The current Queensland sex industry is comprised of a number of different sectors.
Whilst legalisation has created a ‘legal’ sector in the sex industry, our industry continues
to operate mostly outside the law. ‘Legal’ workers, both in brothels and those who work
privately, have not been effectively consulted in relation to the success of the legislative
regime. Their stories remain unheard. The questionnaire distributed as part of the CMC
survey in 2004 did not effectively allow legal workers to have an input into the
legislation of which they are subject. Rather than measuring workplace improvement for
sex workers, the survey involved a variety of offensive and unnecessarily invasive
questions which led many workers not to participate. Questions about violence in
people’s backgrounds and sexual assault implicitly assume a link between sex work and
violence/abuse/sexual assault. Our feedback clearly reveals that this line of questioning put many sex workers off responding to the survey. The return rate of just 65 (total)
surveys is a disappointing outcome.
Our submission to the inquiry into Escort work is by no means a comprehensive
consultation with sex workers in Queensland, however we aim to provide an overview of
the issues relevant to our constituents and future law reform.
