#109 Listen to Survivors: Simone Watson - "Prohibition and Decrim have failed."
Simone Watson is a Survivor activist. She is the director of Nordic Model Australia Coalition and a former human rights delegate for Amnesty International. Simone entered prostitution in a legal brothel in Melbourne in her 20’s, she found the world of legalised prostitution to be anything but ‘safe’ and left.
Find the Nordic Model Australia Coalition on their Website and Facebook
This podcast was edited by wonderful FiLiA volunteer Michelle Kerwin.
This episode is part of our #ListenToSurvivors Series.
Listen Here (transcript below):
Transcript:
Luba from FiLiA in conversation with Simone Watson.
L – How did you get into abolitionism and activism?
S – I started getting into activism in 2013/2014 after the leaked draft policy from Amnesty International (AI) and collectively around the world, people started talking about it. I found this footnote 5 which was a huge problem by ensuring, in different words, the right for men to access sex. The policy ran through with a lot of anti-discrimination rhetoric and you think there’s not much wrong here until you find this foot note. It screamed to me that it could have been written by a pimp. Lo and behold we now know it was co-authored by a pimp.
I was connecting with feminists on-line; I’d been rattling around in my own feminist fireball without that many people to talk to until I went on-line.
I left a comment on Gail Dines Facebook page called ‘stop porn culture’ I put a short letter on that page a bit like a short letter to Amnesty International. Stop Porn Culture said – can we publish this and put it on our website? – and that thrust me into the international eye because I was one of a few public survivors. I came out as a survivor because I couldn’t stand this anymore because if AI can support the pimps and the sex buyers then the world has gone crazy.
L – Today you see it as violence against women, have you always seen it like that or did you have another perception in the past?
S – I think initially I didn’t think it was anything but inevitable and as the status quo and how the general public would think about it I suppose. Not opposed to it but not thinking of specifically as violence. Even when I read Andrea Dworkin’s book Pornography, I still didn’t make the connection that pornography is prostitution. So if I couldn’t make that connection it’s no wonder to me that the general public, who are not involved in it at all might not make that connection.
It’s quite apparent that it’s violence now. At the time you’re in a fight or freeze response. It’s much more important to hold up the status of - I’m fine and it is empowering – and it was really laid out to me that it was something almost feminist to do, when I was younger. As we know now, a lot of women don’t understand the implications until get out of it, if they manage to get out of it.
L – Yes, this is a societal form of gas lighting. It’s ‘cool’, it’s ‘empowering’, many women are groomed into prostitution by society.
S – It’s so in your face now, so many people pushing relentlessly to further normalise it and to further entrench into law and policies which continue to expand this violence is so reprehensible, that’s why I joined the movement, to stop this.
L – What changed your mind from – prostitution is cool and feminist – to prostitution is violence? Was it a specific point in time that changed your perception or was it an ongoing process?
S – It was an on-going process. I was kind of disassociated. All the feminists’ work that I read, particularly Andrea Dworkin, I loved her work and it spoke to me so clearly but I couldn’t apply it to myself. I think there’s some level of disassociation there. As an individual I wasn’t going to take that on. Even though I was looking at the structures of patriarchy, I wasn’t applying it to myself as an individual. I think this is a common response. So there wasn’t a fixed point in time, it came very gradually, the more I put 2 and 2 together.
I think the rise of post modernism and neo-liberalism, which I was very much in that camp of ‘feminism’ which I don’t see it as that anymore. The liberal feminist is not feminist to me because if you don’t have the underlying core that commodification of women’s bodies, whether through the sex trade or reproductive abuse, if they aren’t the core of your principles of feminism – you might have some feminist ideals like being pro-choice, but that just makes you someone who has some feminist ideas, it doesn’t make you a feminist.
L – So in some ways, living in Australia decided your perception, before and after switching to abolitionism? Australia has 6 states. Could you tell us more about abolitionism across the country?
S – It’s a bit of a dog’s breakfast. Where it’s illegal, it’s a turn a blind eye situation. It’s prohibited but not really because the brothels are ubiquitous, the police will turn a blind eye. Where it’s illegal it’s for the prostituted woman, the buyers and the pimps. So where it’s completely illegal the police turn a blind eye. That can be bonus if you are a prostituted woman, you don’t want them picking you up and throwing you in jail.
If you completely prohibit prostitution without criminalising the women. that’s prohibition and we know that that fails, which is why I support the Nordic Model.
