18 June 2004

Launch of Repeal Week to promote referendum on the Prostitution Reform Act

A Repeal Week coinciding with one year since the Prostitution Reform Act was passed will launch a nationwide campaign to collect signatures for a referendum asking New Zealand voters, "Should the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 be repealed?"

The Prostitution Reform Act which decriminalised soliciting, pimping and brothel keeping in New Zealand, was passed on June 25th 2003 by just one vote. "There was no public mandate for this legislation. This law should not have been passed without the endorsement of the New Zealand people," says Referendum Coordinator, Daniel Goldie-Anderson.

To support the petition www.stoptheabuse.org.nz has also been launched. Already hundreds of people have downloaded the petition forms and accessed information on the problems with the law.

"Prostitution always causes huge physical and emotional harm. The Prostitution Reform Act provides protection for pimps and brothel owners, and made it easier for vulnerable women and children to become trapped in this exploitative trade. Instead of trying to minimise harm, the law should aim to prevent it in the first place," says Goldie-Anderson.

Repeal Week is being launched this Sunday afternoon with events in Auckland and Christchurch.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>