The exorbitant cost of living is driving young students into sex work to make ends meet. ON a blue sky morning in Sydney, M sits on the terrace of a Glebe cafe fiddling with her coffee spoon while the bus grinds to a stop across the road.
A few passengers step off and head towards the sprawling University of Sydney campus down the street. M, from Sydney, is in her early 20s, with dark hair and a gap between her two upper front teeth. She agreed to speak to me and introduce me to the girls she works with, on the condition she remain anonymous.
Aside from New Zealand, the Australian state of New South Wales is the only place in the world where both the purchase and sale of sex without registration is not considered a criminal act. There are restrictions, such as not working near schools and in residential areas, but the consequences from the decision to decriminalise sex work have been remarkable.
The rates of sexually transmitted infections are low, as are incidents of physical and sexual violence. In NSW sex work is a relatively safe and lucrative job option. But many enter the industry willingly, and they have a variety of reasons for pursuing this line of work. M used her earnings to fund a costly degree, and she's far from the only student turning to sex work to make ends meet. Sydney and Melbourne are in the top ten most expensive cities in the world. As a uni student, when you have such heavy course work, what else do they expect you to do?
I studied for five years in Sydney, but I was lucky that my parents lived a 10 minute walk from my university, so I stayed at home for almost four of those years. IT'S difficult to determine how many students such as M work in the Australian sex industry, but a University of New South Wales report estimated there are just over brothels within 20km of the Sydney CBD, employing a total of around workers.
