Sex slavery on high
Elisabeth Wynhausen & Natalie O’Brien; 17/5/08
The five women subsequently looped together as the complainants were working in Club 417, a brothel in the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy that was raided in 2003. The women, then aged between 25 and 35, had been recruited in Thailand to work in the sex industry in Australia. In doing so, they incurred a so-called debt of up to $45,000, including $20,000 owed to the recruiters who had sold them to traffickers. This debt had to be worked off, by having sex with up to 900 customers. This week the case that started with the 2003 raid reached the High Court. The two days of head-spinning legal arguments before the full bench of the High Court seem very far removed from the realities of life for a so-called contract girl, having sex with eight or more customers a day, six days a week, in a dingy brothel with boarded-up windows.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23710453-28737,00.html
Madam or slave owner?; Karen Kissane; 17/5/08; http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/madam-or-slave-owner/2008/05/16/1210765176472.html