See ‘NZ Votes to Legalise Prostitution’ <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3019896.stm> at 04 January 2006. For the Prostitution Reform Bill 2000 and its comprehensive history, see ‘Prostitution Reform Bill — A Member's Bill: As Reported from the Justice and Electoral Committee’, New Zealand House of Representatives, 29 November 2002.
2.
Prostitution Reform Act 2003 (NZ) s 3.
3.
Ibid s 48.
4.
Under s 47 of the Act, the Governor-General is empowered to make regulations concerning these matters. Regulations made under this provision are known as the Prostitution (Operator Certificate) Regulations2003 (NZ).
5.
See New Zealand Prostitution Review Committee, ‘The Nature and Extent of the Sex Industry in New Zealand: An Estimation’, April 2005, 18–19, listing the ‘forms of prostitution’ according to the New Zealand Police as ‘licensed massage parlours’, ‘rap/escort parlours’, ‘escort agencies’, ‘private workers’, ‘street workers’, and ‘ship workers’.
For background discussion of this global phenomenon, see TiefenbrunSusan, ‘Women as Sex Workers and an Economic Solution’, (2002) 24Thomas Jefferson Law Review161, 166–167; ScarpaSilvia, ‘Universalism and Regionalism: The Synergy to Fight against Trafficking in Human Beings’, (2004) Human Rights Law Review4, 15. It is noteworthy that in 1979, New Zealand ratified the UN Convention on the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others of 1949.
8.
Of particular significance here are: Art 34 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) which seeks the protection of all children from all forms of sexual exploitation or sexual abuse; art 7 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) protecting the right of everyone to the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions of work; art 8 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) prohibiting servitude or the performance of forced or compulsory labour.
9.
Under s 42 of the Act, the Prostitution Law Review Committee must review the progression of the Act within its first five years, assess its impact, and consider whether any amendments are desirable in further regulation of the business of prostitution in New Zealand.
