Introduction

This chapter describes the history of the New Zealand Prostitutes’ Collective (NZPC), tracking the collective's efforts, since its formation, to confront social stigma and overturn legislation that had a negative impact on the lives of sex workers in New Zealand. The chapter begins with a brief outline of the socio-political context in which the NZPC emerged in the late 1980s, before describing the ways in which the collective built support for decriminalising sex work in New Zealand.

Background

Most activities related to sex work at the time of NZPC's inception were illegal and most female sex workers worked disguised as ‘masseuses’ in massage parlours. In 1978, the Massage Parlours Act (MPA) was introduced to regulate the operation of licensed massage parlours. Under the MPA, massage parlour operators were required to hold licenses and were prohibited from employing individuals with drug- or prostitution-related convictions. The MPA also required that all employees’ details be recorded and available for inspection by police at any time. The police visited massage parlours regularly to uplift the names of ‘masseuses’ working there and check that they had no drug or prostitution convictions that would prevent them from working in a parlour.

Smaller numbers of sex workers worked for themselves, either on the street, from home, on the ports through known bars, or as escorts in escort agencies. Undercover police regularly masqueraded as clients in massage parlours and on the street, typically encouraging sex workers to offer sex for money, as a strategy to arrest them for soliciting. The police would also record the names and other personal information of sex workers, which would be held on a police database of ‘Known Prostitutes’. While police claimed they did this to teach a lesson to massage parlour licence holders who were ‘too soft’ and did not keep ‘their girls’ in line, this had a big impact on not only the lives of those sex workers who were arrested, but also on the lives of those who were working with them.

The police would also round up sex workers on the streets and process them through the courts where they would be convicted of ‘soliciting for the purposes of prostitution in a public place’ under section 26 of the 1981 Summary Offences Act. Such a conviction would lead to a $200 fine, which the police considered insignificant.