By Anthony Barich
Former Perth madam Linda Watson has urged WA Attorney General Christian Porter to establish a village-like complex that provides holistic rehabilitation to prostitutes rather than to create ‘entertainment zones’ as part of his reform of the industry.
Ms Watson, who founded Linda’s House of Hope in 1999 together with
Archbishop Barry Hickey as an exit and means of rehabilitation for women
involved in prostitution, said the introduction of “tolerated zones”
will impose “damaging effects on many communities” throughout WA.
Her submission to the Attorney General drew on decades of experience in
the business of prostitution and instanced numerous examples of the
damage it does to the women and girls trapped in it. Mr Porter proposed reforms last November banning all forms of prostitution from residential areas with expanded police powers enabling them to shut down illegal brothels and has been enamoured of legalisation as a means of control. Owners, managers and prostitutes working in brothels would need to apply for licences.
In a 12 April letter to Mr Porter, Ms Watson said she has seen damaged girls regularly “and nearly all of them desperately want to leave”, many asking for food and shelter. She has received threats from industry figures, as has the Archbishop, from well-known madams, she said.
When The Record asked Mr Porter at a community crime forum in Belmont last June whether his plans included support for prostitutes to exit the industry, he said “it’s certainly an area to which we have been giving consideration”.
Testifying to the industry’s toxic effect, Ms Watson said she has seen women with what she believes to be post-traumatic symptoms, mental health issues and eating disorders, drug-induced psychoses and alcohol abuse problems, anger issues that are sometimes violent and have violent partners or dysfunctional relationships.
Many girls have ended up in prison, she added.
While admitting there is “no easy fix”, she said it is “imperative to have a properly supervised exit programme”, which will take “serious money because people who leave the sex industry are deeply damaged and only have the clothes on their backs”.
Ms Watson said that she supports the Salvation Army’s Harry Hunter Rehabilitation Centre as a model – a series of four-bedroom independent units for female clients for female drug and alcohol addicts who go “cold turkey” – complete abstinence from these things.
“Most girls I’ve seen who have successfully exited the industry have made it because of the cold turkey approach,” she said.
Ms Watson said a village or similar small housing complex is needed, staffed around the clock with medium to long-term accommodation for up to three years where services like doctors, counsellors and training programmes are provided onsite.
A detox programme is vital to such a venture as “the majority of exiting sex workers have substance abuse issues”, she said.
The project should include a holistic approach incorporating nutritious food and supplements, with in house-programmes teaching life skills, art, music, home making and cooking class.
“The girls love to attend these as most have few domestic or social skills and little understanding of personal hygiene,” she said.
“Some have simply forgotten or have never been taught fundamental life skills.”
Pastoral care is also paramount for their recovery as “all have been dispirited and lost hope”.
Many have come from some form of religious background and “it is helpful to reconnect them with their childhood spiritual foundation” as part of the holistic recovery, she said.
Reuniting them with their family and integrating them back into society through gainful employment, as many who have attended her House of Hope have done, will give them hope for the future, Ms Watson added.
She described establishing restricted “entertainment zones” as “a risky experiment with the lives of women and children in our State” because there are many toxic elements inherent to the industry that such zones “cannot fix”.
She said drug dealers often pose as clients to introduce prostitute recruits to drugs, as drugged girls “can earn more money for madams”, and that drug dealers use brothels as targets for marketing their drugs for organised crime.
“Perverts roam the streets where private operators or brothels are located. Paedophiles seek children from prostituted mothers,” she said, and described some cases where paedophile clients like sex workers to dress up as children, wear nappies and have dummies in their mouth.
“Young children, boys and girls, are known to loiter around brothels to entice clients for sex”, while some engage in sexual acts in return for drugs, while Indigenous children have sex for glue near well-known brothels in Kalgoorlie and in Perth precincts.
“This has been known in the industry for years. Things have not changed,” she said.
Prostitute recruits are lured with the promise of large sums of money but end up having their identity stolen and are warned of the dangers of violent customers, she said.
She said there is an “Ugly Mugs Programme” that warns girls of characters to look out for who target prostitutes, while madams also fine girls for refusing drink, abusive and sometimes elderly men.
“I have seen first-hand how some girls actually come out vomiting after one of these encounters,” Ms Watson said.
LINDA’S House of Hope founder Linda Watson says its resources have been stretched to the limit this school holidays in helping women and children struggle free from prostitution.
The organisation is currently assisting between 80 and 100 people a week with food, clothing and emergency financial assistance.
“School holidays are a very busy time. As anyone with children would know, they eat you out of house and home,” Ms Watson told The Record.
Leaving the world of prostitution means leaving a steady income stream behind.
“Most are only on a pension and there’s a lot of pressure. We want to keep doing our outreach. We’re trying hard to keep our doors open,” Ms Watson said.
For more information about Linda’s House of Hope call 0439 401 009 or 9358 1719. Tax deductible donations can be made to: Linda’s House of Hope, PO Box 5640, PERTH, St George’s Tce 6831.