I was given a rather open brief to write a piece looking at the violence in prostitution in New Zealand, at short notice. So, I worked hard to write my response in the short time I was given — and then, funnily enough, the editors changed their mind about requiring it. No Country for Whistleblowers: A response to the culture-wide promotion of prostitution in New Zealand. This paper responds to the culture-wide promotion of prostitution in New Zealand taking place under the government policy model of full decriminalisation.
In New Zealand, prostitution takes place in a context of widespread violence against women; yet violence in prostitution is often glossed over. For a start, globally, the rate of sexual violence against women in prostitution is higher than that committed against women in any other context. It would be absurd to believe that men who purchase women in prostitution are less violent than the general male population. This phrase describes the way that male violence remains epidemic not incidentally, but through institutionalisation and promotion.
While one in three New Zealand women are sexually assaulted in our lifetimes, for instance — according to Statistics New Zealand, only thirteen percent of reported cases resulted in a conviction in Much of mainstream media, too, capitalises from pornographic objectification. Sex is by definition mutual, and these trends are about male dominance. It is pimps, and especially traffickers, who stand to profit most from male entitlement, from rape culture, through prostitution. So it is pimps who promote objectification most aggressively.
Any individual or organisation who claims to have the best interests of women in prostitution at heart should be critically examining the relationship between the phenomena that constitute rape culture: institutionalised male violence, objectification, and prostitution — including child prostitution and trafficking. Yet if we were to believe NZPC — widely seen to represent the interests of prostituted persons in New Zealand — prostitution should be one of the most sought after vocations for women in the country.
It is feminist researchers who tend to make these connections, leading us to critique prostitution as an instrument of capitalist patriarchy and colonisation. This often results in accusations of bias, and for that reason, this article includes a reflection of what constitutes bias. Since all research has a purpose, having a motivation for research — even a feminist one — cannot constitute bias.
