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The passage of the Prostitution Reform Act (PRA) in 2003 brought with it new and unexpected responsibilities for the public-health authorities, particularly the Medical Officers of Health. The architects of the legislation saw public health as an important consideration in the regulatory reform of the sex industry. Within this context, the Medical Officers of Health were made inspectors of brothels. By making them inspectors of the sex industry, the Officers were given the power to appoint inspectors as well as submit proposed bylaws under the PRA to the local authorities. This chapter begins by tracing the statutory roles of Medical Officers of Health under the PRA. It examines the early responses of public-health authorities to the idea of implementing the legislation. Focus is particularly given to the views of Medical Officers of Health and other public- and occupational-health workers on their roles under the Act and their experience of its implementation. Included also are the several approaches undertaken by the public-health services in implementing the legislation, plus the approaches to complaints and interactions with other agencies. The latter section of the chapter focuses on and analyses the content of public-health submissions on proposed bylaws under the PRA. It also discusses the effect of these submissions on subsequent bylaws.

Prior to the passing of the Prostitution Reform Act of 2003 (PRA), although sex work in New Zealand was not deemed illegal, the activities associated with it, such as soliciting, brothel keeping, living on the earnings of prostitution, and procuring, were criminalised. This criminalisation of sex-work-related activities led to violence, coercion, and exploitation. For nearly two decades the New Zealand Prostitutes's Collective (NZPC), together with politicians, women's rights activists, academics, and other volunteers, advocated and lobbied for legislative change. And in June 2003, New Zealand became the first country to decriminalise sex work when the PRA was voted and passed. This legislative approach is different from other international approaches as it represents a shift from regulating sex work from a moral perspective to acknowledging the human rights of this section of the population. By decriminalisation, prostitution and sex work were acknowledged as service work. And through the legislative reform, sex workers in New Zealand were able to operate under the same employment and legal rights accorded to any other occupational group. This book examines the decriminalisation of prostitution in New Zealand. It looks at the particularities of the history of prostitution in the country, how it evolved, and how it has gained acceptance by the public. Chapters Two to Six examine the passing of the PRA in 2003. Chapter Seven outlines the statutory authority for the Prostitution Law Review Committee, its membership, and its role. Chapter Eight presents a research project commissioned by the Ministry of Justice for the review of the PRA. Chapter Ten to Fourteen provide a detailed review of the research done by the Christchurch School of Medicine. In these four chapters, the methodological approach, the public health authorities's experiences, the role of media, the decriminalisation and harm minimisation, and the ongoing perceptions of stigma, form the focus. The concluding chapter brings together the material covered in the book by summarising the effects of decriminalisation of the sex industry in New Zealand.

This chapter is based on the Victoria University of Wellington research project that was commissioned by the Ministry of Justice. The research was commissioned to assist the Prostitution Law Review Committee in its review of the 2003 Prostitution Reform Act (PRA). It examined the perspectives on the PRA of those who had been able to observe firsthand the impact of the Act on sex workers and the sex industry. The project involved interviewing the brothel owners and operators, and the non-government organisations that were active in providing support, advocacy, education, and health services to sex workers. Interviews with these groups ascertained their level of support for the PRA prior to and after its implementation. In the chapter, the views of the brothel operators and support agencies on the effectiveness of the PRA in meeting its stated objective are noted. The project examined the provisions of the PRA on: wealth; health and safety; conditions of employment; system of certification; assistance to those leaving the industry; persons under 18 years of age; and territorial authorities. While there are exceptions, the overall view was that the sex industry was satisfied with the provisions of the PRA. Those in brothel operations and support agencies felt that with time and increased monitoring and enforcement of its provisions, the positive intentions behind the PRA could be more fully realised.

