us-without-us.com please let the webperson of this site know by contacting nothingaboutuswithoutus@gmail.com .

Contributions on http://www.nothing-about-us-without-us.com have been made by NSW Sex Workers and other concerned parties of NSW Sex Industry; site design and maintenance by nothingaboutuswithoutus@gmail.com ; Copyright Nothing About Us Without Us 2009 – 2020

NAUWU has decided to take further action to hold The Australian Broadcasting Corporation accountable for their inaccurate and biased media coverage of the Four Corners program which aired on Monday 10th October 2011.

The link to the broadcast can be found here:
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2011/10/06/3333668.htm

NAUWU and the wider sex working communities response to the program can be found here:
http://nothing-about-us-without-us.com/media-campaign-trafficking-and-regulation-in-australia/

NAUWU, its members and other sex workers we have spoken to are outraged by the program because the ABC’s actions have been DAMAGING! We have therefore actioned the complaints process to hold The ABC accountable. By submitting complaints we do not expect an immediate apology as the sex working community were ignored and submissions from peer based organisation to provide The ABC with accurate information rejected.

We feel strongly however that The ABC should at the very least realise the impact of what they’ve done and better, we intend to assist them to realise they need to make amends.

We are also concerned since the program went to air, there has been media from different sources including Channel 10 and print media that follows the same logic, uses the same analogies the Four Corners program did and has sourced Four Corners in their coverage. The ABC went into parntership with FairFax media to initially promote the Four Corners program and this seems to have had a flow on effect to the wider media.

NAUWU submitted a complaint to The ABC and Four Corners outlining just a few of the key issues we had with the program. Please see below for a copy of our initial complaint and the emails that followed between NAUWU and The ABC:

NAUWU Complaint to 4 Corners_Final_25.10.11

26 Oct 2011

A complaint to 4 Corners

Nothing About Us Without Us is an unfunded, volunteer, loose collective of sex workers who formed to ensure a sex worker voice in maintained in the efforts to keep, defend and create the decriminalisation of sex work in NSW.

We believe your reporting of trafficking for sex work in Australia was unethical, without conscience, against the best interests of migrant workers in Australia, shortsighted and incredibly damaging to the sex worker community in Australia.

1) Police corruption and DIAC harassment of sex workers as a result of your story.

We do not believe that you “uncovered” “trafficking” in the course of your “investigation.”

We believe the incidents alleged to be “trafficking” by you were not actual cases of trafficking. We know that you know that these particular incidents were about as far from trafficking as anything could be in Australia; with the only commonality with actual trafficking cases t in Australia being that they involved individual sex workers of Asian backgrounds on work visas who identify as female. Yet since the 4 Corners program sex workers in a number of jurisdictions have alleged to us that Australian Federal Police are conducting raids on sex worker workplaces asking to find “sex slaves” and “trafficking” — knowing that there is none going on.

Let us rephrase.

We know that corrupt police, allegedly those within the Australian Federal Police, are taking advantage of the media hype and political uncertainty following the 4 Corners “investigation,” to harass, pressure, and conduct spoof raids on premises that they know, as a result of their own intelligence, are not linked to any such activity, but that they know they can get away with because of the momentum as a result of the 4 Corners reporting.

We also know that DIAC have, as a result of your show, taken advantage of the political climate, and moved in on hundreds of workplaces to check and cancel Visa’s if people are even one step out of line with the arbitrary visa conditions under which they are travelling.

Do you understand that we always see a spike in corrupt activity following sensationalist high profile media coverage of these issues? Do you understand that we always see a spike in aggressive DIAC targeting of sex work workplaces following sensationalist high profile media coverage of these issues?

Was this your intention as a result of your report?

We demand an apology from 4 Corners for unwittingly contributing to police corruption and sex worker harassment by DIAC.

2) Support for the criminalisation of sex work and the expansion of police powers as a result of your story.

Decriminalisation is the best legal framework for sex work, it has created a landscape of transparency and access to justice for sex workers in New South Wales and the ACT that is unmatched across the rest of Australia. You did not investigate this in your report.

Regardless, in the wake of the 4 Corners reporting, the increased criminalisation of sex work and increased police powers proposed in Victoria and New South Wales have all been announced, under the cover of the unfounded “allegations” made by 4 Corners.

4 Corners interviewed a sex worker who was in contact with an abolitionist anti-sex work group in Taiwan. That sex worker had wanted to come to Australia to do sex work, and has a legal right to migrate here and do so, but was deceived about their work conditions and exploited while they were here. This is not evidence of the need for criminalisation of sex work or increased police powers in Australia. It is evidence of increasing need for sex worker peer education services to be expanded to reach even more sex workers and let migrant sex workers know about their human rights.

4 Corners did not interview VIXEN or RhED in Victoria, SWOP NSW, SWOP NT, SWOP ACT, Magenta in WA, SIN in South Australia, Respect Inc in Queensland or Scarlet Alliance (national and in Tasmania). 4 Corners did not approach the Sex Workers Union and did not approach us. 4 Corners instead interviewed a tiny abolitionist, anti-sex work group in Melbourne, and a discredited Greens local politician, who ran through a series of trafficking “figures” that we all know are bullshit. This biased reporting is not evidence of the need for criminalisation of sex work or increased police powers in Australia.

4 Corners did not interview COSWAS in Taiwan, Zi Teng in Hong Kong, Giant Girls in South Korea, Empower in Thailand, or any of the other sex worker groups in Asia. This is further evidence of your biased reporting. This is not evidence of the need for criminalisation of sex work or increased police powers in Australia.

