AAWAA has been part of a coalition of Australian feminist organisations that has submitted a formal letter to the Prime Minister and the Minister for Women, advancing a substantive case for comprehensive national reform to prostitution law and requesting a National Apology for women and girls harmed and criminalised by past and present policies.
Prostitution law in Australia remains a fragmented patchwork. Regulatory models differ by jurisdiction: New South Wales, Victoria, the Northern Territory, and Queensland have each adopted decriminalisation, treating prostitution as a form of regulated business. The Australian Capital Territory operates a legalisation framework predicated on licensing, registration, and localised controls. Other states, such as Tasmania, South Australia, and Western Australia, maintain partial criminalisation or abolitionist provisions where third-party exploitation is proscribed but the act of prostitution itself is not a criminal offence.
This legal divergence has not resulted in the protection for women and girls and decriminalisation and partial regulatory models have not ended exploitation; rather, they have entrenched the interests of sex buyers, profiteers, and intermediaries, while leaving those at highest risk — women and girls who enter prostitution due to poverty, trauma, or coercion — without effective safeguards or viable pathways to exit.
Recent legislative developments, including the Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill, reflect a growing consensus that the criminal law must focus on the men who purchase sex, facilitate or profit from prostitution, while fully decriminalising and restoring the dignity of those who have been exploited. Evidence from Sweden, where the Nordic Model has operated for over two decades, demonstrates that targeting demand by criminalising buyers reduces prostitution markets and related trafficking. Scotland’s proposed Bill goes further by mandating survivor support and statutory redress for those previously criminalised, advancing practical and restorative justice.