NSW
The “Equality” legislation
endangers women
The NSW “Equality” Bill decriminalises and privileges prostitution and endangers women.
The bill seeks to liberalise the practice and solicitation of prostitution in NSW by removing offences from the Summary Offences Act 1988 and privileging prostitution by making “sex worker” a protected attribute under the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977.
Parliament has delayed the vote on the “Equality” bill debate until March 14, giving us more time to convince them to reject this bill.
Privileging prostitution in NSW will undermine the health and wellbeing of vulnerable women and will potentially expose children to prostitution and associated illicit acts taking place in the community.
This bill does this by:
- Removing summary offences from the NSW criminal law that deal with prostitution. It would no longer be illegal to:
- coercively pressure someone into committing an act of prostitution;
- solicit prostitution in the vicinity of a dwelling, school, church or hospital; or
- engage in public acts of prostitution.
- Removing summary offences that make it illegal for someone to live off the proceeds of someone else’s prostitution as a pimp; and
- Introducing a new protected attribute into NSW anti-discrimination law that will enable people who are sex-workers to claim the same kind of discrimination protections that people can claim if they live with a disability or are of a particular race.
These changes will not benefit vulnerable women or children in our community.
Normalising prostitution will only spread misery and distress in NSW.
The Bill also liberalises commercial surrogacy by lifting the ban on commercial surrogacy arrangements outside NSW and by removing the requirement that any surrogacy arrangement must be altruistic as a mandatory condition. This will harm vulnerable women in foreign jurisdictions, enabling their exploitation. Commercial surrogacy is banned for important ethical reasons, including that it amounts to the sale of a child.
The Bill should be rejected in its entirety.
The time to speak up is NOW!
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