Visa fears
Prostitutes speak out
"We are dealing with people highly stressed, terrified that they've been discovered." Catherine Healy, NZ Prostitute's Collective.
Migrant prostitutes working illegally on temporary visas are ‘‘terrified’’ they will be deported if they report exploitative pimps and abusive clients to authorities.
In the past year, 136 migrants suspected of coming here to carry out sex work were denied entry into New Zealand, Immigration New Zealand data revealed.
Sex work is the only occupation migrants on temporary visas are not legally allowed to take up.
However, migrants who have entered the country on temporary work, visitor, holiday or international student visas and work as prostitutes are being forced to carry out sexual acts without protection and often work 12-hour shifts, seven days a week.
A 24-year-old Chinese former prostitute with permanent residency who did not want to be named, estimated about 40 per cent of all sex workers in New Zealand were on temporary visas.
She and other women sex workers were coerced by brothel managers to give unprotected oral sex to male clients.
When she refused, her pimp told her that she needed to ‘‘be more open-minded’’, she said.
Her colleagues at an Auckland Asian brothel who did not want to comply were told off by managers, she said.
‘‘They say, You really need to do this or … you won’t get any more jobs’. They persuade you until you give unprotected oral sex. This business depends on the quality of your girls.’’
The most popular prostitutes worked 12-hour shifts, often having sex with nine clients a day, before spending the night with another, she said.
The prostitutes were constantly upset and tired, but they felt obliged to keep clients and their boss happy, she said.
They would not speak to police because they would be deported, she said.
Almost all of the prostitutes were working illegally on temporary visas, she said.
One woman working on a holiday visa was deported, but the brothel manager did not tell the other workers, she said.
Auckland University researched David Ting interviewed 20 Auckland Asian sex workers for a sociology study. Half of them were here on temporary visas.
Most of the illegal sex workers told Ting they had been threatened with deportation by brothel owners.
The New Zealand Prostitutes Collective (NZPC) national coordinator Catherine Healy said pimps had ‘‘almighty power’’ over illegal migrant prostitutes.
Some illegal workers had been served deportation liability notices recently, she said.
‘‘We are dealing with people highly stressed, terrified that they’ve been discovered.’’
Immigration New Zealand said it did not have data in a reportable format of the number of deportation notices it handed out or the number of workers who were deported.
Healy said the collective represented sex workers, regardless of their immigration status.
One of its members working on an international student visa was deported before she finished her studies.
‘‘That seems so awful and callous. Can’t they just be told to stop sex work?’’
Often temporary migrants, particularly international students, were unaware it was illegal for them to work in the sex industry, she said.
The application of the Immigration Act, section 19, in the Prostitution Reform Act deems it illegal for any temporary migrant to work as a prostitute or invest in any business that sells sexual services.
It was added into the Prostitution Reform Act to deter trafficking of international sex workers.
Since the decriminalisation of prostitution in New Zealand for citizens and permanent residents in 2003, the collective has argued that section 19 puts migrant prostitutes at risk of exploitation.
‘‘We knew that [section 19] would translate into exactly what it has,’’ Healy said.
Immigration Minister Iain Lees Galloway said last week that legal migrant workers were ‘‘very, very vulnerable’’ and did not receive enough protection if they blew the whistle on exploitative employers.
Eliminating migrant exploitation was his priority, however, and protective measures for migrant whistleblowers were still being decided.
Protection for all migrant workers, including illegal sex workers, was important, but he ruled out eliminating section 19.
‘‘That’s not something we would consider because we are concerned that by removing it, it could encourage sex trafficking.’’
Immigration NZ’s acting assistant general manager Senta Jehle said the agency recognised that sex workers were vulnerable to exploitation.
Jehle could not say whether a migrant sex worker who reported exploitation would be immediately deported, as the outcome for cases varied.
But if a migrant was deceived or coerced to work in the sex industry, Immigration would treat them as a ‘‘suspected victim of trafficking’’ and the matter would be investigated.
The working girl who did not want to be identified said prostitutes working on temporary visas knew it was illegal, but they were not all afraid.
‘‘They know Immigration New Zealand is not as powerful as it looks. [Immigration] can’t just spend 24 hours a day on this matter.’’