The Fortitude Valley has been usurped as Brisbane's red light district by a swanky riverside suburb featuring million-dollar residences and private river moorings. Industry sources told brisbanetimes. While the Fortitude Valley has historically been connected to the city's seedy underbelly a scan of the adult services notices in The Courier Mail yesterday showed 23 Asian women offering their services at apartments in Kangaroo Point.
On Thursday, 20 advertisements for adult services were placed by Asian women in Kangaroo Point, half of whom claimed to be university students new to Australia. An industry worker who requested to be known as Angie, who has worked independently from a rented apartment at Dockside for the past eight years, said she had noticed a large number of Asian sex workers moving into the area - particularly into apartment buildings along Main Street - in the past three years.
In Queensland nearly women work in the sex industry, with industry analyst IBIS-World estimating there will be about by mid According to Angie, self contained apartments on Main Street in Kangaroo Point were also a hot spot of business for female Asian immigrants. Often the sex workers, aged in their late teens and early 20s, studied English at nearby tafe colleges, Angie said. The director of Queensland's sex workers association Crimson Coalition, who requested to be known only as Candi, said it was common knowledge that many sex workers operated from apartments in the exclusive suburb.
Ms Fawkes said Brisbane sex workers were increasingly seeking work in traditional residential areas following a crack-down by police in Fortitude Valley. However, she she stopped short of suggesting those women had moved to Kangaroo Point. Andreas Schloenhardt, a senior lecturer in criminal law at the University of Queensland, said more female sex workers were seeking work outside the city's historical red light district as male clients prioritised privacy. He said clients would therefore more readily access private services in discreet residential areas, rather than legalised brothels.
Mr Schloenhardt also suggested inner-city suburbs including Bowen Hills and Woolloongabba were increasingly becoming popular areas of business for sex workers. It therefore makes sense that women will take their business elsewhere and clients will readily follow them. Where's Brisbane's new red light district?
