History
The history of prostitution in Australia is best considered in three periods: the convict period to 1840, the late colonial period and the Federal period (after 1901). It is generally agreed that prostitution was unknown in the pre-colonial period, but arose once early settlers arrived and started exchanging sexual services from aboriginal women with European goods, exploiting a preexisting aboriginal wife exchange system.
During the convict period English common law was operative, and dealt with brothel keeping, disorderly houses and public nuisance. The late colonial period concentrated on prostitution as a public health issue, through the Contagious Diseases Acts. Finally the Federal period was driven by prohibition through criminalising activities associated with prostitution. Although not explicitly prohibiting the act of sexual exchange, the criminal law effectively produced a de facto prohibition.
Read more about this topic: Prostitution In Australia
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“If you look at the 150 years of modern China’s history since the Opium Wars, then you can’t avoid the conclusion that the last 15 years are the best 15 years in China’s modern history.”
—J. Stapleton Roy (b. 1935)
“In front of these sinister facts, the first lesson of history is the good of evil. Good is a good doctor, but Bad is sometimes a better.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)