MEG MUNDELL
AUTHOR
Meg Mundell is deputy editor, staff writer and music
editor at The Big Issue Australia, and a regular contributor of news, opinion
and analysis to The Age.
Meg Mundell provided this update in an email dated 6 May 2003:
“Just wanted to let you know that I am still working as a freelance writer, but after almost five years at The Big Issue I now have a new position as a youth policy officer with the Council to Homeless Persons.
I still write for The Big Issue, The Age and Beat magazine. In my policy role
also do a lot of public speaking, pushing for positive change on social justice
issues, particularly around homelessness and young people. I've been a keynote
speaker at the National Population Summit 2002, the Interface 2003 youth
conference, and the 2002 National Young Writers Festival. I've worked as a TV
doco researcher and a travel writer for Lonely Planet. In my spare time I also
work as a DJ, as well as being involved in electronic music production, and
trying my hand at writing fiction. (I've also dabbled in design, winning my
category in the Melbourne 2002 Fringe Fashion Awards with a dress made entirely
from vinyl records.)”
Meg Mundell is also the author of the following books:
|
1. Lonely
Planet Sydney (Paperback) 2. Loney
Planet Sydney (Paperback)
3. Sydney
(Paperback) |
A place to rape
and bash with impunity
Certain topics are
sure-fire conversation killers. Take the story of Shelley, who has been raped
and bashed more times than she cares to remember: the collective response to
this repeated violence is an uncomfortable wince and a stare off into the far
distance. Why? Because Shelley is a street sex worker. Nobody wants to know.
Every night, in
parks, back lanes, cars and rented rooms across Australia, street sex workers
are raped, beaten and abused. Their attackers almost always walk free, and
often offend repeatedly.
In her 20 years
on the streets, St Kilda sex worker Chrissie has learnt some harsh truths about
the prevalence of these attacks. "There's not one long-term worker on the
streets of St Kilda, or in Sydney, or Adelaide, or Perth, that hasn't been
robbed, ripped or raped," she says.
Almost as
disturbing is the insidious attitude that sex workers are "asking for
it", that violence towards them is acceptable, or to be expected. Even the
common reaction of a helpless shrug reinforces the age-old message that they
are seen as worthless people; "dirty", disposable, somehow deserving
of abuse. Is it not horrifying that the finger is more often pointed at the
targets of this violence than the men who rape, bash and kill them? Or that for
every attack there is an offender?
Street-based sex
workers are a vulnerable group; drug addiction, homelessness, mental illness
and childhood and domestic abuse are common experiences.
Joshua, 22, was
kicked out of home when his parents discovered he was gay. Homeless and broke,
he fell into sex work. Joshua says that in the past two years he's been
"attacked with a knife, raped three times, assaulted, bashed with a
baseball bat, had bottles thrown at me".
The illegal
status of street sex work, and the taboos and prejudices surrounding prostitution,
ensure few attacks are reported. Sex workers often doubt their accounts will be
taken seriously; many say they've experienced police prejudice and harassment,
or been denied the chance to make a formal statement; none want to risk being
charged with loitering for prostitution. Under-age, homeless sex workers, in
particular, avoid police for fear of being taken into care.
Police themselves
often face difficulties in locating victims for follow-up. And if it ever gets
to court workers with a drug problem or a prior conviction (usually for
loitering or drug use) find their credibility under attack. In declaring
"I have no faith in the system", Chrissie is not alone.
Collecting
accurate figures is nearly impossible. St Kilda CIB gets two or three reports
of street worker rape each week. A CIB source says there'll be no crackdown on
assailants - unless "the stats go right through the roof". But the
unofficial stats are through the roof; it's just that nobody's counting.
The recent push
by a residents' group for a "clean-up" of St Kilda's street sex trade
is, at best, misguided. Sex workers are not trash, but human beings who deserve
the same degree of empathy and protection from abuse as any "normal"
person. Moving this currently illegal trade into an unpopulated industrial area
is likely to result only in an escalation of the violence, by pushing the whole
business further underground.
If any other
group in our community was being attacked with such regularity, there would be
an outcry, with resources allocated to examining ways to reduce the risks and
stop the violence. It's a complex issue, but examining decriminalisation seems
a sensible first step.
Domestic violence
is a crime that hides behind closed doors. The abuse and rape of sex workers is
possibly even more hidden, because it takes place behind the closed doors of
our minds. We owe it to these people, and to ourselves, to stop ignoring it.
E-mail: meg@bigissue.org.au
Prepared by Bob Dalrymple, PO Box 122, Dapto, NSW Australia 2350
eMail: bob@relativelyyours.com