Roxana Diamond is affiliated with SIN. SIN is by sex workers for sex workers and offers peer support, education, information, advocacy and referral services for sex workers. She is also a member of Scarlet Alliance and has participated in National Cabinet of Whores meetings with member organisations. But sex workers, who face stigma and discrimination at the best of times, have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic.
The United Nations has warned,. As a result of the COVID pandemic, sex workers all over the world are experiencing hardship, a total loss of income and increased discrimination and harassment. And how it has been up to sex workers yet again to protect their community, underscoring the importance of decriminalising sex work. There is no official data on the number of sex workers in Australia, but in , the UN estimated there were 20, Sex workers globally have long lobbied for the full decriminalisation of sex work.
But in Australia, laws differ from state to state. For example, sex work is largely decriminalised in New South Wales and the Northern Territory , while in Victoria and Queensland , some sex work is legalised. Sex work is still criminalised in South Australia and Western Australia , while in Tasmania , brothel work and street based sex work is illegal, but private sex work is not.
Legalisation creates a two-tiered system , where compliance is low and sex workers are heavily policed. We also know that the sex work population contains significant numbers of migrant sex workers, who face compounded levels of stigma, discrimination and criminalisation. When COVID hit in March, the federal government listed brothels, strip clubs and sex on premises businesses as prohibited venues. This obviously had dramatic and immediate implications for sex workers.
The different legal and pandemic situations around Australia have seen differing COVID restrictions and support, state by state, confusing sex workers. For example, sex workers have been able to continue working outside of brothels in NSW.
