In 2004, Dutch feminist Joyce Outshoorn edited a series of feminist essays about sex work in North America and Western Europe, so how does it compare to New Zealand, where decriminalisation occurred five years ago, in 2003?

In some of these societies, there is some governmental representation of feminist initiatives for legislative reform, contributions to civil society and human development. However, the problem arises when one considers that there are usually two forms of feminist discourse that deal with sex work. One of them, reformist socialist feminism, usually has a strong anti-authoritarian streak, and treats sex work as an occupational category that requires regulation, workers rights and collective agency.

The other, conservative antiviolence feminism, views sex work as a manifestation of systemic and overwhelming sexual violence against women, are usually rabidly transphobic, and follow a politics of despair against entrenched authoritarian religious conservative governments where little useful feminist activity or progress in other areas is possible. They tend to delude themselves about the possibility of constructive legislative reform if they work alongside conservative Christians for “shared” goals that are nothing of the sort.

Spain, New South Wales, the Netherlands and New Zealand all characterise the first approach, although there were substantial reformist and conservative feminist clashes in the context of New Zealand. Spain might seem an odd candidate for inclusion, except that its conservative Catholic contingent were discredited after decades of collaboration with the Franco fascist regime which ended in the mid-seventies. In 1995, its federal government decriminalised sex work, with safeguards against involvement by children and the intellectually disabled. In the Netherlands, Bill 25437 lifted a brothel ban in 1999 that had been in place since 1911, although other forms of sex work have never been prohibited.

Britain occupies a grey area. In 1982, its Criminal Justice Amendment Act removed imprisonment penalties for actively soliciting as a sex worker, but its Sexual Offences Act 1985 and Police and Criminal Justice Act 2001 have criminalised male kerbcrawlers, who act as clients for sex workers but also sexually harrass non-sexworker women on the street.

As for Canada, Austria, Finland, Sweden and Italy, prospects for constructive reform are weak. Of the above, Canada alone has a strong LGBT and sex workers rights movement, aware of decriminalisation debates overseas, but under Section 195.1 of the Canadian Criminal Code, soliciting is illegal, while Section 213 also bans communication for the purpose of soliciting. With a right-wing federal minority government in power, reform prospects seem unlikely in the immediate future.

 Elsewhere, the situation is much worse.

In Austria, Sections 216, 218 and 219 of the Penal Code 1975 forbid pimping for sex work, public sex and soliciting, and sex workers are restricted to ‘red light’ districts, while brothels and escort work in client apartments are legal. However, sex workers must enter their names in a police register. In Italy, all sex work is illegal, except individual home-based escort work, due to their Vagrancy Act 1958. In Finland, its Sex Crimes Act 1996 banned soliciting and living off the proceeds, and even the Finnish Greens support municipal prohibition of soliciting. As for Sweden, it passed a Law Against Purchasing Sexual Services in 1998, and was debating even stricter prohibitions against sex work in 2000. However, Italy, Sweden, Austria and Finland also have strong legal sanctions against paedophile exploitation of child prostitutes, and like reformist Spain, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand have criminalised overseas paedophile Third World sex tourism.

Outshorn’s work does have its flaws. I’d have liked to learn more about how those nation’s various LGBT communities have responded to the above debates, especially given gay male and transgender sex work. Still, it’s a useful contribution to ongoing debates about sex work, legislative reform and public policy.

Joyce Outshoorn (ed) The Politics of Prostitution: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 2004.