The Prostitution law review committee of the Ministry of Justice in NZ has recently released their 5 year review of the decriminalization of prostitutioni (.PDF HERE). They have some interesting findings, after what is now 5 years of legal prostitutioni:
Some quotes from the Associate Justice Minister Lianne Dalziel:

“The report indicates that the numbers have remained more or less the same since the Act came into force and that most sex workers are better off under the PRA than they were previously, which was the intention of the Act.

This year the Vermont Transgender Day of Rememberance recognized the lives lost to anti-sex worker violence alongside those lost to anti-transgender violence. Through a collaboration with the newly minted Vermont branch of SWOP, a sex worker rights activist was invited to speak on the issue of sex workers' human rights. On behalf of SWOP East, I eagerly accepted the offer to be the keynote speaker at the event.

AGREEMENTS SUMMARY

Sex Worker Rights are Human Rights-Dignity and Respect

In the past respect and dignity were used against sex workers and other "un-pure" women to kill or imprison them. In our struggle for human rights we choose to reclaim these words and give them renewed meaning.

View this video report from SWOP-LA @ the 6th IASSCS CONFERENCE "Dis/Organized Pleasures" in Lima, Peru, June 27-29 2007.

Gus Schleis has quite an activist resume already. This is not surprising since Avaren Ipsen is his mother. Gus has testified before the Nuclear Regulatory Committee on behalf of kids afraid of a radioactive environment, protested against the Iraq war and dressed as a killer tomato in protest of genetically modified foods.

Shelby Aesthetic is an artist/writer/film documenter. Shelby has done underground sex work at various times in her life as means of survival, and is currently a sex worker activist. She moved to Alabama in 1998 and is currently doing outreach for sex workers, documenting their lives, and writing for her own underground punk zine. Shelby is a

Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock is co-author of the critically-acclaimed Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for What Saves Us (Beacon Press, 2001), is a Visiting Scholar. Author of Journeys By Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power. Co-authored Casting Stones: Prostitution and Liberation in Asia and the United States which won the 1996 Catholic

Salina Brilla is originally from Chicago. This artist/student/writer/photographer came to Alabama 2 years ago. She has worked as a food server on the graveyard shift all over Chicago and encountered all kinds of people including sex workers of different types. She realized after moving to Alabama that things are the same all over. All