Market forces appear to be driving street prostitution as teenagers, some as young as 12, compete alongside seasoned sex workers - with tumbling prices the result. Rather than pushing sex workers into legalised brothels, a Weekend Herald inquiry has found the new legislation has done little to discourage street prostitution. This is especially true in pockets of South Auckland, where the Manukau City Council has been forced to shelve plans to ban sex workers from the street because of legal advice that the move might breach the Bill of Rights and the one-year-old Prostitution Reform Act.
Prostitutes spoken to by the Weekend Herald on the streets of South Auckland this week say that young streetworkers are muscling in on their patch and undercutting the competition by offering sex at less than a quarter of the usual price. Mama Tere Strickland, a transgender former sex worker who runs social agency Te Aronga Hou, said the streets of South Auckland had become "a highway of cheap love" with girls being coerced into the business by "pimp" boyfriends.
It's a virtual free-for-all in South Auckland. These kids have no hope and no futures. Decriminalisation had done nothing to deter young sex workers. Although soliciting was still illegal for anyone under the age of 18, it was nearly impossible to know who was of age, Strickland said.
Teri, a South Auckland prostitute who has been plying her trade for 20 years, said the street scene had changed dramatically in the past 12 months. The streets were now predominantly occupied by teenagers eager to make fast money.
But Auckland Prostitutes Collective head Kate Dickie was sceptical of suggestions that decriminalisation of the industry had led to aggressive competition on the streets. It just means you work harder for the same money. However, she often saw 14 and year-old girls on the streets. Most were Maori and Pacific Islanders and came from homes where there was mental, physical and sexual abuse.
