Can a prostitute be raped? Are pregnancy and STIs an Occupational Health and Safety issue? What sort of society buys and sells women and children for sex? Does legalisation solve the dangers of sex work? Sex worker advocates have argued for many years that legalising prostitution is the way to make the industry safer both for workers and clients. In 1984, the State of Victoria did just that.

In Ngarrindjeri Wurruwarrin, Diane Bell presents a finely textured ethnographic portrait of Aboriginal culture. Here are the voices of women and men who struggled to protect their sacred sites in the Hindmarsh Island, Murray Mouth and Goolwa area. When they did, it became the subject of a series of court cases, legal decisions, media speculation, anthropological disputation and parliamentary...

The Heavens May Fall takes up the story of a fiery up-and-coming lawyer at the Bana-Bantle Children’s Agency in Mochudi, Botswana. Naledi Chaba’s caseload is bulging with stories of rape and abuse. So when she takes on the case of a 15-year-old girl who has been raped by the lodger, she’s on a familiar battleground, involving her own peers. And it’s not only J.J., her silk-shirt-wearing,...

There are (at least) two competing views on prostitution: Prostitution as a legitimate and acceptable form of employment, freely chosen by women; And men’s use of prostitution as a form of degrading the women and causing grave psychological damage.

In The Idea of Prostitution, Sheila Jeffreys explores these sharply contrasting views. She examines the changing concept of prostitution from...