4 Corners interviewed the parents of a man who died in a murderous crime committed in relation to brothel violence in Victoria. We are sorry that man was killed. No one should be murdered. However, this is not evidence of the need for criminalisation of sex work or increased police powers in Australia. In fact, police already have massive powers in Victoria. To expand them would be totally ludicrous.

Yet Governments in Victoria and NSW are now responding to public pressure as a result of the 4 Corners program and using it to excuse their (already formulated) policies to increase police powers, criminalise sex work, and strip us of our human rights in those states.

Does 4 Corners intend to sit by and watch while our rights as sex workers are drained from each state and territory on the basis of your report?

We demand 4 Corners make a public statement that they did not intend to provide political support for Victoria or New South Wales in either the repeal of decriminalisation or increasing police powers, as this was not in the scope of your “investigation” and not an outcome that could be linked to the “findings” of the 4 Corners program.

3) “Bad” whore vs “Good” victim dichotomy.

Your show was not saved by the rhetorical intellectual bullshit sprouted by Mr Kerry O’Brien at the beginning of the show. In fact is simply exposes your lack of leg work on this issue. His introduction implied that it was ok to only take the abolitionist point of view because you weren’t talking about whores, you were only talking about victims. We feel sorry that someone wrote such a script for Kerry, perhaps he didn’t realise he was being the political patsy to your biased reporting and the political fall out that was about to ensue.

Let us educate you.

There are no “good” victims. There are no “bad” whores.

Perhaps you have missed the last 25 years of the sex worker rights movement but there is more academic deconstruction of this myth than there is evidence in all the schlock reporting ever done in Australia on mythical trafficking victim stereotyping.

We are not a species to be catalogued and separated in test tubes as a result of your prejudices and whorephobia.

A sex worker who faces bad work conditions and exploitation is still a sex worker deserving of human rights and dignity.

The incessant pathologisation of individuals who have experienced trafficking-like work conditions has poisoned Australian trafficking policy to the point and created serious human rights barriers to those who are brave enough to come forward and report trafficking crimes. Yet Kerrys introduction purpetuates this “good victim” “bad whore” myth and the bad policies it props up.

For example, magistrates making their witness protection visa’s conditional on them not doing sex work while awaiting a trial.

Or people affected by trafficking like situations being told that the stamp in their passport makes it illegal now for them ever to return to Australia to do sex work.

Or migrant sex workers being told by Dept of Immigration that due to Australian trafficking law migrants cannot legally work here.

All of these actions by authorities in Australia are based on the myth that Kerry so confidently trotted out at the beginning of your show.

This logic is like telling a person who got held up in a bank robbery that they can never legally have a bank account again.

Or telling a person who was injured during a car crash that for their own good they can now no longer legally have a drivers license. Or ever travel again in a moving vehicle.

Or, as New Zealand has done, criminalise ALL sex workers who are not New Zealand citizens. For “their own good.”

Your show, its ridiculous promotions, shady re-dramatisations of imaginary events, exploitation of a dead mans parents’ grief and hopeful imaginations of their “heroic” son, use of quotes from Jennifer Burns on the advertising saying that most Australians don’t realise the extent of slavery when Jennifer was talking about slavery that does not occur in sex work yet you used to quote as if to say that she meant sex work, spooky music, your use of a spokesperson who has been discredited so many times we can’t even believe you bothered to interview them in the first place (and we all know who that is) and the fact that you couldn’t even fit into the story ONE counterpoint of view, leads us to demand:

That you remove the promotions, text, and full copy of your 4 Corners program on trafficking for sex work from the ABC website in an effort to prevent further damage and misinformation on this issue.

And that

Sally Neighbour and Kerry O’Brien be required to undergo a full weeks training on sex worker human rights issues, including trainers from Empower Foundation in Thailand, at the ABC’s expense, to ensure that this misguided “helping” of sex workers, which has actually irrevocably damaged migrant sex worker human rights and any possible useful trafficking policies in this country, doesn’t happen at the ABC again.

Yours sincerely,

A group of very angry sex workers

On behalf of Nothing About Us Without Us
nothingaboutuswithoutus@gmail.com
http://www.nothing-about-us-without-us.com

CC: Consumer Affairs Victoria
CC: VIXEN
CC: RhED
CC: Scarlet Alliance, Australian Sex Workers Association
CC: CopWatch Melbourne

After submitting the complaint NAUWU waited two weeks for a response and when one was not forthcoming we contacted The ABC again requesting a response. We received this reply:

From: ABC Corporate_Affairs5 <Corporate_Affairs5.ABC@abc.net.au>
Date: Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 3:11 PM
Subject: Sex worker rights and Trafficking media
To: “nothingaboutuswithoutus@gmail.com” <nothingaboutuswithoutus@gmail.com>

Dear nothingaboutuswithoutus@gmail.com

I refer to your email below.

Your complaint is being investigated and you can expect a substantive response in due course. The ABC has 60 days in which to investigate and respond to complaints alleging a breach of its editorial standards. We do endeavour to respond to complaints within 30 days, but occasionally the sheer volume of correspondence received by the ABC means it may sometimes take longer.

Regards

Audience and Consumer Affairs

NAUWU on the 16th November received this response from The ABC

On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 11:33 AM,
ABC Corporate_Affairs11 <CORPORATE_AFFAIRS11.ABC@abc.net.au> wrote:

Dear Nothing About Us Without Us collective

Thank you for your email concerning the Four Corners program “Sex Slavery”.

