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therecord.com.au
I Say, I Say with MARK REIDY
Love’s lesson
from the heart of a
war zone
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Once reviled, forever glorified, Catholics celebrate the
Hope of the world
A child sits on a man’s shoulders while holding a candle as they join in an Easter sunrise procession outside a church in Manila, Philippines.
PHOTO: CNS/CHERYL RAVELO
No right way to do wrong thing: Watson By Giles Tuffin FORMER brothel madam and prostitute outreach director Linda Watson has slammed proposed legislation to legalise brothels in restricted areas, calling for the installation of surveillance cameras to name and shame clients. The Prostitution Bill, which is currently being negotiated between the government and key independents, would allow registered brothels, sex workers and brothel owners to legally operate in some non-residential areas. Ms Watson, who made repeated attempts to break out of the sex
industry over twenty years, operates a women’s shelter to help former prostitutes regain control of their lives. Offering aid through Linda’s House of Hope has made her an enemy of madams and brothel owners and she has been repeatedly threatened, and her shelter shot at and fire bombed. She claims registering brothels will simply lead to corruption of enforcement agencies, and an increase in hotel-based prostitution run by organised crime. “Legalising prostitution is legalising the abuse of women and it will indeed further exploit women
and children in the sex trade,” Ms Watson said. Legalising prostitution would
Legalising prostitution is legalising the abuse of women and will lead to further exploitation of women and children. normalise sex work to unsuspecting women and children, leading them into a “violent industry” already affecting, she estimated, around
ten thousand women in Western Australia. “Politicians think they’re helping. In fact, they’re harming innocent, unsuspecting children who enter a trap. It’s a lion’s den they’re entering,” she said. Ms Watson questioned how the government was proposing to legalise an “unsafe workplace”, seeing an estimated 15 men per shift. She questioned how the government could credibly monitor their physical and mental health. She also had concerns about how many licences would be issued for brothels, noting that, with the legislation as it currently stands, the
number of licences would simply increase with demand. The controversial laws, which are designed to curb brothel growth in suburban areas, come at a time when use of prostitution services are on the rise due to the rapid increase of fly-in, fly out workers in recent years. The solution wasn’t to legalise brothels, Ms Watson said, but to use the “Swedish model” of making the purchasing of sex an illegal act, and re-educating men who use prostitutes by sending them to “John school”. John schools encourage men to see prostitution continued page 4