Loud Public Opposition to Legalized Prostitution Effective in Tasmania
by Allie Martin
October 26, 2005
(AgapePress) - A pro-family group in Australia is celebrating a major victory after government officials in one state announced that all brothels will be shut down. Recently the attorney general of Tasmania introduced legislation to ban brothels in the Australian state. That move came in the wake of a 30 percent increase in sex crimes over the past few years in Australia. The legislation passed despite strong opposition from the sex-industry lobby. Also, government officials have promised to close all existing brothels.
Jack Sonnemann is director of the Australian Federation for the Family, an organization committed to upholding biblical family values and promoting a Christian worldview in that country. One of the group's specific goals has been to remove pornography from the family marketplace -- an objective that AFF has had considerable success in achieving. That success has now carried over to another area of concern for the pro-family group.
"We've had prostitution in Tasmania for years and years and years," Sonnemann explains, "but we have launched a massive campaign in our national capital as well as in the state of Tasmania to ban prostitution."
That campaign, says the family advocate, has involved the efforts of many activists like himself. "We've pointed out [the problem] to the government ministers and to members of Parliament," he says, "[and] I've had my people work on the health aspect."
The Tasmanian government -- which Sonnemann describes as "a left-wing government that does not stand for the things that we do" -- has evidently listened to the massive public outcry against legal prostitution in the island state.
"Not only will the government [ban brothels], but they're also going to close the brothels that are already there, that they've just turned a blind eye to [previously]," he points out. Sonnemann believes that particular aspect of the government's response actually might be more significant than making prostitution illegal.
The Australian Federation for the Family spokesman says he is pleased to know that women and children in Tasmania will no longer be exploited. And he is now calling for other states in Australia to halt legalized prostitution.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