As your correspondence raised concerns of a lack of accuracy and objectivity, your email was referred to Audience and Consumer Affairs for consideration and response. The unit is separate and independent from ABC program areas and is responsible for investigating complaints alleging a broadcast or publication was in contravention of the ABC’s editorial standards. In light of your concerns, we have reviewed the broadcast and assessed it against the ABC’s editorial requirements for accuracy and impartiality, as outlined in sections 2 and 4 of the ABC’s Editorial Policies: http://www.abc.net.au/corp/pubs/edpols.htm. In the interests of procedural fairness, we have also sought and considered material from ABC News.

Four Corners advises that the material that the program drew upon was based on sworn evidence before the Melbourne Magistrates Court where Mao Ru Zhang has been arrested and charged with placing two women in debt bondage and sexual servitude. In Taiwan, the program talked to a Ministry of Justice prosecutor who had gathered evidence based on intercepted phone calls and documented examples of illegal smuggling of Chinese women between Taiwan and Australia. Four Corners stands by the accuracy of its program and that the trafficking cases described in the program, were actual cases of trafficking.

If you have any evidence of corrupt police or immigration officials hassling sex workers, the program would be very happy to receive this information and investigate it further.

On review the program did not “support for criminalisation of sex work and the expansion of police powers”. It investigated examples of where women were being exploited against their will and raised legitimate questions as to how and why such a situation exists in Australia today, especially when the sex industry has been widely decriminalised and regulated for people’s safety and enjoyment? There is nothing in the program to suggest that the program makers are anti-sex workers.

Four Corners advises that it researched this story extensively and spoke to many organisations, academics, investigators, politicians, brothel owners and sex workers, including the Scarlet Alliance. Links to various organisations are found on the program’s website. http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2011/10/06/3333668.htm

Accordingly, while noting your concerns, Audience and Consumer Affairs are satisfied the broadcast was in keeping with the ABC’s editorial standards for accuracy and impartiality. Nonetheless, please be assured that your comments have been noted and conveyed to ABC News management and the producers of the program.

Thank you for taking the time to write; your feedback is appreciated.

For your reference, the ABC Editorial Policies are available online at http://www.abc.net.au/corp/pubs/documents/codeofpractice2011.pdf

Should you be dissatisfied with this response to your complaint, you may be able to pursue your complaint with the Australian Communications and Media Authority, http://www.acma.gov.au .

Yours sincerely
Mark Maley
Audience & Consumer Affairs

NAUWU was dissatisfied with this response from The ABC so we sent the following reply:

From: Nothing Without <nothingaboutuswithoutus@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 2:32 PM
Subject: Re: Trafficking for Sex Work in Australia
To: ABC Corporate_Affairs11 <CORPORATE_AFFAIRS11.ABC@abc.net.au>

We do have evidence of police corruption and if your show had done its research without first taking an anti-sex work slant, you too would have already reported on it. This case has been reported on for over 6 months:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/council-worker-jailed-for-brothel-bribes/story-fn7x8me2-1226196513238

Yarra Council, the very council that your 4 Corners ‘talent’ Kathleen Maltzan served upon, implemented am anti-trafficking approach actually has materially that promoted corruption, and has now resulted in the JAILING of an operator in their area (see above link). That 4 Corners uncritically promoted the voice of this anti-sex work campaigner, and overlooked the corruption charges IN THE VERY POLICIES SHE IMPLIMENTED AS A COUNCILLOR is illustrative of the lazy jounalism that characterised that episode of 4 Corners.

The interviews you did show cased Kathleen Maltzhan as if she both had knowledge and advice about trafficking policy. In actual fact HER VERY COUNCIL has been instrumental in the very corruption that has arisen from ANTI TRAFFICKING POLICIES, the policies your show did nothing to critically expose.

There have been closures of brothels EVEN THIS WEEK still as fall out resulting from the false reporting of 4 Corners. Sex workers in Melbourne, Surry Hills, Sydney, Angel Town and Enmore Road Newtown have all faced violent immigration raids and closures of their workplaces on the basis of harsh anti-immigration policing.

Will 4 Corners take responsibility for the harsh law and order response that they priviledged, leading to more sex worker harrasment and no consideration of expanding migrant sex workers rights?

In both the show and your response to our complaint you are continueing to illustrate a complete lack of understanding of sex worker approaches to trafficking prevention. People who have experienced sex trafficking are not for media to pathologise or sensationalise. Your show has had a direct negative impact on migrant sex workers rights, and have contributed to harsh negative law and order approaches that have materially reduced sex workers access to justice or anti-trafficking preventions since you aired the show.

We are incredibly dissapointed at your response. Our committee will consider your response and acknowledge the time period that passed since we sent you our complaint; this may have an impact on whether the Press Council will accept us to submit this to arbitartion or not.

We are dissapointed and feel that this discussion is not over; we don’t feel like 4 Corners has effectively addressed our complaint, and your refusal of all of our suggestions is unacceptable.

The anti-sex work nature of your show was palpable, the reporting was biased, and NAUWU is totally not happy with your response.

Please explain how your show chose an anti-trafficking spokesperson without critically investigating her own history and involvement with failed harsh criminal approaches to trafficking

NAUWU
nothingaboutuswithoutus@gmail.com
http://www.nothing-about-us-without-us.com

What now?
NAUWU and the sex working community is furious with the ABC’s response. Our next step is to make an appeal to the Press Council, however we have to ask them to waive the 30 day limitation on the complaint because the ABC took longer than usual to respond to NAUWU’s complaint.

