Pimps & Ho's

A few weeks ago we were chatting with the lady who came to the house to measure for new curtains (see earlier post on our really ugly curtains), and we mentioned that we had walked home the night before from the All Blacks game. This conversation then happened:
Curtain lady: Did you walk up Manchester Street?
Us: Em, no, we came up Madras.
CL: Well, next time, you should walk up Manchester.... That's where all the hookers are.
Us: ???
CL: You may as well have a laugh, eh?

(The kiwis are always saying "eh." Like the Canadians.)

So this last weekend we went downtown for drinks and walked home up Manchester Street. Sure enough, we saw some hookers. Nothing as entertaining as the curtain lady suggested we might see, though, just a few women in short skirts and boots standing on the sidewalk. We saw a car stop and a woman walk up to the car to talk to the driver, a la Pretty Woman. We weren't witnessing anything illicit though. Prostitution is legal here.

It's kind of crazy, but totally makes sense when you think about it. You can't stop prostitution, so you may as well regulate it and protect everyone involved. New Zealand narrowly passed the Prostitution Reform Act in 2003 to do just that. The Act aims to:
(a) safeguard the human rights of sex workers and protect them from exploitation;
(b) promote the welfare and occupational health and safety of sex workers;
(c) be conducive to public health; and
(d) prohibit the use in prostitution of persons under 18 years of age.

The prostitutes even have their own labor group. It's called New Zealand's Prostitutes Collective. We think it's good that they have a collective. Prostitution is treated just like any other line of work. A prostitute can even get unemployment benefits if she (or he!) needs to stop working for whatever reason. And why shouldn't they?

Yes, New Zealand is progressive! We're seeing this over and over here: New Zealand takes care of its people. All of them.