Many Sydney councils are protesting that they are unable to close illegal brothels springing up in close proximity to schools and churches. The " oldest " profession used to be against the law but the Wood Royal Commission two decades ago uncovered such overwhelming evidence of payoffs to police and general graft that there was a law change. It is no longer a crime to supply sex in exchange for money - with a few location restrictions.
What angers councils is that they are usually unsuccessful in taking an illegal brothel to court and getting it closed down. It is almost impossible to prove that sex took place, short of actually paying a private investigator to become a client and buy sex, and then go to court and give evidence - and that is costly. The city of Sydney has instigated eighty separate investigations which can take up to two years to complete - and the success rate is abysmal !
Many such brothels hide behind the facade of offering remedial massage and sometimes go unnoticed by other residents. There is also the problem of a resident deciding to offer sexual services from their apartment in a residential building. Neighbours may notice an unusual number of visitors and perhaps that may extend far into the night - but there is nothing illegal that can result in council action.
Of course, criminal elements were quick to capitalise on the opportunities offering and we are seeing the exploitation of young women from Asian countries brought here under tourist or study visas who are forced into sexual slavery to repay their " debt " to their sponsor. Many are willingly recruited for prostitution, but they expect a better life and find their passports confiscated and live a life of threats and intimidation.
One suggestion that has been considered - and rejected - is to require those offering sex for sale to have a license to conduct such business. The advantage would be that visitors to this country engaging in the sex trade would need to register their passports and have regular health checks as part of their license conditions. The sex industry rightly claims that to do so would recriminalize prostitution.
There is no doubt that the public attitude to sex has dramatically changed over the course of the twentieth century. At its start it was rare for women to have been granted the vote and in many households they needed their fathers permission to marry. That was an era when decorum required unmarried couples to be supervised by a chaperone and every bride that went down the aisle was expected to be a virgin. If a baby was born less than nine months later the elderly grandmothers tittered behind their hands and declared it has come " early " !
The churches held great sway in that era and they were never comfortable with the subject of sex. Under their direction, censorship was strict and for decades risqué publications like Playboy were banned in the conservative state of Queensland. Those were the days when divorce was considered a sin and the legal system demanded that an " at fault " party be both determined and punished in a public examination.
Today's young people have a more relaxed attitude to sex and it has become a " normal " expectation in most relationships. Brothels have been a fact of life since the biblical days and they serve a purpose in providing an outlet for those who may otherwise find sex impossible to access and resort to desperate measures. Those objecting to the near proximity of a brothel are usually doing so on moral grounds rather than any real harm it is doing to their lifestyle.
In fact, the refusal to allow a brothel within a short distance of a school or other place of learning - or a church - is probably a sop to the " wowser " element that was against any change to the laws on prostitution. Children today are well aware of sex from a very young age, and the churches do not carry the authority they once exercised.
No society has ever been successful in eliminating prostitution. It seems that this council complaint is a case of tilting against windmills !
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