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Catherine Healy

Key to New Zealand’s successful decriminalisation of prostitution in 2003, Ms Healy was appointed by the Minister of Justice to the New Zealand Prostitution Law Review Committee.  She is a founding member and the national co-ordinator of the New Zealand Prostitutes' Collective.  She is frequently sought by national and international organisations for advice on issues affecting sex workers.  She was widely consulted for the publication of A Guide to Occupational Health and Safety in the New Zealand Sex Industry recommended by the Justice and Electoral Select Committee.  She collaborated with researchers from Otago University, Christchurch, on major research into the effects of decriminalisation, soon to be published.  In 1993 Ms Healy was awarded the New Zealand Suffrage Centennial Medal for her services to women.

 

The Safety First Coalition is made up of members of the church, nurses, doctors, probation officers, drug reformers, anti-rape and anti-poverty campaigners, residents from red-light areas, sex workers, sex work projects and others, who came together in the aftermath of the tragic murders of five young women in Ipswich to press for women’s safety to be prioritised and for an end to the criminalisation which makes sex workers vulnerable to attack.  It opposes Clause 105 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill which increases criminalisation.  It is co-ordinated by the English Collective of Prostitutes. 

Clause 105
was rushed through the Commons on 9 January despite widespread concern.  It is being promoted as an alternative to a fine but it is an additional power.  It requires anyone arrested for loitering or soliciting to attend a series of three meetings with a supervisor approved by the court “to promote rehabilitation, by assisting the offender to address the causes of their involvement in prostitution and to find ways of ending that involvement.”  Women will be humiliated by having to reveal intimate circumstances, while no resources are to be made available to “address the causes”.  Failure to attend will result in a summons back to court and possible 72-hours imprisonment.  Women may end up on a treadmill of broken supervision meetings, court orders and imprisonment, on top of fines and prison sentences for non-payment.  Even the Magistrates Association has expressed concern. The government is considering criminalising clients and ministers have just visited Sweden where it is illegal for men to buy sex.
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