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Background: Sex work is commonly understood to be a risky occupation. Sex work law debates coalesce around the issue of harm, with differing perspectives regarding what constitutes harm, how harm is produced and what needs to change to mitigate it. While sex work is often portrayed as inherently harmful, sex workers and researchers have challenged this assumption, calling attention to the relationship between harm and policies in place. Criminalisation, in its many and varied forms, is thought to exacerbate harms that can occur in sex work, while decriminalisation is understood as creating conditions conducive to minimising harm. However, the decriminalisation of sex work remains rare, and more research which examines how decriminalisation works in relation to harms is critical. This paper uses the concept of social harm to unpack the implications of sex work policies and examine the experiences of sex workers in New Zealand, where sex work is decriminalised. Methods: Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 46 sex workers in New Zealand in 2018 and 2020 across two studies focused on examining experiences and perceptions of stigma and discrimination in this context. The interviews were thematically analysed using NVivo data analysis software. Results: The experiences of participants demonstrate how involvement in sex work had improved their lives in multiple ways. Participants described the importance of sex work in improving their quality of life by ensuring that they could better meet their everyday needs, the autonomy this afforded them and how decriminalisation helped to enable this. The validating impact of decriminalisation in acknowledging sex workers as people with rights is also evident in participant's experiences. Conclusions: Social harm is a framework that can help illuminate socio-economic harms which influence pathways into sex work for some people and the compounding harms of criminalising regimes. The benefits of engaging in sex work are often overlooked in policy debates. Although sex work is not easy work, engaging in sex work can have positive impacts on the lives of people who pursue it. Full decriminalisation of sex work is the only responsible option for societies seeking to reduce harm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sex work is decriminalised in Aotearoa New Zealand and so brothels are deemed a 'businesses like any other' in the eyes of the law. We interviewed 14 brothel operators in this study to understand whether they were able to run their 'business like any other'. Similar to any other business owners, local authorities require brothel operators to run their businesses in accordance with the local district plan. Institutions such as banks and insurance companies, however, have policies which discriminate against brothel owners, and this presents a barrier to running their business like any other. Brothels continue to be seen as discreditable businesses in a decriminalised context and brothel operators internalise this stigma. More effort is needed to reduce stigma and discriminatory practices. The inclusion of the prevention of discrimination on the basis of occupation in New Zealand's Human Rights Act should be the first step. This could better allow brothel operators to run their business like any other in the 'mainstream' economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Previous work has demonstrated that cannabis laws have had a disproportionate impact on Māori, the Indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand. In 2019, the New Zealand Government amended cannabis laws, providing police with the power to determine whether a therapeutic or health-centred approach would be more beneficial than a conviction. In the current study, we use population level data to assess whether this law change has ameliorated the bias in cannabis convictions for Māori. Methods: Data were drawn from the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI), a large government database hosted by Aotearoa New Zealand's national statistics office. In the IDI, we selected individuals who (1) were between 18 and 65, (2) were Māori or Pākehā (New Zealanders of European descent) and, (3) had any cannabis charges that proceeded to the courts. Results: Māori ethnicity was a significant predictor of the odds of receiving a cannabis conviction for Māori males (Odds: 1.56), with a marginally significant effect for Māori females (Odds: 1.57). Further, for Māori, there was no reduction in the number of cannabis charges before vs. after the amendment to cannabis laws. Conclusion: The current study demonstrates that the bias in cannabis convictions for Māori remain. Given this, the New Zealand Government must follow other countries around the world and move forward on cannabis law reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: This article provides insight into a rare instance of a collaborative governance approach to sex work that led to the decriminalisation, design and implementation of the sex work policy governance framework in New Zealand with the Prostitution Reform Act 2003. Methods: Drawing on a sample of 17 interviews conducted between the years 2012 and 2019 in addition to associated archival material originating from government and non-government sectors including sex worker representative organisations. Results: It finds that non-sex workers' endorsement for the decriminalisation of sex work was motivated by the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective (NZPC) and occurred primarily within a human rights and harm minimisation framework. But that during the lobbying and parliamentary process, amendments to the Bill emerged that contradicted the NZPC's main goal which was for sex work to be recognised as a legitimate labour activity and for all sex workers to benefit from decriminalisation and policy reform. Conclusions: As such, this article broadens the scope of analysis related to the sex worker rights movement by examining how and why sex workers and their allies came to communicate and act on the impetus for sex work law reform and how it affected policy outcomes. Policy Implications: Those involved in collaborative governance sex work law reform projects could consider adopting Östegren's typology of repressive, restrictive or integrative approaches to sex work law reform in negotiations that concern regulation and policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]