NEW ZEALAND: UNDER-AGE PROSTITUTION

Enforce the law

The Prostitution Reform Act was accompanied by optimistic, but naive, assurances that the legislation had the teeth necessary to crack down on those paying for underage sex, The Press writes in an editorial.
The new law increased the penalties for buying sex from those under the age of 18 years to a maximum of seven years imprisonment. In theory this should have helped set a clear delineation between legal and underage prostitution, deterred clients from buying underage sex and provided the sanctions to punish those who did. The continued presence of prostitutes under 18 years of age on Christchurch streets and the dearth of prosecutions of their clients indicates that the reality is somewhat different. For more than 18 months The Press has campaigned over this issue of child prostitution, helping to raise awareness of the problem and calling for both local and central government agencies to take firmer action. Over this period there have been complaints that this newspaper had unnecessarily exposed to public view the city's sordid underbelly. At times the figures on the number of underage prostitutes have been queried. This is a bizarre response which carries with it the implication that there could ever be an acceptable number. Too much of the debate has also been a relitigation of the arguments for and against the decriminalisation of prostitution itself, rather than a focusing on behaviour that is clearly illegal under the legislation.

That underage prostitution has continued to exist since the legislation was passed can not be doubted — as those who travel through certain parts of the central city at night can attest. What can not also be doubted is that the sanctions against the clients of these young prostitutes have been used too rarely. Nationwide, there appear to have been fewer than 10 clients caught by the police for paying for sex with underage prostitutes. In Christchurch there seems to have been but a single prosecution of a client and that was 14 months ago. Opposition politicians from various parties have begun to demand answers from the Government and the police about this prosecution record. The implication is that the police are turning a blind eye to the problem. This might not be a totally fair interpretation. In the past, the police have pointed to various difficulties in enforcing the law against underage prostitution. These have ranged from an inability to demand a prostitute to show proof of age, to the reluctance of underage prostitutes to testify against a client or a pimp. As the present political row over traffic unit police ignoring emergency calls has shown, the police must also constantly match their priorities to their resources. If this is the case, then the law or police processes and priorities must be amended to facilitate the required crackdown on illegal prostitution. This must be accompanied by greater co- ordination between the Christchurch City Council and social agencies to prevent young people living on the streets or selling their bodies in the first place.

Some might argue that it is an unsavoury fact that child prostitution will always exist and that clamping down on it in one area would simply shift it underground or to another suburb. But the greater dangers of not adopting firmer controls should be self-evident. It could lead clients to believe that, the law notwithstanding, they can act with impunity with respect to the services of underage prostitutes. It might also encourage others under the age of 18 to expose themselves to the considerable health and safety risks associated with uncontrolled prostitution on the streets. Nor might Christchurch's reputation itself escape unscathed from a continuation of underage prostitution. Inevitably there will be debate over the existence of red light areas in the city, as shown most recently when the council grappled with controls over the location of brothels. But there can be no question of allowing a red light district to also be a stalking ground for clients searching for underage sex. Such criminal behaviour which is rightly deplored in overseas nations must not be allowed to fester here.

9 February 2005
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3181847a6220,00.html

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