The Press Council arbitration means signing a document to agree not to sue the ABC in other ways in the future. NAUWU believes this program was incredibly damaging and so has no problem signing such a document to take the complaint to the next level and believe The ABC and the Four Corners program needs to be judged by a third party,

Even if The Press Council finds in favour or 4 Corners, the fact that we have pursued the complaint is meaningful. At the end of the year the Press Council writes a report about who was complained about and why, so even if our complaint is turned down or isn’t successful it will be worthwhile having made the complaint.

We will keep you informed.

If you have any comments you can leave them in the comments section on this page, or please feel free to contact at us nothingaboutuswithoutus@gmail.com

Trafficking in Australia;
“Vigilante approach is wrong,
Prevention is key.”
say Sex Workers
*taken from Scarlet Alliance Media Release 11th October 2011

Sensationalist media
Over the last week Australian media has been flooded by sensationalised reports regarding the issues of trafficking and regulation in the Australian sex industry, but more specifically in Melbourne and NSW. In the 5 day period from the 8th October up until today the 13th October 2011 these media articles have included:

http://nothing-about-us-without-us.com/why-did-abraham-papo-die-the-sydney-morning-herald-08-10-11/

http://nothing-about-us-without-us.com/terrible-price-of-a-trade-in-misery-the-sydney-morning-herald-08-10-11/

http://nothing-about-us-without-us.com/human-trafficking-prompts-raids-on-brothels-the-sydney-morning-herald-08-10-11/

http://nothing-about-us-without-us.com/legal-brothels-linked-to-international-sex-trafficking-rings-the-sydney-morning-herald-10-10-11/

http://nothing-about-us-without-us.com/licensing-law-to-tighten-screws-on-brothel-chiefs-the-sydey-morning-herald-11-10-11/

http://nothing-about-us-without-us.com/never-a-game-the-sydney-morning-herald-11-10-11/

http://nothing-about-us-without-us.com/brothel-firebombing-linked-to-turf-war-the-sydney-morning-herald-11-10-11/

and of course the Four Corners program which can be found at this link:

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2011/10/06/3333668.htm

The above articles were cross published in The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Brisbane Times, WAToday and on the ABC website.

The articles and Four Corners program included the sensationalist terms:
“hundreds of legal brothels…..thousands of women ….. brutal industry….lives in danger… sex slavery….. sexual servitude”

_
FLESH TRADE: Four Corners teaser and cross promotion of media
Along with the articles listed above, each appeared with what the newspapers named “FLESH TRADE: Four Corners teaser”. This “FLESH TRADE teaser” was a video that included hidden camera footage of workers in brothels being filmed without their knowledge or consent; a “journalist” driving around in his car stopping out the front of licensed brothels in VIC and brothels in NSW who have DA consent to operate, pointing out that they were brothels and would more than likely have illegal workers in them working in sexual servitude; commentary on how the next Four Corners program would blow the lid off the Flesh Trade in Australia and expose sexual servitude, sex slavery, trafficking, contract workers and that they were run by gangs, murderers and other criminals in huge numbers and how this behaviour is the norm in the Australian sex industry.

Examples of these Flesh Trade Teasers can be found here:

http://media.theage.com.au/news/national-news/flesh-trade–four-corners-teaser-2676045.html

http://www.smh.com.au/national/the-flesh-trade

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/legal-brothels-linked-to-international-sex-trafficking-rings-20111009-1lfxs.html

The Age newspaper and The Sydney Morning Herald were in partnership with Four Corners and running a cross promotion where all three media were able to promote each other and benefit by sensationalising the same issue. By doing this not only is this promotion and awareness achieved, but the issue can be seen by the public to gain more credibility and the ability to sensationalise an issue and make it larger than life is multiplied three fold.

NOTE: In the 2 months leading up to this media coverage, Scarlet Alliance did over the phone interviews with the journalists involved with producing theses articles for Fairfax media (SMH, The Australian) and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (for the Four Corners program). However, Four Corners chose not to interview Scarlet Alliance, it’s members, NAUWU, or anyone from the asian sex worker organisations for this particular edition of the show. The Farifax media journalists chose not to use any of Scarlet Alliance’s material in their written coverage.

The response
The sex working community was appalled. People responded by writing blogs, commenting on the articles as they were published by each media group, discussing the issues on forums, Twitter campaigns, directly contacting the media groups who published and aired the material, press releases were put out by sex worker organisations, website campaigns were launched and complaints made to the Press Council. Please see below for examples.

Media releases:
Scarlet Alliance media release in response_ Trafficking in Australia; “Vigilante approach is wrong, prevention is key” say sex workers_11th October 2011

SWOP media release_Brothel Licencing and Illegal Safe Sex_October 2011

The Australian Sex Party Media Release_Sex Slavery Caused by Failure of Moral Policy

Sex worker comments:
“4 corners… use to be a childhood memory of ‘good journalism’.. now a stain in my consciousness… sad but true…”
R********

“…Now is the time to come together as a community. 4 Corners should have outraged us with the appalling one sided representation not given people permission to judge. 4 Corners should bring us together as a powerful lobbying community. You should be outraged!”
Dora Explorha

“…the show could have been on Today Tonight instead of Four Corner’s”
QueerRTchoke

“…did anyone pick up on the fact they actually took hidden cameras into the line ups, rooms etc and video’d woman without their knowledge or permission?! And they preach how evil it is these very woman they were videoing are being taken advantage of, used and abused for other people’s gain and given no choice. Disgusting hypocrits.”
IGP

“One of the main points about all these articles an even the program itself is that they are high on speculation and very low on fact. The unsafe sex in Sydney brothels article is a prime example where their only evidence is that say so of one brothel owner that other brothels in her area (not her own) may practise un safe sex.