In New South Wales, it is fully decriminalised, in Victoria it’s legalised, in A.C.T its decriminalised and in the Northern Territory.
L – Just in the last year right?
S – Yes and it’s horrific. The Northern Territory has the largest Indigenous population in Australia. It’s completely on board with colonisation, it’s out in the open. Australia is a particularly racist country.
South Australia has a semi-legalised model. You can have a certain number of people. You can operate independently; you can operate outside the brothel system. They have over 130+ illegal brothels operating anyway, so partial legalisation in South Australia, legalisation in Victoria and full decriminalisation in New South Wales, partial decriminalisation in Queensland and Tasmania.
L – Who is decriminalised under partial decriminalisation?
S – With partial decriminalisation, the prostituted person, the clients and in some cases the brothel owners. You can run massage parlours for example, you can run legal brothels, pimps can be decriminalised and prostituted women.
In NSW anyone can have a brothel license even if you have a criminal record.
So the only difference between legalisation and decriminalisation is that decriminalisation has less regulations around it.
L – Can you tell us about the relationship between colonialism and prostitution in Australia and in general?
S – It’s not my theory. Women around the world have studied this. Indigenous women and women of colour have known about this for a very long time.
In Australia there is no historical evidence whatsoever that prostitution existed here prior to invasion and colonisation, which is only 250 years ago. It’s drop in the ocean of time. So it was imported like a scourge or disease and we see this globally, implemented all over the world, it’s a racialized system without doubt. It is mainly poor women and women of colour who make up the bulk of those being trafficked, used and abused in prostitution.
You cannot separate it from racism, colonisation and also militarisation.
This is where I get annoyed, as someone firmly on the left, I get so annoyed at the faux left and their racist and colonialist attitude towards prostitution.
I guess that goes hand in hand with not really knowing what the system is and listening to the slogans – sex work is work – and kind of meaningless slogans that come out that are easier to listen to, I understand why they’re easier to listen to than to challenge because it sounds like it’s supporting our human rights when in fact they’re supporting the rights of the buyers and pimps.
So it’s certainly not my theory, it’s something I have seen born out. All of it is so horrific in Australia but I was particularly appalled by the Northern Territories stance and particularly the stance of the Attorney General.
L – What is the % of the indigenous population in NT?
S – I just know it’s the largest per capita in Australia, it doesn’t have a massive population generally. However, most of the women in the brothels are from South East Asia.
I was shocked with the Attorney General, she directly misquoted CEDAW. If you’re an Attorney General, it’s your job to know what CEDAW is. The general public may not know what that is. The pro-sex trade lobby, the people with the red umbrellas, they allowed it. It’s one of the worst legislations I have ever seen because they even allow the customer, the john, the sex buyer to take you to court if don’t fulfil your contract. This has happened in Germany. They didn’t kick off about that. They are really against licensing and were fighting that.
L – This cancels out any consent. This takes it to another level.
S – It takes it to another level but people assume when they looked up that legislation was that as a woman you could take that man to court if he doesn’t pay you. But conversely, the law works in his favour. He can also take you to court or the brothel to court and the brothel will fine you and you’ll get kicked out.
I just find it unconscionable and more evidence that the pro-sex trade lobby groups are not fighting for our interests or for any women in prostitution.
L – Is there a difference in demand for prostitution across Australia? Is there more demand in more liberal states like NSW and NT? Is it higher than Western Australia?
S – Because our population is spread so differently. Western Australia has a really low population; NT has a really high population. NSW has what you would call a right wing government, they inherited the decriminalised model. When you say ‘the liberal states’ more like a republican government. Trafficking continues where it’s illegal and where it’s fully decriminalised and where it’s legalised. The pimps dream is to go where it’s legalised. Prohibition always serves as a cover to prevent women speaking out so we still have trafficking here in Western Australia.
Last year a brothel was raided in the city, 60km away from me and 2 Chinese national women were deported. I couldn’t, for the life of me, find out what happened to the other women, to the journalist who got the tip off about it didn’t even think to ask.
It’s only considered illegal if it’s illegal in and of itself so Border Force security will get involved.
We still have this problem, decriminalised in NSW, Victoria and everywhere, if someone is here illegally, they will instantly get deported or locked up ready to be deported. I think this is reprehensible and horrific. These women who are from other countries need to be taken somewhere completely safe and woman centred like a domestic violence refuge or where someone can speak their language and support them.
