Justice committee  We've never had a case of trafficking of people into New Zealand. The only trafficking cases that have come up concern those who are under 18 years of age. Under the Prostitution Reform Act, under 18s are not criminalized, but anybody who tries to... .A client, or a brothel opera

Justice committee  No, quite the contrary. [Technical difficulty—Editor] prior to decriminalization, and definitely, it's a completely different industry now. There were some members of parliament who were concerned about that before decriminalization, and therefore, voted against it. As I said bef

Justice committee  I'm sorry I only heard the French.

Justice committee  Yes, I've switched it to English.

Justice committee  Thank you. The people who advocate for the Nordic model, their voices have been sometimes privileged in debates. I'm not sure why. It's in various countries though that those voices seem to be put above the empirical evidence. It would be nice to think that evidence does inform

Justice committee  Yes, I do feel it's the best way to go. If you look at the research coming out of Canada, as well as all of the other Nordic countries, it shows that sex workers are still going underground. They do want to continue working. There's [Technical difficulty—Editor]. It hasn't decrea

Justice committee  In New Zealand, we have the Prostitution Reform Act. It wasn't just a matter of scrapping all the laws that decriminalize sex workers. There are protections built into the Prostitution Reform Act that I think are very good ones to have, in terms of the ability to change their min

Justice committee  We've had no cases of sex workers trafficked into New Zealand. The only trafficking experience we've had is in the horticultural industry. There are trafficking laws, and trafficking could be dealt with, no matter the industry, under those laws. We don't need specific sex work-re

Justice committee  Thank you very much. I just wanted to say that there is ample empirical evidence worldwide to show that criminalization in any of its forms—whether its the criminalization of sex work activities, of some sectors of the industry such as, with legalization, where it's legal only i

Justice committee  We found that they were able to refuse to see clients when they didn't want to. They weren't forced by a brothel to see them, which happened beforehand. There was no increase in the number of sex workers. I think a lot of people thought that there would be a huge increase in the

Justice committee  Thank you very much. I'm Dr. Gillian Abel. I'm a professor of public health at the University of Otago in New Zealand. I've been doing research in the field of sex work for around 25 years, and I'm considered a global expert in this field. Sex work in New Zealand was decrimina