Conclusion of Meeting with Minister

[Catriona]

Some of you are aware that yesterday I went with a couple of other girls to see Minister Frances Fitzgerald, unfortunately she wasn't interested in listening to our concerns. She thinks it's more important to send a message that you "can't buy girls" rather than to give us safe working conditions as making it difficult to work will prevent people from joining the industry. She didn't want to make sex buying "norminative".

She wanted to make sure people had access to services and doesn't want the new law to prevent that from happening. I tried to push the New Zealand model which has seen reduced demand and also creates a safer working environment.

Generally she was rather patronising of our opinions and wasn't going to budge on the issue as you know sex workers lives are something worth throwing under the bus to send some empty message.