I would add the results of the LASH project – we have the evidence that voluntary STI checks undertaken in consultation with individual’s medical practitioner as to how often, if at all, an individual sex worker ought to submit to a sexual health screen is best practice and works. According to the LASH project, NSW has best outcomes in terms of sexual health and access by representative bodies such as SWOP. Until the LASH Report to NSW Government is in the public domain, one of the papers produced from the study ‘Improving the health of sex workers in NSW: maintaining success’ says it all. Abstract from published paper Vol. 21(3-4)2010 NSW Public Health Bulletin Donovan et al

“NSW has a diverse sex industry that is limited in its size by modest demand. There is no evidence that decriminalisation in 1995 increased the frequency of commercial sex in NSW. Though the largest sector, female brothels, is now mainly staffed by Asian women, condom use for vaginal and anal sex exceeds 99% and sexually transmissible infection rates are at a historic low. These gains are attributable to the long-term support of the NSW Department of Health in collaboration with the community-based Sex Workers Outreach Project and sexual health services, facilitated by the removal of criminal sanctions without the expense and access barriers of licensing systems”
Julie

Websites:
http://www.sexparty.org.au/index.php/news/media-releases/1229-sex-workers-say-anti-trafficking-crusaders-are-not-our-friends

http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/slavery-in-australia-goes-beyond-the-sex-trade/

http://www.sexparty.org.au/index.php/news/media-releases/1218-no-one-is-listening-to-us-sex-workers

NGO Delegation to the UNAIDS PCB_Trafficking truth and lies_it’s time to decriminalise

Sex worker blogs:
http://becauseimawhore.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/stop-the-traffic-the-car-crash-you-cant-look-away-from/

http://ryrysparkleby.tumblr.com/post/11267692856/sex-trafficking-rant

http://ashaaaa.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/migrant-exploitation-and-labour-trafficking-is-not-exclusive-to-the-sex-industry/

Meetings attended and representation given:
Sex Party NSW_Migrant Sex Workers Myth and Misconception

http://www.sexparty.org.au/index.php/videos/1245-sex-workers-andrew-patterson-

http://www.sexparty.org.au/index.php/videos/1244-sex-slavery-elena-jeffreys-fiona-patten

Radio:
ABC Radio Australia_Australian sex worker group opposes moves to police industry

Government Organisations:
PLA In Touch Newsletter_Issue 64_December 2011

Where to now and what can you do?
NAUWU is taking further action to hold Fairfax Media and The Australian Broadcasting Corporation accountable for their inaccurate and biased media coverage. Since this page was first published, there has also been media from different sources including Channel 10 and print media that NAUWU is concerned about. We will continue to lobby, advocate, and educate on the issues of trafficking and sex work and the need for Australian media to represent the issues in a fair and accurate manner. We will continue to work with sex workers including sex worker peer based organisations to address these issues.

If you’d like to help, we’d love it if you could…
- Get onto internet forums and give your feedback to the media articles
- Share the above media release
- Contact the media outlets whose reporting is most biased and sensationalist
- Tell us your opinion!- place a comment after this article
- talk about the issues on Twitter and Tweet this page
- send us an email to nothingaboutuswithoutus@gmail.com
- join NAUWU by sending us an email
- write a blog discussing the issues
- talk with other sex workers

We will keep you informed of any updates and with further information!

Media Campaign: Underbelly: Razor’s myth hides the ugly truth The Sunday Telegraph 28.08.11

Australian Media, Campaigns, NAUWU, NSW Media, NSW Media Campaigns 2 Responses » Tagged with: Australian Media, campaigns, Legal, Media, media campaigns, NSW

Aug 292011

“I can hardly speak what vitriol … need to catch my breath and consider what to say, such incitement to hatred..”

_
The above statement was made by a sex worker in response to an article which appeared in The Sunday Telegraph (article can be found below). The tone and language used in the article was over the top and biased which sex workers find insulting and fear it carries the very real potential for inciting hatred and violence.

Sex workers would also appreciate if journalists could make the effort to get their facts straight. It is not illegal for a sex worker to solict on the streets in NSW unless it is done “near or within view from a dwelling, school, church or hospital…” (see – Summary Offences Act 1988 No 25: 19 Soliciting clients by prostitutes). NAUWU feels The Sunday Telegraph should print an apology to the Daily Telegraph readers for failing to research yet another article properly and again printing misinformation about the legality of this activity.

Members of NAUWU and other sex workers are now involved in a campaign to try and get an apology printed by The Sunday Telegraph including writing letters, leaving comments under the article and responding on the author’s Twitter. So far we have had no response and only 1 comment pointing out the correct legal facts and asking for fair an unbiased reporting has been approved and published.

Below you will find the article, responses sent to NAUWU by sex workers who had tried to leave a comment on the article which were not approved and the contact details of the “journalist” who wrote the article. NAUWU would like to encourage you to either contact the author, leave a comment under this post or send us an email with your comment to: nothingaboutuswithoutus@gmail.com

Underbelly: Razor’s myth hides the ugly truth

Claire Harvey
From: The Sunday Telegraph
August 28, 2011 12:00AM

The gorgeous actors in Underbelly Razor make prostitution look a lot of fun. Picture: Channel Nine. Source: The Sunday Telegraph

SEEN the gorgeous hookers in Underbelly: Razor?