The New Zealand Prostitutes's Collective (NZPC) has played an important role in providing support for sex workers. Through it, the Prostitution Reform Act (PRA) was achieved. The Collective also changed the public attitude towards sex work by making them understand the industry from the prespective of those who have experienced it rather than from that of the dominant public discourses. It encouraged people to come into their community in such way so as to illuminate the interweaving aspects of the sex industry and it has given a voice to the marginalised sex workers. This chapter concludes that while the general public has accepted the decriminalisation of prostitution, there are nevertheless issues that continue to arise from time to time. Such is the issue of street-based work that it still attracts media attention, specifically in Manakau. In Manakau, the City Council has time and again prohibited street-based work and introduced the Control of Street Prostitution Bill. However, this was considered as against the provisions of the PRA. Although the bill was turned down, it continues to resurface periodically. While the PRA awarded increased rights for sex workers, social stigmatisation has impeded the achievement of some of their rights. However, as the chapter concludes, if organisations such as the NZPC, youth organisations, religious leaders, police, court officials, sexual-health professional, territorial authorities, media, and others will give credence to the purposes of the PRA, this may have a positive impact on the ability of sex workers to achieve their rights. The chapter also concludes that through the collective effort of all the organisations and social actors, stigmatisation of sex workers will be significantly reduced and an improvement in their health and safety will be within reach.

This chapter investigates the local-government response to the Prostitution Reform Act (PRA) of 2003, with particular emphasis on the continuing regulation of prostitution after the law reform. First, it examines the local regulatory options such as by-laws, decisions on resource consents, and district plan rules, which continue to be in operation after the decriminalisation of prostitution. Second, the chapter discusses the extent to which the local authorities have adopted these regulatory initiatives as well as the legal challenges to them. It ends by evaluating the state of affairs around local regulation and by briefly touching on the tension emerging from the local ambivalence towards the national countenance of prostitution.

This chapter examines the role of the media in the context of the implementation of the 2003 Prostitution Reform Act (PRA). It determines whether the media coverage of the PRA reinforced existing moral discourses of sex work or developed original ones within the new policy context. To determine the role played by the media, a content analysis of the print-media reporting on the PRA is provided. The chapter also explores messages communicated in and by the print media in New Zealand from 2003 to 2006. It furthermore employs a qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with 58 sex workers concerning their media-coverage experiences. The main emphasis of the chapter is on the moral discourses of sex work, which dominated print media in spite of the media's attempts to maintain a neutral stand on prostitution. Reporting that focused on the morality of prostitution was particularly acknowledged by the sex workers, and was believed to be a tool for the reinforcement of the existing stigmatisation of sex work. Apart from highlighting the type of media reporting that reinforced stigmatisation, the chapter also highlights the manner in which sex workers resisted dominant discourses in their everyday practices.

This chapter explores the history of sex work in New Zealand prior to the passing of the 2003 Prostitution Reform Act. It begins by discussing the impact of colonisation and the attitudes towards prostitution that emerged in the nineteenth century. Against this backdrop, the chapter considers the more recent influences that gave rise to the 2003 law change. Focus is particularly given to the women working in the sex industry, although the chapter also considers some of the clients' preferences for male prostitutes. The goal of the chapter is to suggest, through historical ideas and movements, why New Zealand became the first country to decriminalise sex work, and how such legislative change is consistent with its specific social and cultural context.

This chapter offers a detailed account of the methodological approach and the methods used by the University of Otago, Christchurch School of Medicine (CSoM) in examining the implication of the 2003 Prostitution Reform Act (PRA) on the health and safety practices of sex workers. It begins by discussing the community-based participatory research, a method that is regarded as the best practice in research involving marginalised groups of people such as sex workers. The chapter also describes the mixed-method research, which utilised quantitative and qualitative methods. It also discusses the quantitative arm of the research, the development of the questionnaire, the methods used to sample the survey population, the process of quantitative data collection, and the analysis of the questionnaire data. The description of the qualitative arm of the research gives attention to the selection of the samples, the semi-structured in-depth interviews undertaken to collect the data, and its theoretical thematic analysis. The chapter also provides a content analysis of newspaper coverage of the PRA.