Mistrust between sex workers and people outside the industry who want to "help" them means that such help often amounts to police coercion, unwanted interference, and sometimes even abuse, according to sex worker advocates.
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The stigmatisation of sex workers — men and women, cis and transgender, escorts, streetwalkers and masseuses — has knock-on effects that make the work more dangerous than it needs to be, says Elena Jeffreys, the co-ordinator of advocacy group Respect Inc.
“Relations between the police and sex workers is at an all-time low,” Ms Jeffreys said.
“We still have the involvement of police as the prime regulators of sex work.
“Decriminalisation would remove police from the picture as regulators and prosecutors of sex workers.
“We could run our work in ways that are safe; for example, texting another worker when a client arrives or leaves.
“Currently, it is a criminal offence not only for the sex worker, but the person that they’re texting to.”
Prostitutes are regularly charged with advertising infringements and other petty offences that would fall away if the sex industry was decriminalised, Ms Jeffreys said.
“It’s written into the law that you can’t describe your services in Queensland,” she said.
“Advertising is one of the ways we can sift out people who want to see us or don’t want to see us.
“It’s a really basic thing that any workplace wouldn’t even give a second thought to, yet this [can] attract the attention of police.
“We’re not allowed to describe our massage skills in our ads. That can attract a criminal penalty.
“We can’t describe if we’re young, or if someone is well endowed.
“If you were a hairdresser or an accountant you would describe your area of expertise but for us, that’s illegal.
“Even though people do it, it means [they] are open to arrest and fines.
“Police aren’t forthcoming about what part of their ad they’re being fined for so they can avoid it in the future.
“There’s no victim in this crime, we’re not criminals.”
Ms Jeffreys said people outside the sex trade had little awareness of the two-tier system operating in the state.
“In Queensland, massage parlours are illegal,” Ms Jeffreys said.
“They can’t get a license because anything to do with massage is excluded from the licensing system.
“[It’s] very unfortunate because they offer an environment where full service is not mainly what people are going to a massage parlour for.
“They’re going for maybe a nude massage, topless massage or a hand job, or something in that realm, and none of that is legal. I think the idea was if we make it illegal it will just go away.
“If you’re not a sex worker, you probably wouldn’t realise how screwy it is.”
Despite the suspicion and tension that exists between sex workers and police, Ms Jeffreys says she counts police officers among her clientele.
“They usually don’t talk about their job, they don’t want to be known as a police officer because I guess that would make them vulnerable too,” she said.
“So, they are worried about their privacy and protections just as much as the workers are.
“I do think most people are quite confused about the laws. Unless you’re a sex worker, even most police wouldn’t have a reason to be 100 per cent across the laws.”
Despite this, Ms Jeffreys was scathing about the tactics police can deploy to arrest prostitutes working in the industry.
“They don’t have to have a sexual encounter — they can arrest the person for engaging in discussion around things like oral sex without a condom,” Ms Jeffreys said.
“Even if the act hasn’t taken place, the person can be charged for offering it. We don’t believe that is warranted.”
Ms Jeffreys highlighted a recent case in which police booked a hotel room and contacted a sex worker to come in and do the booking.
“They observed the person’s partner dropping them off,” she said.
“They then arrest the sex worker and the partner, if the partner doesn’t have a special licence to drive, or if the driver is someone who is used by another sex worker.
“If you share a driver this is [deemed] a petty crime, but they’re not even really crimes. And the only benefit we get out of it is safety.”
Sex worker Kayla Rose, who is a member of DecrimQld, said there was a need for more brothels to service the demand between the Sunshine Coast and Cairns, but pointed to significant barriers to operating a licensing brothel.
“There are barriers to opening a brothel if you have a past conviction, including a conviction for being a sex worker,” Ms Rose said.
“You also need hundreds of thousands of dollars to fit out premises. It has to be in a properly zoned area and the ongoing costs are prohibitive.”
Ms Rose said the existing laws made it legal for police in Queensland to pretend to be clients, to ask for illegal services, make bookings with them and then arrest them.
“They arrest us for things like working in pairs, sharing a workspace, sharing overheads and our phones, making a referral for a booking to another worker, hiring a receptionist or using a driver that another sex worker has used and recommended to us,” Ms Rose said.
“Our basic safety strategies are illegal.
“Police pose as clients to identify if we’re implementing these safety strategies, and then sex workers are charged.
“Sex workers have to choose between working legally, or working safely.”
Meanwhile, Asian sex workers claim they have a much tougher time staying on the right side of the law because of language barriers.
Sex worker Vicki said the advertising laws were very complex for those whose first language was not English.
“The police have the power, we don’t have any,” she said.
“It’s very difficult for any Asian sex worker to convince the police we are there [consensually.]
“The attitude of the police is, they don’t trust us and they don’t like us and they say things like ‘we’re going to send you home’.
“The police don’t believe that we have the ability to work independently. They believe we are controlled.”
A spokeswoman for the Queensland Police Service said the organisation "commits to targeting all forms of illegal prostitution activity through the Prostitution Enforcement Taskforce".
"This taskforce has forged and maintains solid relationships with government and non-government agencies with the view to police and enforce laws concerning Queensland’s prostitution industry," she said.
"The QPS does not comment on lawful strategies employed to investigate this type of criminal activity.”
Cairns Labor MP Michael Healy, whose city has only one licensed brothel, said exploitation was rife and the case for decriminalisation was not cut and dried.
“I think the decriminalisation of prostitution is a very complex issue,” Mr Healy said.
“It’s not as simple as it might appear. The state has to make sure that women are doing this consensually.
“Sex trafficking is a huge industry around the world and there’s enormous concern.
“While I appreciate that those who do it and conduct that line of work might be immune to some of the concerns, when you talk to agencies like police or immigration, prostitution unfortunately has a significant criminal element to it.
“If it was to be decriminalised, I’d have to get more information before I could give answer on that.”