Silk-satin dressing gowns, rosebud lips popping with bright red colour, pin curls, those elegant little kitten-heeled bedroom slippers I’ve always wanted a pair of those. They make prostitution look pretty nice.

What a great big fib that is and how galling that the horrible lie of glamorous sex work persists into 2011.

This week, as scandal hung like a 1930s soot cloud over federal Labor MP Craig Thomson and Prime Minister Julia Gillard, I’ve been baffled by the way the debate’s been framed.

If you listen to the political commentary on this affair, Thomson’s greatest alleged wrongdoing which he denies is supposed to be the misuse of union funds.

I think there’s another, much more serious and damaging element of the allegations that Mr Thomson’s credit card was used by someone other than him to pay for the services of prostitutes and escorts.

I think using prostitutes the most exploitative and damaging commercial transactions anyone can undertake. Sex workers are the most vulnerable people in the Australian economy. There is nothing glamorous about their work or their lives.

Craig Thomson deserves the presumption of innocence. He has denied the claims against him, which boil down to this: while he was working for the Health Services Union, he allegedly used his union credit cards to pay for prostitution and other services.

Thomson has previously claimed someone else, whom he refuses to name, used the cards and forged his signature. He has not revealed how that person got access to his drivers licence, which was listed on some of the card receipts.

On the request of the union, and after much urging from the federal opposition, police are now investigating whether there is any case to be made from the alleged fraudulent misuse of union funds.

The Health Services Union represents the working underclass of Australia hospital cleaners, aged-care staff, disability support workers.

Somebody – and Craig Thomson won’t tell us who – used their money to pay for prostitutes. That, I believe, is the real scandal here.

Let me be clear: I am not suggesting prostitution laws should be changed.

In NSW it is no longer a criminal offence to conduct paid sex work in brothels or private homes, although it is still illegal to solicit on the street.

I think that’s the right balance - it’s inevitable that sex work will go on regardless of anyone’s attempts to ban it. You know the old cliché, prostitution is the oldest profession.

Prohibition generally does little except create a new and wealthier class of criminal, as author Larry Writer so eloquently demonstrated in his book Razor, upon which the present Underbelly series is based.

One of the star characters is Ellen “Nellie” Cameron, a beautiful and fiery prostitute who, according to common myth of the 1920s and`30s, loved sex so much she abandoned her privileged Sydney life to become a hooker. I heard an acquaintance repeat this myth just the other day as we sat chatting a bar He thought Nellie sounded pretty cool.

The cold truth, as Writer documented, was that Cameron lived a sad and violent life, full of drugs, cruelty and intimidation that characterised wild Razorhurst.

She was repeatedly beaten, shot and stabbed by clients, loversqland enemies. At least five of her lovers and husbands were murdered in gang hits. Cameron herself committed suicide at the age of 43.

Today the organisations that represent sex workers, including the Scarlet Alliance, say NSW’s legal framework helps encourage safe sex and fair employment conditions, helping reduce the risk of abuse by clients or police intimidation.

Despite that, sex workers are still at a much higher risk of sexual assault than the rest of the community, with perpetrators including clients, employers and people in their everyday lives who believe that because they sell sex for a living they have no right to say no.

Study after study, including the research of Dr Antonia Quadara of the Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault, reveals up to 60 per cent of prostitutes have been raped and many feel police do not take their complaints or fears seriously.

I am not suggesting that the person who used Mr Thomson’s credit card raped, assaulted or abused anyone.

I have every sympathy for the sex workers themselves, and I’m grateful we live in an age when they are no longer at risk of criminal charges for their work.

But legality does not make prostitution any less dangerous or exploitative. It does not make it right or fair. It certainly doesn’t make it glamorous.

No man would want his daughter to become a sex worker but it’s rare to hear anyone saying it’s morally reprehensible, or hypocritical, to pay someone else’s daughter for emotionless sex.

So I’m saying it. I think visiting prostitutes is wrong. I hate the idea union members’ funds were used to pay for such services.

And I hope Underbelly goes on to tell the true story of Nellie Cameron and her fellow prostitutes: they were raped and abused and mistreated, the pawns in a violent criminal game that goes on today.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/underbelly-razors-myth-hides-the-ugly-truth/story-e6frezz0-1226123524269

Sex worker responses
Other sex worker have sent their response to NAUWU after they read the article and tried to post a response on The Sunday Telegraph’s comments section. Their comments were not published, however we are proud to be able to give all sex workers a voice here:

Comments on this article apart from ****’s are disgusting. Took me 10 minutes and a shower to calm down enough to write a rational response.

After reading the Razor editorial in the “TERROR” today , I am perplexed as to why the journalist employed at the Telegraph are in such denial of the fact that their employer is also living of the earnings of PROSTITUTION .

The daily Telegraph Adult Services section is a very lucrative business , and after doing the math , I’m sure the revenue earned by this section would keep the many journalist employed at news.com.

Perhaps the Labor MP Craig Thompson found the Tiffany advert in Telegraphs Adult Services section ???,such HYPOCRISY ” People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones” .
_

“You say you have sympathy for sex workers, yet you write with a tone that perpetuates hate.You’re sorry we have to deal with you?”

