During an online meeting on November 6, organized by SekswerkExpertise and supported by the Utrecht Centre for Global Challenges, parliamentarians, academics, sex workers, police, representatives of emergency and health services and other parties involved discussed the bill Wet Regulering SekswerK Wrs Bill Regulation Sex Work.
Sex industry policy choices are often inspired by moral beliefs on the un desirability and supposed exploitative character of sex work. Thereby, it forces sex workers underground, with all due consequences. The Swedish policy, however, has huge moralistic appeal and it is gaining popularity worldwide.
The Netherlands opted for legalisation of the sex industry in However, with the fear of human trafficking getting an ever firmer grip on sex work policies, the Dutch approach tends towards a more and more repressive approach. The Wrs is an example of this. Whereas its intention is to improve the position of sex workers and to combat exploitation and human trafficking, there is no evidence that a registration system helps to combat abuses.
On the contrary. A recent study in Germany, where experiments with a registration system were carried out, showed that 83 percent of sex workers refused to be registered — and, thus, ended up working illegally while they used to work legally.
Fear of loss of privacy was an important reason. This fear is directly linked to the ongoing stigma of sex work. In , the New Zealand Parliament accepted the Prostitution Reform Act PRA by which the entire commercial voluntary sex industry was decriminalized, meaning that sex work was now considered like any other legitimate service occupation, operating under the same legal rights, with a minimum of state interference.
