Western Australia takes a big step. Read the whole article at The Sydney Morning Herald…

Western Australia to legalise prostitution

Western Australia is set to legalise prostitution in a bid to improve health standards and keep brothels out of residential areas.

Hundreds of suburban brothels are expected to close when WA Attorney-General Christian Porter ends decades of “turning a blind eye” and starts regulating the sex industry next year.

Prostitution is illegal in WA but police rarely lay charges unless they are related to underage sex or unsafe practices.

Under the new legislation, brothels will be licensed and confined to designated commercial and industrial areas, and police will be given powers to investigate and forcibly close those which fail to comply.

Sex businesses will need to follow health and safety standards to obtain and maintain their licences.

Individual sex workers will need to register with a central agency and will undergo compulsory health and blood checks.

They may also be required to carry ID cards.

Mr Porter said suburban operators would be given a grace period from next year to either close or move to a licensed area.

Applications for brothels would first be put to local councils and then assessed by state regulators.

Mr Porter said the new regulations would limit problems in non-residential areas.

WA brothel madams welcomed the move over the weekend but feared the bid to register individual prostitutes would drive some underground.

The working girls descending on South Africa for some World Cup antics are finding things tough.

Read more at The Star…

No ‘boom boom’ for Joburg’s sex workers
By Thabiso Thakali and Candice Bailey

There’s just no “boom boom” in Joburg’s sex industry. Sex workers hoping to turn a quick buck when thousands of horny soccer fans descended on the city for the World Cup say they have been disappointed.

And while some upmarket strip clubs say business has been good, others have been forced to cancel shows.

Even metered taxi drivers delivering girls to tourists say business has died down.

In the months leading up to the World Cup, there was mounting expectation that prostitution would peak.

Reports suggested that up to 40,000 sex workers would be brought into the country to satisfy the demand for sex.

But last year, during the Confederations Cup, prostitution suffered a hammer blow when a theft from the Egyptian team’s hotel room at the Protea Wanderers in Illovo was blamed on prostitutes.

Initial reports suggested that there had been prostitutes in the players’ room, but the police later ruled this out.

Nevertheless, since then, hotels have begun clamping down on sex workers.

On the streets this week, the winter chill and increased police visibility meant fewer sex workers on the strip.

Visits during peak cruising hours, around 9pm, to the traditional red-light areas of Oxford Street, Illovo and Sandton found fewer than 10 sex workers roaming around in skimpy skirts.

Those who had braved the low temperatures to lure clients dived into bushes whenever the police patrolled.

One sex worker, in her seventh year on the streets, said the tourists were “boring”.

All sorts of fun going on at a local Asian Spa. Read more at GoErie.com…

2 charged with prostitution at Tokyo Spa near Meadville
By TIM HAHN

Two people were arrested, and police confiscated items from a Vernon Township business.

Two employees were charged with prostitution when Pennsylvania State Police vice officers were asked to check out the business.

Township officials now plan to take a closer look at the Tokyo Spa in the wake of Wednesday’s police activity at the nearly year-old business, which is at the busy intersection of Routes 19, 98 and 322.

Two employees of the business remained in the Crawford County Correctional Facility on Thursday on third-degree misdemeanor counts of prostitution and related offenses.

Both were arraigned before Vernon Township District Judge Michael Rossi at 5:15 p.m. Wednesday, hours after state police allege that the women had illegal sexual contact with two undercover troopers.

The arrests came three months into an investigation that was launched in March, when Vernon Township police contacted the state police Troop E vice unit about suspected prostitution activity, according to an affidavit of probable cause filed with a search warrant that police obtained for the business on Wednesday.

Vernon Police Chief Randy Detzel said Thursday that township Manager David Stone had received numerous complaints about the Tokyo Spa from neighboring businesses. They included complaints of used condoms in their parking lots, police said.

The World Cup means world class opportunities for working girls.  Read more at The Star…

World Cup to draw 40 000 hookers to SA
by Kenichi Serino

As many as 40 000 women are expected to arrive in South Africa ahead of the World Cup to work as prostitutes, according to the Central Drug Authority (CDA).

“Forty-thousand new prostitutes. As if we do not have enough people of our own, we have to import them to ensure that our visitors are entertained,” CDA deputy chairman David Bayever said in Pretoria yesterday at the release of the International Narcotics Control Board’s annual report.

He said the agency had been warned by the eThekwini metropolitan municipality of the possibility of huge inflows. “They got wind of it.”

Many of the women were likely to be recruited from eastern Europe.

Bayever also warned that the extension of school holidays during the soccer tournament would put children at risk of being lured into sex work.

“Our youth are going to be on holiday. They are going to be targeted to become prostitutes.”

The Olympics was great for business in Vancouver. Read more at The New York Daily News…

Winter Olympics’ boost for Vancouver sex trade as business triples at brothel
By Megan Taylor

Vancouver’s estimated 1,000 sex workers agree: The Olympic Games are good for business.

Business at a brothel near downtown Vancouver tripled during the Winter Olympics, AOL News reports. But instead of the expected foreign visitors, Sexy Nina, who owns the house of ill repute, found local clients excited by the competitive spirit.

