Fiji's new Crime Decree will be harsher on prostitution, penalizing not only those who make a living off prostitution but also those involved in prostitution-related activities.

According to Fiji Times Online, under Fiji's new Crime Decree, those who make a living off prostitution are liable for a jail term of six months while people caught hiring prostitutes can get jail terms of up to 12 years. In addition, anybody found operating a brothel, or services which procure prostitution are liable for prosecution with the penalties being harsher when the crime involves people under the age of 18. Also, anyone residing with a prostitute is also liable.

The new Crime Decree comes into effect this week.

German police raided about 600 brothels in 13 states Tuesday night targeting human trafficking from West Africa.

The Federal Criminal Police Office said Wednesday that it was interviewing more than 100 women from different West African countries who were forced to work as prostitutes, some of them minors.

Tuesday's raids follow an investigation of several years. Only if we manage to win the trust of victims and persuade them to cooperate with the authorities can we break the cycle of repression, intimidation and dependency, said federal police chief Joerg Ziercke in Wiesbaden.

A billboard west of Brisbane, which features a bikini clad actress, has been slammed as inappropriate and too rude by the local council.

The billboard advertises Brisbane's 2010 Sexpo event next month.

Ipswich Councillor Trevor Nardi said the billboard was not only a distraction for drivers but too sexual for its busy location and should be taken down immediately.

The Advertising Standards Bureau said yesterday it was yet to receive any objections.

I'm definitely not a prude,...BUT...I don't think we need billboards like this in our face, Cr Nardi said: I don't think it's appropriate and I don't think many people in the community would find it in good taste.

The Sexpo billboard has now been removed by owners Bishopp. It will be relocated in coming days.

Police have raided the Mood Pictures BDSM porn set in north Budapest mid-shoot.

A woman desperate for money answered an ad in a newspaper two weeks ago for a non-sex role in a BDSM film where everything was supposed to be imitated and not real, origo.hu reports.

Later, when to her horror she realized it was very quite real, the producers ignored her repeated use of the safe words and kept filming, with the producer jumping in after the woman originally assigned to hit her refused to continue. After the incident, the woman wrote an anonymous letter to the police, who then took commandos to the location and raided the set Tuesday night during filming.

Police seized video on a server and discovered a first aid room where a licensed EMT sat should his services be required. Police arrested 14 people at the scene and have charged three of them.

According to a police captain, Hungarian law states that a person cannot consent to be harmed, meaning that any contracts signed by the victims are invalid.

Five victims have so far come forward, and police believe there are even more, some of whom are male, albeit he added that all were over the age of eighteen.

Last week the Australian Classification Board (ACB) confirmed to Somebody Think Of The Children that a person's overall appearance is used by the Board to determine whether someone appears to look under the age of 18 in a film or publication.

However, the Director of the Australian Classification Board, Donald McDonald, refused to answer repeated questions from this blog about the specifics of breast size in deciding on a person's apparent age. Asked whether breast size was considered by the Board when determining age, McDonald said he had no further comment to make.

Colin Jacobs, Vice Chair of Electronic Frontiers Australia, said the Classification Board has a duty to be transparent with the public about what is being censored and why.

A process as subjective as determining the apparent age of a model is really a very problematic basis for a classification guideline, and this demonstrates it perfectly, he said. We don't blame the Board for enforcing the law, but we do blame them if they aren't forthcoming on how or why they're enforcing it in this case. The only reason censorship is compatible with democracy is that it's transparent.

The owner of a Belgian sex shop posed a puzzler for European judges yesterday – does a coin-in-the-slot peep show count as a cinema?

If it does, then it qualifies for reduced-rate VAT under EU tax rules.

Belgium's tax authorities say the cubicles for private film viewing at the Erotic Centre in Bruges are an automated recreation device, and the owner must pay VAT at the normal rate of 21% instead of 6% for a cinema.

Lawyers for the owner told a hearing in the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg that cinemas are explicitly identified as a cultural exception under EU VAT rules and only attract the lower VAT rate applied to normal cinemas in Belgium.

The exact question posed to the EU court in legal documents asks: Should a cubicle consisting of a lockable space where there is room for only one person and where this person can watch films on a TV screen for payment, where this person personally starts the film projection by inserting a coin and has a choice of different films, and during the time paid for can continually modify his/her choice of projected films, be regarded as a 'cinema'?

The three-judge panel is not expected to make a site visit, and their verdict, which could affect peep show operators across Europe, is expected later this year.

The Australian Censor Board has started to ban depictions of small-breasted women in adult publications and films.

