We Demand Amnesty International Listen to Survivors and Reject the Proposal to Decriminalize All Aspects of Prostitution Petition by Jennifer Kim – Vancouver, Canada This leaked Amnesty International proposal advocating for the full decriminalization of all aspects of prostitution violates the basic human rights and dignities of prostituted individuals. The proposal denies the inextricable link between prostitution […]
If Tracy Connelly were alive today and living in France, it’s possible she might have found a way out of prostitution. She would have at least known that the society she lived in cared enough to want to help her out. But Tracy lived in Australia and was murdered on July 21, by a man […]
‘Misogyny Reloaded’ by Abigail Bray In 2011 Dr Abigail Bray, a researcher and writer now living in the South of France, joined with me in co-editing Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Pornography Industry published in 2011 by Spinifex Press. Spinifex has just released Abigail’s new book Misogyny Reloaded . This is an extract […]
I had always wondered how she fared….now I know Sometimes you wonder if anything can change, if your small efforts can make a difference against a global onslaught of horror. Every day more bad news for women, more abuse, assaults, violence and suffering. (For example this done to a close friend of mine and then […]
Prostituted women are the ones at the coalface of the misogyny and pornography-fuelled attitudes Caroline Norma Commentators this week have been falling over themselves to decry the ‘hypocritical’ public quiet over the murder of St Kilda prostituted woman ‘Tracy’, compared to the attention Jill Meagher’s death attracted last year. Wendy Squires wrote that, even though […]
Dear Mr. Jónasson, We are writing to express our support for current efforts in Iceland to develop and implement legal limits on violent Internet pornography. As scholars, medical and public health professionals, social service providers, and community activists, we commend your government’s determination to confront the harms of pornography. As part of a comprehensive approach […]
MTR condemns trade in girl’s virginity on Sunrise and Morning Show UPDATE: School girl withdrawn from virginity auction See also: ‘Why virginity is a best seller: how the sex industry profits from an Asian girl’s first time, Caroline Norma, MTR blog ‘Selling women on virtual auction blocks: 19 y.o Chinese student ‘must be sold!’, […]
Big Porn Inc: Exposing the harms of the global porn industry (Spinifex Press, edited by Dr Abigail Bray and me) is now appearing on bookstore shelves in the UK and North America. Host and producer of The F Word radio show and the executive editor of feminisms.org, Meghan Murphy interviewed me recently. It was good […]
ACT committee misses opportunity to address harms: ‘normalises prostitution, cuts back on regulation, waters down health safeguards’ Caroline Norma The chair of a committee appointed to review the ACT’s Prostitution Act took the significant step last week of attaching a 9-page appendix to the committee’s final report outlining her ‘dissent’ to its findings. In this […]
A young man taking the lead Now and then I stumble on a brave man passionate about the issues taken up here on the MTR blog. Recently I’ve made the acquaintance of Matthew Holloway. Only 26, Matthew’s written some compelling pieces in recent months on pornography, prostitution and rape-permission giving in men’s magazines. I thought […]
What passing bells for those who die as cattle? By Dr Helen Pringle Ten years ago, Puangthong Simaplee died at the age of 27. She had been picked up in a police raid on a Surry Hills brothel on 23 September 2001, and was sent to Villawood Detention Centre. Three days later, she died in […]
Former MP guilty of sex offences receives suspended sentence Today I am thinking about a 15-year-old Tasmanian girl and what she thinks of the Australian justice system. I’m wondering if she is questioning if it was worth taking her harrowing ordeal to the courts to find no justice at the end of the process. At […]
