Sex Party President, Fiona Patten, will address a rally outside the Victorian Parliament at 2pm today for International Whore’s Day.

She said that new laws introduced into the federal parliament this week to stop sexual slavery and servitude were necessary because of the discriminatory immigration policies of successive federal governments. Many cases of sexual servitude were the result of the inability of bona fide Asian sex workers to get a proper working visa, which forced them to enter a relationship with a pimp or middle man who was an expert at getting around the law.

“Federal immigration policy discriminates against bona fide sex workers and the legitimate brothel industry in Australia by denying visas to sex workers on moral grounds”, she said. “If an industry or job is legal then government should have no right to arbitrarily discriminate against it on moral grounds. If Gina Rinehart can bring thousands of Asian workers out here to work in mines under a deal sponsored by the Prime Minister, why can’t federal Cabinet agree to a few hundred Asian sex workers coming out here to work in a legal brothel”?
Ms Patten said that by denying working visas to bona fide sex workers, sponsored by approved brothels with a good occupational health and safety record, the federal government sets up the conditions for sex servitude to take place. “The mechanics of black market labour are very easy for the Minister for Immigration to work out”, she said. “Strong demand for services but no workers in the country to supply the demand, simply means that organised crime supplies the workers. The federal government has to bite its moral tongue and get on with the business of making people’s lives safer.”

She called on State and Federal governments to make it illegal to discriminate against people on the basis of their job, occupation, profession or calling.