Just as the Society (SPCS) predicted when it presented its written and oral submissions to the Justice and Electoral Seclect Committee considering the Prostitution Reform Bill back in 2001-2003; the decriminalisation of prostitution has indeed led to a growth in under- age girls working as prostitutes on city streets, in some cases even supported by their parents acting as pimps. With the passing of the Prostitution Reform Act (PRA), which the Society so vigorously and publicly opposed at the time, prostitution (including pimping, living off the earnings of prostitution and street soliciting for sex) in effect became legal.
As the New Zealand Herald reported today, girls as young as 13 are regularly working as prostitutes, supported in some cases by their parent(s), to pay for drug habits in Manukau City. Soliciting by under-age girls has also been documented in other New Zealand cities.
To address this problem, exacerbated by the passing of the PRA, the Manukau City (Regulation of Prostitution in Specified Places) Bill is being considered by politicians and Councillors.
See Parents ‘put teens into sex work’. By Andrew Koubaridis.
“Teenagers in South Auckland are being sent to work as prostitutes by their parents to pay for drugs, says an Auckland Council member…”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10691979
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