Ms Sarah Benson:

My colleague Ms Rowley will answer the Senator's second question. On international data which would allow a comparison to be made of various jurisdictions, we have referenced such research in our submission. The most recent research, which makes a statistical and empirical comparison of different jurisdictions and poses the specific question as to whether legalising prostitution increases trafficking, was done by Dreher et al. The paper, which was published in 2002 and updated in 2012, drew a clear conclusion, based on an empirical comparison, that sex trafficking increases in jurisdictions which legalise prostitution.