“The Games gave us the desire and willingness to connect, the energy to move,” she told AOL News. “What an amazing two weeks!”

Despite fears that out-of-town sex workers could make work riskier, some street workers reported that business was slow, said Kerry Porth, the executive director of Prostitution Alternatives Counseling & Education Society (PACE), which offered nightly outreach sessions during the Games.

Porth said the increased police presence may be to blame for some of the slowdown in street business.

“There were police on foot and in cars, all over the usual sex worker neighborhoods,” she said.

Although sex work is legal in Vancouver, some associated activities are not, such as running a brothel. But the Vancouver Police Department usually leaves sex workers alone.

It’s not the punchline to a joke.  It’s true!  Read the whole story at The Telegraph…

Swiss prostitutes trained to use defibrillators in brothels to prevent clients dying

Brothel owners in the Lugano area say electric shock treatment to restart customer’s hearts is needed because so many elderly customers are using their services.

The most recent victim was a pensioner, thought to be having fun with the help of anti-impotence medication.

His death followed a series of other incidents, some fatal, in which heart attacks have claimed brothel customers in the area.

The owner of one sex club said: “Having customers die on us isn’t exactly good publicity”.

There are now 38 sex clubs and brothel in the Lugano area. And more are planned, according to Italian daily, Corriere della Sera, in order to accommodate the thousands of customers who pour over the border from Italy, where brothels are illegal. Around 80 per cent of the men who pay for sex in the area are thought to be Italian.

And the South Park Madame Story closes its final chapter. Read more at WBTV.com…

“South Park Madame” released from jail
By Cameron Easley

Sallie Saxon, the “South Park Madame,” was released Tuesday from prison after completing her two-year federal prison sentence.

The 60-year-old woman and her husband, Donald, were sentenced back in 2008 for running a high-end prostitution ring out of hotels in SouthPark and uptown Charlotte.

Saxon’s enterprise was known as “Hush Hush” and claimed to offer non-sexual companionship on its website for fees in excess of $700.

According to prosecutors, Saxon made as much as $3 million.

Clients would pay up to a thousand dollars or more for the escorts.

Read the whole story at Macon.com…

Reports give details of undercover police raids on massage parlors
By AMY LEIGH WOMACK

Closed police files from raids at Macon massage parlors shed light on operations that undercover officers found there.

In 2008 and 2009, a series of raids targeted more than a dozen Macon-area massage parlors and spas that police suspected of being houses of prostitution. As a result, more than 20 women were arrested on various sex charges.

Seven closed Macon police case files describe how undercover police officers entered businesses and paid for massages. Costs ranged from $40 for a half-hour massage to $140 for sex.

In most cases, the officers were led to rooms where they were asked to undress. Some of them were led to showers or were bathed by women working at the massage parlors.

…

In each of the cases, the women asked the officers if they wanted additional services. In at least two cases, the women gestured that they were offering sex.

At one massage parlor, a woman asked an officer in June 2008 if he wanted other services after a 10-minute massage. When he replied that he just wanted a massage, the woman said “$40 is for the house, massage, bath and relaxation. We are extra,” according to a police report.

Some of the women touched the officers’ genitals before offering additional services.

At another massage parlor, a woman initiated a sex act on an officer against the officer’s will in July 2008. Then she stood in front of the door, keeping the officer from leaving until she was paid for the act, according to one report.

The heat is on in West Midtown, New York City.  Read more at NJ.com…

West New York police to pimps and prostitutes: No more sex!
By Karina Arrue

Coy S. Gordon expected it to be a normal night of work — a transsexual sex romp with a “john” for anywhere from $100 to $180. But like his clients, Gordon got more than he bargained for one night last week.

Gordon, 42, was arrested by a West New York undercover cop.

If the 6-foot-2 Gordon — who was wearing a yellow splash negligee and 5-inch heels when she was arrested — had been reading The Jersey Journal lately, it wouldn’t have come as a big surprise.

Gordon is the latest in a string of arrests by West New York police, who received an anonymous complaint about her a few weeks ago, officials said.

The tip was corroborated by an advertisement at backpage.com in which Gordon, who goes by the name “Tasty and Silky the New Milk Ms. Society,” offered “transsexual escort” services for a steep price — $100 for 15 minutes, $140 for 30 minutes and $180 for an hour, police said.

Since Dec. 31, 25 people have been arrested in West New York as a result of eight sting operations. Of the eight busts, Gordon is the first that used the Internet to spur business. West New York police say the seven other times they received a tip about people handing out business cards in the street.

The arrests stem from “community outcry,” says Police Director Albert Bringa, who took the helm of the department Dec. 2.

Read more at The Press Trust of India…

Prostitution racket run by ’spiritual’ centre busted

Delhi Police today claimed to have busted a prostitution racket being run at a ’spiritual’ centre with the arrest of two alleged pimps and six women, including two air-hostesses.

One of the arrested persons had set up a ‘temple’ in south Delhi’s Khanpur, police said.

Six women were arrested, including two air-hostesses, one an MBA student and an aspiring Bollywood actress.

The racket was unearthed yesterday after police received inputs about the pimps and sex workers who were to come to PVR Saket. A Sub-Inspector was sent as a decoy customer and after a deal was struck, police swooped down and arrested them.