NZ MPs vote yes to prostitution
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In the most intense lobbying seen since homosexuality was decriminalized 17 years ago, politicians voted Wednesday 60 to 59 in favor of the bill, with one abstention, according to the New Zealand Press Association. The abstention was from New Zealand’s only Muslim member of parliament, Ashraf Choudhary — if he had not abstained the bill would have failed. In pushing for the bill, politicians said that while they did not condone or condemn prostitution, they agreed it could be harmful to sex workers who should be protected under health and employment laws. In an impassioned plea that sealed 415 hours of debate, former prostitute and the world’s only known transsexual MP, back-bencher Georgina Beyer, urged politicians to vote in favor of the bill. “I support this bill for all the prostitutes I have ever known who died before the age of 20 because of the inhumanity and hypocrisy of a society that would not allow them, or give them the chance, to ever redeem whatever circumstances made them arrive in that industry,” Beyer told parliament. More : edition.cnn.com |