‘I paid for her, I can do what I want with her’: No you can’t saysTom Meagher at anti-prostitution campaign launch
Prostitution: We Don’t Buy It Launched this week in Ireland, ‘Prostitution – We Don’t Buy It’ is an Irish movement organised by The Reach Project, encouraging men not to buy prostituted women. The new movement was launched by Tom Meagher, bereaved husband of Melbourne woman Jill Meagher who was murdered in September 2012 by serial […]
‘Management should starve girls like this to make them perform’: men who buy women for sex
How come the sex industry never has anything to say about the johns and punters – the kind of men, for example, who share their ratings of women with other men in the way you might recommend a meal or place to stay? While they continue to roll out selected prostituted women as human shields* […]
Emma Watson’s speech isn’t the problem; the problem is liberal feminism
‘At least Emma isn’t advocating for sex predators. At least Emma isn’t advocating for pedophiles. At least Emma isn’t advocating for men who produce violent pornography. At least Emma isn’t advocating for human traffickers. At least Emma is advocating for women’ By Laura McNally Emma Watson’s speech at the UN has made headlines worldwide. […]
The Somaly Mam revelations cannot be used to erase the horrors of the global sex trade
There is no excuse to deny or ignore the undeniable exploitation of countless human beings People have been asking me my thoughts on the recent and sad reports that Somaly Mam’s story of being trafficked into prostitution as a child are not true. I know many good people who have selflessly supported Mam’s work in […]
We must follow France and put an end to exploitation
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 […]
An amazing reunion: meeting woman sold by father 14 years after helping her find safety here
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 […]
We commend your government’s determination to confront the harms of pornography: Letter of support to Iceland Government
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 […]
Confronting the Australian politics of resignation on prostitution
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 […]
Asian women going cheap in Australian brothels
Addressing the myths of the prostituted Asian woman On July 3 the Sydney Morning Herald ran an article titled ‘Low prices fuel exotic sex trade’ . Accompanied by an alluring photo and informing us that prostitutes from Asian backgrounds offer more exotic services than their Caucasian counterparts and for less money, it read almost like […]
Inside the business of prostitution in Canberra: we need exit programs not more brothels
Canberra needs to follow the Swedish model and provide exit programs for prostituted women. Caroline Norma, a valued contributor to the MTR blog, wrote this piece in response to an article in The Canberra Times March 6 (‘Sex trade eyes the suburbs’) about sex industry pressure for less regulation and more brothels to expand Canberra’s […]
Can pornography be ethical? The dolphin-free-tuna solution
Pornography will always be exploitative I recall a few years ago being interviewed (read ‘debated’) by two young men on an Adelaide radio station, on the issue of prostitution and trafficking. After cataloguing a litany of harm caused as a result of the global trade in the bodies of women and girls, the boys came […]