Sex workers given one month's grace

The Prostitutes Collective points out that these sex workers and their clients are on the street legally. Photo / NZ Herald

An Auckland community group that warns people not to use street sex workers has agreed to a month's amnesty - but has warned it will not stop until street prostitutes are out of the neighbourhood.

The Papatoetoe Reclaiming our Streets group, made up of local residents, has been patrolling Hunters Corner for the past few months after becoming fed up with noise, violence and offensive litter being left behind by street prostitutes.

The group will stop its patrols for a month, to let the police and street prostitutes work to find a solution for all the parties involved.

But the head of PROS, Stephen Grey, said that the group would be back if was it unhappy with the result.

"We've agreed so the police and the [Prostitutes] Collective can tidy up their act," he said.

"We want them off our streets and out of Papatoetoe."

Mr Grey said the group's ideal outcome - with the residents of Papatoetoe, particularly around Hunters Corner - would be to have street prostitutes outlawed from residential streets and suburban areas.

"What we're doing is not the solution. The solution is to make sex workers selling themselves on the streets unlawful. We have kids walking down alleyways, on the way to school in the morning, passing used condoms and people having sex - it's disgusting," Mr Grey said.

A letter scheme PROS set up - in which members of the group take down clients' car registrations and send warning notices to their homes - will also be put on hold.

The letters - headed "Warning: You are at risk" - are sent to warn street workers' clients of the risks of what they are doing and pushing them to seek business somewhere else.

The national co-ordinator of the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective, Catherine Healy, says the letters are a scare tactic that is immature and unfair towards clients.

"That's terrible. It's very concerning [because] it suggests that this group out in Papatoetoe are playing judge and jury - it's not mature," Ms Healy said.

"These sex workers are out there legally and so are their clients - they have no right to approach them."

Used condoms and toilet paper littering the streets, used syringes and ongoing turf wars in their neighbourhood had given residents the right to act, Mr Grey said.

"They've had it up to their eyeballs. People have to come out and see that - businesses: they're sick of waking up and seeing faeces outside their doorways."

Meanwhile, Manukau City Council will again recommend to the Government to have the Prostitute Reform Act 2003 changed, which would see street prostitution made illegal.

Former MP and now Kiwi Party president Gordon Copeland yesterday said it was time to "clean up" the prostitution law.