This week marks 20 years since sex work in New Zealand was decriminalised, but sex workers and advocates say there are still big challenges facing the industry.
Prior to the 2003 Prostitution Law Reform, working in the sex industry was incredibly dangerous — not only did workers face the ongoing threat of arrest, but many say the authorities did not take sex workers seriously, particularly if they were abused and laid a complaint with police.
Dame Catherine Healy, a former sex worker who has been campaigning for sex workers' rights for decades, said the industry today has come a long way since the dark days of criminalisation.
"It's quite different from a 30-year-old stumbling into a massage parlour in 1986 thinking I was going to be massaging!"
It was in this environment that Healy helped found the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective to help support other sex workers and advocate on their behalf.
"We arrived in the context of HIV, and we were really worried about being criminalised — we needed condoms, and they were circumstantial evidence as far as the law was concerned," she told 1News.
At that time, the police specifically targeted sex work, operating a "vice squad" that patrolled red-light districts such as Auckland's Karangahape Road.
Detective Inspector Scott Beard was deployed to patrol these areas as a young officer in the 1980s.
"Most young police officers were put out on the beat on [Karangahape] Road and Queen Street," he told 1News.
He attended a hui today organised by the NZPC.
"When you hear straight out of the horse's mouth, from those who worked in the industry and suffered... it's quite humbling."
Vixen Temple is relatively new to the sex industry.
"I entered sex work in 2018. I was in my final year of university. I had been diagnosed with celiac disease, and I was really struggling to afford my grocery... so I grabbed my phone, I put up a story saying 'here's my PayPal, send me some money and I will send you some nudes'."
This developed over time and built into a career for Temple.
"I find the biggest thing entering the industry [after decriminalisation], while there is still a lot of negative stigma attached to the industry, I've been able to enter the industry and be extremely unapologetic about it — especially on the internet.
"I was so unashamed about who I am and what I do."
There were still challenges the industry faced, however, particularly around a lack of rights for migrant sex workers.
"They can come to this country and work in any other sphere, but they can't be sex workers," Dame Catherine said.
And new sex workers like Temple also had to deal with issues with the internet, particularly around censorship on some platforms.
"It often feels like it's us against the world as sex workers — so having that on top of being censured off the internet, and on top of the fear that migrants are living with, it can be really hard for us to combat that stigma," she said.
But, she said, that was why it was important to speak up.
"By using our voice, that is how we beat that stigma."
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