Sex workers are hitting back at council methods. Photo / Getty Images
Sex workers are hitting back at council methods. Photo / Getty Images
Australian cities are waging a war against illegal or non-compliant brothels but sex workers have slammed the methods, calling it a form of sexual assault.
As each state's police and councils announce "crackdown" plans on Australia's sex industry, they're having to become increasingly crafty in their methods.
Prostitution in Australia is governed by state and territory laws meaning its degree of legality differs in each.
New South Wales and the ACT have the most relaxed laws in Australia but just because the practice has been decriminalised doesn't mean they still don't have to jump through a number of hoops.
Australia's varying sex industry laws. Graphic / news.com.au
In order for a brothel to be closed down or for an illegal brothel to be uncovered, councils have to prove that sex is being sold on the premises.
Obviously, to prove that's happening, councils have to employ people to go there and have sex.
For a number of decades, NSW councils have paid private investigators to masquerade as customers looking for sex.
Cameron Cox, the chief executive of Australia's Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP), said sex workers felt "very strongly" about how councils came after brothels.
Cox, who has been working in the sex industry for four decades and is completely legal and compliant with NSW law, told news.com.au that council behaviour was a form of sexual assault.
"It's a complete waste of taxpayer funds. I don't see why they need to send someone in to basically rape me," he said.
"I have sex on an understanding that I'm sleeping with a client, with someone who wants to have sex. If I knew they were a council worker or a PI, I wouldn't have given my consent meaning they've had sex with me by fraud.
"In the ACT, they'd go to jail for rape if they did that. We see it as rape and I've had a number of very distressed sex workers call me and wonder if they've been a victim of it."
After brothels are closed down or raided by police for being non-compliant, Cox - who chats to more than 5000 sex workers a year - said he has received a number of frantic calls.
"They feel like they've been duped and fooled and have literally said to me 'I feel like I've been raped'," he said.
Lying to have sex is increasingly being seen as a form of sexual assault. Photo / File Photo
Lachlan Jarvis, the head of Lynswood Private Investigators, a firm employed by various councils to bust brothels, completely disputes that statement.
Jarvis, who doesn't engage in brothel busting himself, told news.com.au he "doesn't understand" why sex workers would feel that way.
Lynswood has been in the business of brothel busting for almost 15 years, investigating everything from venues set up without council approval to completely legal ones that might be staying open past approved operating hours.
"People think it's unusual that the sex industry is regulated but everything else is so why shouldn't it be? It's entirely normal," Jarvis.
While investigating brothels is "an extremely small percentage" of the work they do, Jarvis did say their greatest success rate, by far, comes from work with brothels.
The practice, which Mr Jarvis said some councils employed more than others, is increasingly becoming a divisive issue - a sentiment he doesn't understand.
"Our private investigators going into brothels and having sex is no different to us investigating someone for intellectual property theft and sending a private investigator into a store pretending to be a customer," he said.
Jules Kim, the chief executive of Australia's peak sex worker association Scarlett Alliance, is another figurehead in the sex industry who is furious about the treatment of workers.
Kim said they "condemned" the way investigators come into brothels.
"We see it as sex by deception which is a form of sexual assault," she said.
"They refuse to treat us like any other business and won't follow the frameworks they follow for everyone else.
"I have no idea why they're resorting to such tactics. They aren't governed by evidence or reason and it's an irrational, knee jerk reaction to sex work."
Numerous advocacy and human rights groups around the world are fighting to criminalise sex by deception, which is defined as telling a potential sexual partner anything that could be seen as a "deal breaker".
In 2013, Tom Dougherty, a philosophy professor from Cambridge University, published a paper, calling it sexual assault.
Jarvis said he doesn't "see how there's any deception at all".
"It's just a person paying for a sexual service, just like anybody else," he added.
City of Sydney Council, which both Cox and Kim said were one of NSW's better councils to deal with, responded to the backlash.
"The City of Sydney works closely with health services, NSW Police and non-government organisations to address the health and safety of workers in the sex industry in the local area," the spokeswoman said.
"Authorised sex premises are required to operate in a discreet manner and comply with council's conditions of development consent.
"The city has a responsibility to ratepayers and the community to investigate concerns about unauthorised brothels or massage parlours offering sex services. Our health and building officers use all enforcement powers available to them under state legislation to investigate complaints of illegal sex services, including the power to enter premises and seize evidence, and the power to compel people to provide information and records.
"At times it is necessary to gather evidence covertly. The City engages private investigators for this purpose. The use of private investigators has been acknowledged by the courts as a legitimate evidence gathering approach."
The statement said they "use funds responsibly" to investigate the claims and that they were "developing a new strategic approach to investigate unauthorised sex premises and ensuring the wellbeing of sex workers".
