Australia's Northern Territory Parliament has voted to decriminalise sex work through the Sex Industry Bill 2019. The Bill decriminalises brothels, soliciting and indoor sex work, and gives sex workers access to workplace health and safety protections already extended to other workers in the state.
Regional updates: Asia and the Pacific
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Regional Board Members
Sherry Sherqueshaa (Project X), Singapore
Regional Network
The Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers (APNSW) is a sex worker-led network whose members include national sex worker-led networks, sex worker-led organisations and community-based sex work projects representing female, male and transgender sex workers. APNSW was founded in 1994 at the International AIDS Conference in Japan and is based in Bangkok, Thailand.
News articles from Asia and the Pacific region are listed below.
Singapore's Parliament has voted to amend its Women's Charter, increasing penalties for sex work-related offences.
5th November 2019 by NSWP
Queensland has withdrawn draft laws from State parliament which would have increased police powers, shifted police and licensing authority coverage from brothels to anywhere sex work takes place, and allowed police to covertly film sex workers, following a campaign by sex workers in Australia.
22nd October 2019 by NSWP
Sex workers in Australia have praised the Government for working with sex workers to introduce a new Bill to decriminalise sex work in the state.
23rd September 2019 by NSWP
Last week India’s Supreme Court ruled that sex workers have the right to refuse services, in a landmark case overturning a 2009 ruling in which 4 people were acquitted of rape.
8th November 2018 by NSWP
A single mother has been sentenced to 6 months in prison and 6 strokes of the rotan after she was arrested for doing sex work in the Malaysian state of Terengganu.
9th October 2018 by NSWP
NSWP congratulates Julie Bates on being awarded the Order of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list.
11th June 2018 by NSWP
NSWP congratulates Catherine Healy from New Zealand Prostitutes’ Collective (NZPC) on being made a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the rights of sex workers.
6th June 2018 by NSWP
New Zealand must repeal its ban on migrant sex workers to ensure the benefits of its decriminalisation model are extended to all sex workers, says NSWP member organisation the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective.
9th May 2018 by NSWP
Following the arrest of 99 migrant sex workers in “one of Hong Kong’s biggest anti vice crackdowns”, NSWP member Zi Teng has called attention to the need to protect the rights and safety of sex workers through decriminalisation and recognition of sex work as work.
21st February 2018 by NSWP