A sex worker on Karangahape Road, Auckland

A sex worker on Karangahape Road, Auckland

In 2003 Parliament passed, by a single vote, a controversial law decriminalising prostitution. Some claimed that this led to more teenagers, some as young as 13 and 14, becoming prostitutes. In 2004 Manukau City Council called for an urgent amendment to the act to prohibit sex workers, like the one pictured, from plying their trade on the streets.