This is in response to a campaign led by Kids Free 2 B Kids and promoted by Barnaby Joyce and Guy Barnett in Senate Estimates late last year.

Mainstream companies such as Larry Flint's Hustler produce some of the publications that have been banned. These companies are regulated by the FBI to ensure that only adult performers are featured in their publications.

Fiona Patten of the Australian Sex Party said: We are starting to see depictions of women in their late 20s being banned because they have an A cup size, she said. It may be an unintended consequence of the Senator's actions but they are largely responsible for the sharp increase in breast size in Australian adult magazines of late.

Patten explained that Australian culture was being dumbed down in the sexual department and that political leaders were actively propagating an increasingly narrow window of acceptable sexual acts and cultures. She said that all new appointees to the Classification Board and the Classification Review Board should undergo a short course in the latest scientific developments around sexuality and some sort of biology course to bring them up to date with the broad range of acceptable adult sexuality and body types.

Update: Australian Censors Respond

30th January 2010. Based on article from somebodythinkofthechildren.com

The misleadingly named Australian Classification Board (ACB) has responded to accusations by The Australian Sex Party that material with depictions of women with small breasts has been banned. A spokesperson for the ACB told somebodythinkofthechildren.com that publications which contain offensive depictions or descriptions of persons who are, or appear to be, persons under the age of 18 (whether they are engaged in sexual activity or not) must be banned.

They said the Board classifies publications on a case by case basis, in accordance with the Guidelines for the Classification of Publications, the Code and the Classification Act and that the Publications Guidelines do not specify breast size.

The shadow of convicted serial killer Robert Pickton hung over the BC Court of Appeal Jan 21 as a group of Vancouver sex workers sought to have Canada's prostitution laws overturned.

The case is an appeal of BC Supreme Court Justice William Ehrcke's December 2008 decision that the Downtown Eastside group would not be permitted to challenge laws that criminalize sex workers. The appeals court heard arguments from Jan 21-22 and has reserved judgment.

The Downtown Eastside Sex Workers United Against Violence Society (SWUAVS) say the laws are unconstitutional. It's a fight for safety, human rights and equality before the law, say SWUAVS and former sex worker Sheryl Kiselbach, who brought the case.

However, Ehrcke ruled in December 2008 that neither the group nor Kiselbach could bring the case as they had not been charged with any of the offences — a standard precursor to a constitutional challenge. And, in their presentation to the appeal court Jan 22, lawyers for the federal attorney general agreed with Ehrcke.

While it is legal to sell sex in Canada, many of the activities related to the sale of sex are considered criminal offences.

Australian government censors are directing Customs officials to confiscate depictions of the female orgasm when it is accompanied with an ejaculation.

The Classification Board is also starting to classify films that feature female ejaculation as Refused Classification rather than X. Films that show both male and female ejaculation have routinely been given an X rating since 1983.

The new ruling follows a boom in the numbers of adult films featuring female ejaculation since the pioneering research of Professor Emeritus Beverly Whipple was published in her book The G Spot. Recent articles in the New Scientist and on Norman Swan's Health Report on ABC radio have raised public awareness of this largely hitherto unknown aspects of female orgasm.

The films are being banned (Refused Classification) on one of two grounds:

1. That the depictions are a form of urination which is banned under the label of golden showers in the Classification Guidelines or
2. Female ejaculation is an abhorrent depiction

Australian Sex Party convenor, Fiona Patten, said that the decision showed a lack of intellectual rigour and a lack of understanding of female sexuality on the part of Australia's censorship authorities. She said it appeared that some members on the Board did not believe the science around female orgasm.

Female ejaculation has now been described in scientific literature as being as real as male ejaculation and women's ejaculate is as different from urine, as men's is, she said. All women ejaculate at orgasm, in the same way that all men do. In some women, the amount is very small and not distinguishable from normal vaginal lubrication however some women can and do ejaculate large quantities of fluid and under great pressure.

Ms Patten said that some depictions of female orgasm could be faked and possibly showed an expulsion of water from the vagina, however there was nothing in the Guidelines to suggest banning depictions of douching – only urination.

These changes to what is now a Refused Classification depiction also affect the amount of material that will be black listed by Senator Conroy's proposed Internet filter. There are over one million sites featuring female ejaculation and for Australia to be banning depictions and discussion of this important issue, takes us back into the Victorian era where they didn't even believe that women could have orgasms, she said.

A survey by Tempep, an EU-funded network of sex industry health agencies, found that one in eight foreign prostitutes in Europe was Romanian, replacing Russians as the main nationality since the previous assessment in 2006.

This week Evenimentul zilei, a Bucharest newspaper, under the headline Romania top exporter of prostitution, wrote: Barely three years after its accession to the EU, the country can lay claim to yet another lofty distinction.

