Auckland transgender sex workers at risk

[Shana A]

Auckland transgender sex workers at risk
Posted in: New Zealand Daily News
By GayNZ.com Daily News Staff - 22nd April 2009

http://www.gaynz.com/articles/publish/2/article_7353.php

Video footage showing transgender sex workers being verbally abused and threatened by a vigilante group aiming to "clean up" South Auckland is just one example of altercations happening on the streets every night, says the NZ Prostitutes Collective.

Since Prostitution Law Reform in 2003, the sex workers' activities are not illegal, but the Papatoetoe Reclaiming Our Streets (PROS) group is driving around the area verbally abusing and threatening to 'out' sex workers and their clients to their families.

Footage shown on TVNZ's Close Up programme this week showed a PROS leader shouting transphobic remarks at street workers

[tekla]

by definition, are not all 'sex workers' "At Risk"?  (answer, yes they are.)

[Mister]

by definition, are not all 'sex workers' "At Risk"?  (answer, yes they are.)

IAWTC

[Nicky]

South Auckland is considered one of the rougher areas of New Zealand.
I would not be surprised if the vigilantes are out while their 5 kids, all under 6 years old, are at home alone.

[tekla]

I'm sure the roughest areas of New Zealand, and I'm sure they are hard places, even begin to compare with South Central in LA, or Bed-Sty in NYC, or the South Side of Chicago.

[Nicky]

absolutely not, and I am glad for it.