If Australia is going to continue to support sex trafficking, which you do by prohibiting it or fully decriminalising it, you become a pimp State. If Australia is going to continue to sign up for that then Australia has an obligation to protect these women and not throw them back to their countries of origin where they could be killed or their families could be killed.
L – In my country in Israel, the sex trade lobby often blames others for mistreating the sex workers, the migrant sex workers, in our case that is Eastern Europe, due to our restrictive laws, the migrant sex workers don’t get the opportunity to improve their quality of life.
So in NSW where the law is restrictive, does the criminalisation benefit the migrant sex workers?
S – No, not at all. If you’re there illegally you’re going to get thrown into one of these camps anyway. The rates of trafficking are ridiculous. Australia is a destination for sex trafficking. It doesn’t change conditions for them.
I don’t understand a lot of the rhetoric that comes out. We have a prominent so called feminist who’s a trade unionist who writes frequently for the Guardian, is on high profile TV station panels, talking about worker’s rights. She’s a proud trade unionist and she believes in this – sex work is work – mantra. Yet she will talk about the under classes, the labour work force, no-one earning under $180,000 a year should be allowed to come and work in this country. Those jobs have to remain for those under that income bracket. I don’t know what she thinks trafficked women are earning in Australia but it certainly isn’t $180,000 a year. So there’s this bizarre cognisant dissonance.
Politically Australia is so apathetic. If you’re going to have someone in the media constantly talking about this, you have to get the story straight and understand what the situation is. But because they haven’t been in the situation themselves, they don’t think very deeply about it.
L – I don’t understand this labour rights idea. In Australia and New Zealand, they are not employees, they are free lancers so the entire labour idea is not relevant.
S – No, it’s not relevant. They are called independent contractors so all of the burden falls back to them all of the time. You have your room rental fees, you get dress code fines and all these sorts of things you have to cover under the decriminalised States.
L – No sick pay or pension rights. The same under the Nordic model as well.
S – We need to implement this. This is why I’m against prohibition and decriminalisation of pimps and johns. I don’t think it needs to be clarified.
The thing is with the global movement is that the status quo of the public who never have to enter the sex trade and just see it on TV and movies, why would they know anything about it? why would they know the politics behind it?
The status quo thinks of prostitution as a complete inevitability, the world’s oldest profession, it’s been around since the beginning of time and all these myths.
There’s not a lot of impetus to shift that. We have abolitionists on one side and we get confused with being prohibitionists. Then you have the sex trade lobbyists, most of whom are not in prostitution themselves anyway. They have more sway, I think, in supporting the status quo. People think – decriminalisation makes it safer – the public instantly thinks of the prostituted woman and thinks: if she’s being targeted by the police and stigmatisation is happening to her, which are true, then of course it makes sense to decriminalise her. What they don’t understand is that it’s decriminalising the whole system and that it doesn’t happen in a vacuum or a silo.
Where we decriminalise the pimping and the buyers, that has a flow on affect to every other State and country. People like to think they can create this perfect legislation and that their decriminalised model will be better than everywhere else and they see these border lines between States and countries as if they etched into the earth. We know that’s not how sex trafficking works and we know that’s not how sexual exploitation works. The boundaries are extremely fluid.
It doesn’t happen as an individual choice in a vacuum ever, under any circumstances.
The woman, usually white, touristing through the sex trade, I’m not saying this doesn’t have a difficult outcome for her in the long run, they are touristing through in the sense that they don’t know about the impacts that that decriminalised model has to another woman in the global south. They just don’t get it. They think it’s just me. I don’t want to talk about them so much because we know it’s the men who demand this and if we stop the demand, we would end the sex trade tomorrow when men stop buying.
L – No buyers, no pimps.
S – The governments who support decriminalisation for pimps and buyers have no impetus to help support women when they want to exit. None at all. Why would you if it’s just another job.
In Victoria we had this case, this man hired this woman and then raped her repeatedly, tied her up several times, tortured and raped her, stole her phone and money out of her wallet. It went to court and the charge included torture. All that got removed and all he had to do was replace the money and her phone. How could a court decide that this wasn’t just her job, maybe she consented to be tied up and tortured because specialises in that or something. That’s the inevitable outcome. Wherever the vulnerable women are, it’s going to be worse.