The newspaper called for a fresh debate on calls for prostitution to be legalised, in line with a proposal by a presidential commission four months ago. That was blocked by an alliance of civic and religious groups including the powerful Romanian Orthodox Church. The result of Europe's strictest anti-prostitution laws, according to sex workers, is that prostitutes are regularly sent to prison while their clients are hardly punished.

The report assessed that about two fifths of Britain's estimated 80,000 prostitutes were migrants, most commonly from Lithuania, Thailand and Poland. The proportion of foreign prostitutes was highest in London at 70-80%.

Where they come from:

1 Romania 12% of migrant total
2 Russia 9%
3 Bulgaria 8%
4= Ukraine, Nigeria 7%
6 Brazil 5%
7= Belarus, Moldova, Poland, Hungary, Thailand 4%

Dozens of prostitutes, most using headscarves or hoods to hide their faces, demonstrated in central Athens, demanding working licenses for brothels across Greece.

Prostitution is legal in Greece, and sex workers have personal permits to exercise their profession, but not to operate brothels. As a result, many end up working illegally and facing arrest because they operate out of brothels.

We are here to put an end to our hardship and degradation, said Dimitra Kanellopoulou, president of Greece's sex workers' association, SEPE. The situation is tragic, hypocritical and miserable.

About 100 sex workers held a rally outside the Interior Ministry, chanting: We will not back down until we are given justice.

Kanellopoulou, the head of the union, said Interior Minister Yannis Ragoussis met briefly with union members and agreed to discuss their grievances, including cutting red tape and making it easier for prostitutes to obtain licenses.

The Valencian Federation of Municipalities and Provinces has introduced a law making sex on the street punishable by a fine of 3,000 euros. The new framework also outlaws prostitution, begging and any other activity that disturbs the tranquillity of neighbours. Also included for the first time is legislation that aims to control the behaviour of club doormen.

The law, which will apply everywhere within the City of Valencia, provides for penalties of up to 3,000 euros for having sex in a car within the city or 400 euros for people who buy pirated DVDs and CDs in the street.

The legislation has been unanimously approved by the council representatives.

The law seeks to end prostitution in the street and is aimed equally at prostitutes and their clients. For a first offence clients and prostitutes face penalties of between 1,500 and 3,000 euros. If sex workers continue to offend they will suffer imprisonment. The document warns that any person who has sexual intercourse in a vehicle in the street will also be fined up to 3,000 euros.

Denmark's Blue Movie adult shop, believed to be the world's oldest adult store, having opened its doors before the country legalized pornography in 1969, will be closing March 31, local sources disclosed.

Established nearly 45 years ago, Blue Movie is located on a busy main street in central Copenhagen with a porn-themed facade and huge window displays showing explicit images.

According to a long-time customer, the store is an old-school XXX shop with an endless selection of very kinky hardcore videos, books and magazines, plus a smaller selection of bondage equipment.

Although extremely popular for many years, the store is now closing due to diminishing sales as a result of customers moving online to buy their adult material, according to reports in Denmark's press.

Amsterdam Councillor Lodewijk Asscher has launched a plan to raise the minimum age of prostitutes from 18 to 23. Asscher wants to 'clean up' Amsterdam's Red Light district and is proposing a whole raft of measures. In addition to raising the minimum age, he also wants the red light district in the Wallen area to close down between 04:00 and 08:00 in the morning.

Speaking to Dutch daily De Telegraaf, the councillor denied that he wants to turn Amsterdam into a prudish bourgeois paradise. Look, Amsterdam is a metropolis and prostitution is part of that. There is nothing against prostitution if the women are doing it of their own free will...BUT...there are many of examples where that is not the case. Imagine it's your mother or your sister working as a prostitute.

Asscher's proposal will probably be presented to the city council after the 3 March municipal elections, so the plan is in the hands of the voters.

A prostitute has been fined £500,000 for failing to pay tax on sex work earnings of at least £3million.

The unnamed woman told Polish tax investigators that she had very generous customers.

One of her clients reportedly paid her 5million zlotys, or £1.1million, between 1997 and 2002.

Officials in the southern city of Katowice had raised concerns because she was formally unemployed.

South Africa could legalise prostitution during the 2010 World Cup amid fears that the tournament will spread the HIV epidemic.

Due to the rise in demand, health bosses want the government to consider making prostitution legal so sex workers can come forward to be screened for sexually transmitted infections and get free condoms.

Eric Harper, director of the Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Taskforce, said: It could be a potential recipe for disaster both for clients and sex workers.