If you would like to contact the author of this article, her contact details follow:
Claire Harvey
9288 3329 or 0424 359 879
@chmharvey (Twitter)

Australian Christian Lobby
Just on a final note, we thought we’d mention that Claire Harvey’s article also featured on the website for the Australian Christian Lobby…..
http://australianchristianlobby.org.au/2011/08/pick-of-the-news-%E2%80%93-monday-august-29-2011/

Response to The Daily Telegraph Media Article 22.12.10 reporting in Liberals intent to set up a licensing authority

Campaigns, NSW Government Campaigns, NSW Media Campaigns No Responses » Tagged with: Australian Media, Government Campaigns, Media, media campaigns, Media Release, NAUWU, Nothing About Us Without Us, NSW, NSW Election 2011, Scarlet Alliance

Feb 082011

Two media articles were published in The Daily Telegraph on the 22.12.10 reporting the liberals will set up a licensing authority when elected in the NSW State Election of 2011. We have put links to the articles below:

http://nothing-about-us-without-us.com/nsw-coalition-vows-to-clean-up-brothels-the-daily-telegraph-22-12-10/

http://nothing-about-us-without-us.com/liberal-brothel-police-to-take-sleaze-out-of-sex-the-daily-telegraph-31-01-11/

Scarlet Alliance put out a media release about this issue and NAUWU in partnership with NAUWU publicly released the submission below. NAUWU recognises Scarlet Alliance and members of NAUWU quick response on such an important issue; we would also like to acknowledge the willingness and ability of NAUWU and Scarlet Alliance to work together as sex workers for sex workers.

Scarlet Alliance Media Release – in response to media articles above

Submission on Sex Industry Regulation in NSW
September, 2010 - NAUWU and Scarlet Alliance joint submission

Scarlet Alliance Website NSW Laws

In response to Daily Telegraph Media Articles 12.11.10

NSW Media Campaigns No Responses » Tagged with: Adult Business Association, Australian Media, Brothel Busters, campaigns, Chris Seage, Media, media campaigns, Saul Isbister

Nov 172010

In response to the following 2 media articles….

Sydney is sinking into sin Daily Telegraph 12.11.10
The slow death of simple virtues Daily Telegraph 12.11.10

NAUWU sent emails to newspapers, radio and other non media bodies. We also made phone calls and tried to place comments under the articles in the paper. Two of the emails and excerpts from others you’ll find below…

Email excerpts….

Sex Worker sick of Seage:

The “”former ICAC and National Crime Authority organised crime investigator” is one Nicholas Mamouzelos, who was actually on the Government Interagency Brothels Taskforce [not reported]. He was recently ‘savagely discredited’ by a judge in a Land & Environment Court brothel matter as having no evidence to substantiate his claims around organised crime and general criminal activity [Qu v Blacktown City Council [2010] NSWLEC 1282 – 71/72 – 20 Oct 2010]. So that’s his credibility blown out of the water – with authority.

His “raids on more than 200 brothels” were largely harassing private individual sex workers and getting them evicted from their homes as Parramatta local Council doesn’t distinguish between large scale brothels and private individual sex workers.

Chris Seage has long had a vendetta again individual sex workers because we choose not to work in his or his mates brothels. Instead he has been reduced to dobbing in competitors.

New Zealand decriminalised the sex industry throughout the whole country in 2003, and unbelievably (!) they haven’t fallen off the edge of the world. www.lauraagustin.com/sex-industry-safer-in-new-zealand-since-decriminalisation-new-book

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Andrew:
The NSW government should change the definition of a ‘brothel’ to what society think a brothel is – a commercial business with probably 5+ rooms operating at the same time. My best friend’s girlfriend is a sex worker who works from home and we were amazed when she told us that the NSW Govt still technically classifies her home as a brothel. Sounds like Mr Seage is going after independent strong willed women who choose to work privately and quietly. Me thinks he’s just bitter that they don’t work for him or his mates….

Email sent to the News Editor of 2UE
Email to 2UE News Editor in response to Daily Telegraph articles 12.11.10

Dear news editor

Identifying the substantial powers that councils have to close down a sex services premises (SSP) was given significant weight in a recent Land & Environment Court case (LEC) where the appeal was upheld. Also of interest in this case is the refusal by the Commissioner of the Court to accept the evidence of serial offender of sex worker human and legal rights, one Nicholas Mamouzelos. Mr. Mamouzelos is the former cop and ICAC investigator who was employed by Parramatta Council after a council officer was found by the ICAC to have had his fingers in the cookie jar of corruption and elsewhere. Mr. Mamouzelos has set himself up as an expert but luckily the court at least is seeing through his scurrilous and unsubstantiated accusations that the industry is intrinsically tied with criminality. He is no longer in the employ of Parramatta Council but the damage he did – sending in truck loads of cops and other authorities largely on private workers, continues to perpetuate the view that SSP are dangerous places and they need a 50 page compliance flow chart (and the truck load of cops) to guide them on their abusive intrusions into the lives of law abiding people.

As for Chris Seage, another self-serving ‘expert’, he has his own financial barrow or I should say brothel business to push. He represents a minority group of brothel owners and can’t stand the competition particularly from private workers who of recent times have left the large scale commercial sector in droves to work for themselves. One an only speculate why..

If there are 152 local government areas in NSW and around 271 approved SSP that makes a little less than 2 per local government area. Of course some LGA have more SSP because they have a greater population base and demand by locals/rate payers for a commercial sexual service including private workers. A motion put at the recent Local government and Shires Association meeting in an attempt by some Councillors intent on re-election and who think it is their business to make judgments on the sex lives of others was lost.. The majority thinking the State or local government at least, has no business in the bedrooms of consenting adults whether it is a commercial transaction or done for the love or lust of it…. The truth is regulation in the hands of some local government councillors is failing to meet the intent of the 1995 reforms which was to improve the health and safety of sex workers and minimise opportunities for corruption as we have seen recently at Parramatta Council.

