Before New Zealand passed it’s Prostitution Reform Act, which very generally decriminalized small/independent sex work while regulating brothels, legalization advocates frequently pointed to Holland’s approach. While the Dutch were less punitive and at least nominally more “progressive” than, say, Australia or, worse, Nevada (both of which primarily benefit brothel owners at the expense of actual sex workers) I didn’t think they were that great. The big issue was that prostitution there was, and presumably still is, legal only for Dutch citizens and possibly documented immigrants. That did nothing for the fairly large proportion of undocumented, illegal population of sex workers, subjecting them to the same dangerous twilight working conditions predatory traffickers, pimps, cops, and customers as illegal sex workers in, say, the U.S.

Overall New Zealand’s law was a big improvement but, it turns out, they share the same unfortunate citizen/immigrant distinction Holland does.

Laura Agustín of Border Thinking on Migration, Culture, Economy and Sex explains (emphasis mine)

Many rights activists who back this legal model are not aware of a protectionist clause enshrined in the legislation: only New Zealand citizens and some, not all, migrants with permanent residency may work in its sex industry. This means no work permits are available for people who might want to go to New Zealand to work in a brothel or other sex business, or independently. Spokespeople for the law claim this clause prevents sex trafficking.

For those interested in sex work rights and theory, this is not coherent. New Zealand’s law can be called both decriminalisation, a policy that says sex work is socially acceptable, and regulation, which says sex work can be made safe and rational. Therefore, if jobs are available, it is logical to allow people from outside to come do them. If the jobs have not been made subject to quotas because there are not enough openings to satisfy all the ‘natives’ that want them, but ‘foreigners’ are still prohibited, something odd is going on.

She said it here.

“For those interested in sex work rights and theory, this is not coherent.” That sums it up rather nicely. The problem is that by definition trafficked people aren’t just in the country illegally, their work situation is involuntary. (Even when the nature of their work isn’t.) Therefore, far from improving the lot of migrant sex workers, legalizing sex work for citizens but not illegals (or, for that matter, keeping “illegals” illegal) means that just as in Holland those sex workers who migrate or are trafficked into New Zealand have fewer options and less latitude to pursue them.

My point, as always, not being that prostitution is just the greatest, most sensiblest industry on the planet and so it should be all hunky-dory and legal like. Instead it’s that if we’re going to have prostitution and other forms of sex work, and for better or worse we do, and if it can be reasonably argued that sex work can be subject to illegal coercion, peonage, and appropriation of earnings, and it can, then making sex work per se illegal, as we do, or worse, legal for citizens but not for migrants, which New Zealand, Holland, and other states do, makes life harder for those workers rather than easier, more dangerous rather than safer, and more rather than less subject to coercion, extortion, and exploitation… in other words less subject to trafficking.