I think if you have a government who will quote UN conventions and get them completely wrong, that just shows political apathy. If you’re in a political position and you don’t understand these conventions. I find it quite astonishing, I continue to be astonished that these people who are politicians, who are meant to know what the laws are and are actually creating legislation, they should at least know what Australia has ratified and signed up to.
We have to place ourselves where we are on the global political map and know we’re a trafficking destination country.
We have the same attitude here. Trafficking is for prostitution, sex workers as they like to call it. You can’t split them, it’s a false distinction.
L – How has it been during covid times? In Israel the sex trade lobby claims that a refusal to test prostitutes is a form of discrimination because they are not eligible for various government benefits. During lockdown others got benefits but the women in the sex trade got nothing. Some opted for disability and social security benefits but they are significantly lower than unemployment benefit.
So in Australia with a legal system, were the women able to claim unemployment benefits?
S – In Australia you don’t have to put your personal taxes in to claim unemployment benefit so it might be a different system. In some countries your employment goes towards benefits when you’re unemployed.
In Australia if you don’t have a job you’re eligible for unemployment benefits. If you are an independent contractor, you have the same rights as everybody else.
The first people to be fined were women in prostitution (for breaking lockdown). At the beginning of covid there was huge panic. Imagine how desperate you would have had to be to go along to the brothel anyway. They weren’t fining the men. They were fining a couple of brothel owners and the women. Under the Nordic model this wouldn’t happen.
I don’t know if the it’s the same in Israel, the pro sex trade lobby put on their website –
Have anti-bacterial wipes by the bed
Try not to kiss a client
Tie your hair back
A litany of ideas and suggestions to supposedly keep you safe from the virus. It was outrageous, this is why we need to stop this farce and the lies about this being a job like any other. It’s hit women in prostitution so hard. If the government can get out of supporting people financially, they will. Of course they will. We’re disposable to them. So the argument to me doesn’t wash. Not being forced to pay taxes is discrimination? I don’t think so.
L – What would you say makes sense?
You are a founder of NorMAC – Nordic Model Australia Coalition – Could you tell us about its history and activities?
S – It was founded by 2 wonderful people, Isla MacGregor and Matthew Holloway back in 2012 and when I came out with my activism in 2013/2014 I met with them when I was the Human Rights delegate for Amnesty International. I flew to Melbourne along with a lot of other women and sex trade survivors. We met there and not long after that they asked me to be Director.
NorMAC focuses on challenging sexual exploitation and writing submissions around legislation which I think most think it’s all bureaucracy. Legislation has the power to create a cultural shift like we’ve seen in Sweden in just over 20 years that younger people are growing up and saying – no, prostitution is a form of violence against women – I think the cultural shift is one of the significant things about the legislation.
L – Do you think they will vote for the Nordic model?
S – I don’t feel very hopeful. I know there are politicians across partisan camps who do support us but it’s a matter of whether they can get their voices heard because we really have to keep fighting it. They don’t seem to believe that what is happening here is actually happening here. They seem to believe that what’s happening globally is not happening in their State, that they are somehow special.
They do the same thing and expect a different outcome.
L – So what are the realistic goals of NorMAC?
S – The realistic goals are to continue to fight it. To work with other organisations to get the government to hold off on the decriminalisation of pimps and johns. In South Australia for example, every year we have to fight this. A new Bill gets put before the parliament to decriminalise it and that’s been going on a long time. Since NorMAC was founded we have been doing that every year as well, we keep going in there and explaining what exactly is going on in the State with the help of people who live there locally and to remind them that if they want to stop organised crime and they are serious about violence against women then decriminalising pimps and johns is obviously not the way to go.
L – Can you give us some contact details for people who would like to follow NorMAC?
Do you have anything else you would like to say?
S – Just to say to keep up the fight, it’s worth it, keep fighting for it because we have come quite a long way, it seems like a very uphill battle but look it’s just happened now in Israel right? Also to keep finessing the law and making it better. It can always be finessed, improved upon but the governments have to stop being pimps. They facilitate trafficking by making it completely prohibited and they facilitate trafficking by completely decriminalising it so they’ve got to come to the Equality Model (Nordic Model) if they don’t want to be a pimp State. It’s as simple as that, we need to care about it.
So keep up the fight, it’s worth it, we’ll get there.
L – Thank you, I’ve learned a lot about your country.
S – Thank you, I really appreciate it and I really appreciate FiLiA too.