Regards,

Julie Bates

We are all still waiting on responses …..

Adding Comments after the articles
When embers of NAUWU and other concerned parties who support NAUWU, tried to add replies to the Daily Telegraph in the comments section, none of them were approved and as so weren’t shown.

One member of NAUWU pointed out what the Daily Telegraph’s own ‘comment box’ says when you submit a comment. :

“Thank you for your comment

Please note that we are not able to publish all the comments that we receive, and that we may edit some comments to ensure their suitability for publishing.

Feedback will be rejected if it does not add to a debate, or is a purely personal attack, or is offensive, repetitious, illegal or meaningless, or contains clear errors of fact.

Although we try to run feedback just as it is received, we reserve the right to edit or delete any and all material”

The NAUWU member then pointed out “the whole article should be banned based on their own ‘policy’!!!”. Unfortunately it was our comments not published not their article

Contacting The Daily Telegraph directly
NAUWU members also tried to contact The Daily Telegraph directly.

Email to the Editor Daily Telegraph in response to media articles 12.11.10

To the Editor,

The recent article by Nick Tabakoff about brothels is so ill-informed and imbalanced that a reasonably well-informed person immediately gets the perception he must be getting some kind of payback in the form of money or sexual favours from the obvious instigators of the article, namely Chris Seage, his buddy Nicolas Mamouzelos, or their brothel owner cronies? Please assure me that you will investigate why the article is so imbalanced and report your findings back to me?

If this article is supposed to meet core journalistic values, please also inform me:

1. Why is there no alternative point of view presented? and

2. Why there is no disclosure that Nicolas Mamouzelos was on the Government Interagency Brothels Taskforce? (presumably because that would that expose his obvious duplicity in responding to questions about Cabinet-in-confidence papers he contributed to, but which has no authority to speak about publicly?)

Please see below extracts from a letter sent to the Premier yesterday outlining some vital background facts that failed to make it into the article, and I look forward to receiving your reply to my questions above by email,

Yours sincerely,

Saul Isbister

If you would also like to contact the Telegraph to let them know what you think of their stories, their contact details are below:

Contact Us – EDITORIAL
Address:
The Daily Telegraph
2 Holt Street
Surry Hills, NSW, 2010.
Telephone: (02) 9288-3000
Fax: (02) 9288-2300.
news@dailytelegraph.com.au

……..let us know how you get on

We would love to get your comments, feedback or a copy of any of your correspondance you may send to anyone re: this media coverage. Please feel free to email them to us nothing-about-us-without-us@gmail.com or pop a comment under this post with any info you may want to share – you’ll find the ‘post a comment’ box up in the top right hand corner of this post. If you’d like to remain anonymous, please let us know to leave your name off any material you send us.

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contributions on http://www.nothing-about-us-without-us.com have been made by NSW Sex Workers and other concerned parties of NSW Sex Industry; site design and maintenance by nothingaboutuswithoutus@gmail.com ; Copyright Nothing About Us Without Us 2009 – 2011

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Police Campaign: Open letter to the Australian Federal Police (AFP)_October 26th 2011

Media Campaign: Trafficking and regulation in Australia October 2011_ NAUWU Complaint

Media Campaign: Trafficking and regulation in Australia October 2011

Media Campaign: Underbelly: Razor’s myth hides the ugly truth The Sunday Telegraph 28.08.11

“I can hardly speak what vitriol … need to catch my breath and consider what to say, such incitement to hatred..”

Underbelly: Razor’s myth hides the ugly truth

After reading the Razor editorial in the “TERROR” today , I am perplexed as to why the journalist employed at the Telegraph are in such denial of the fact that their employer is also living of the earnings of PROSTITUTION .

The daily Telegraph Adult Services section is a very lucrative business , and after doing the math , I’m sure the revenue earned by this section would keep the many journalist employed at news.com.

Perhaps the Labor MP Craig Thompson found the Tiffany advert in Telegraphs Adult Services section ???,such HYPOCRISY ” People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones” .
_

Response to The Daily Telegraph Media Article 22.12.10 reporting in Liberals intent to set up a licensing authority

In response to Daily Telegraph Media Articles 12.11.10

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Police Campaign: Open letter to the Australian Federal Police (AFP)_October 26th 2011

Media Campaign: Trafficking and regulation in Australia October 2011_ NAUWU Complaint

Media Campaign: Trafficking and regulation in Australia October 2011

Media Campaign: Underbelly: Razor’s myth hides the ugly truth The Sunday Telegraph 28.08.11

“I can hardly speak what vitriol … need to catch my breath and consider what to say, such incitement to hatred..”

Underbelly: Razor’s myth hides the ugly truth

After reading the Razor editorial in the “TERROR” today , I am perplexed as to why the journalist employed at the Telegraph are in such denial of the fact that their employer is also living of the earnings of PROSTITUTION .

The daily Telegraph Adult Services section is a very lucrative business , and after doing the math , I’m sure the revenue earned by this section would keep the many journalist employed at news.com.

Perhaps the Labor MP Craig Thompson found the Tiffany advert in Telegraphs Adult Services section ???,such HYPOCRISY ” People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones” . _

Response to The Daily Telegraph Media Article 22.12.10 reporting in Liberals intent to set up a licensing authority

In response to Daily Telegraph Media Articles 12.11.10

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Admin

Perhaps the Labor MP Craig Thompson found the Tiffany advert in Telegraphs Adult Services section ???,such HYPOCRISY ” People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones” .
_