Hope Street
Tonight I am pleased to inform the House of another excellent church-based initiative set up to offer practical assistance and friendship to a particularly vulnerable segment of our community—the women who survive by selling themselves on the streets of Sydney, particularly around Kings Cross. I will not try to civilise what they do by calling it “the sex industry”. It is not a regular, decent industry with set hours, safe working conditions, sick leave and public holidays. It is a harrowing last resort for desperate people.
The New South Wales Parliamentary Select Committee Upon Prostitution, conducted over 20 years ago, found that at that time there were 1,500 to 2,000 women working as sex workers in agencies, brothels and on the streets. A national inquiry in 1998 revealed that many of those women were actually young girls, being teenagers under 18. We can safely assume that the numbers have not decreased over the years since then.
Hope Street, an initiative of urban compassion run since 1983 by the New South Wales Baptist Union and supported at that time by Wesley Mission, of which I was the superintendent at the time, has been operating what it calls “Women’s Space” in the Kings Cross area since 1995, when it became aware of the urgent needs of this marginalised group. While providing support to the homeless people in the community, Hope Street staff had observed that women living on the streets regularly experienced abuse and violence from many of their customers and could see no way out of that lifestyle for themselves.
These women often exhibit the characteristics of post-traumatic stress disorder and frequently suffer from drug and alcohol addictions, mental stress, emotional instability, poor nutrition, ongoing exposure to communicable diseases, and many other health problems. Most of these women have been trapped in this way of life on the streets since they were teenagers. They think they have no other options, due to limited education, job experience, training and personal resources. Their powerlessness is daily made worse by the sheer struggle for survival. These girls and women genuinely need the compassion and protection offered to them at Hope Street’s Women’s Space, which is situated in a small terrace house near Kings Cross.
Women’s Space offers women on the streets a safe place to come when they want time out. They can relax, get warm and dry and be refreshed. If they choose to, they can discuss any of the issues they face and even learn how they can leave the streets, find suitable housing and have a different life from the one they are currently stuck in. Many of these young women have children and that creates a bigger problem. However, they do not have to interact at all; they can just relax and recharge.
Women’s Space regularly has 5 to 10 girls and women every day whose ages range from young teenagers to women in their 50s. They are free to come and go as they like and there is no structured program in which they are expected to participate. The drop-in centre is open daily during the week from 8.00 a.m. to 12 noon with a coordinator who can assist with information about legal issues and available drug rehabilitation services. In the afternoon the staff from Women’s Space go with the regular visitors to hospital or help support them in court, find a flat, or offer whatever assistance is needed. Lauren McGrow, the coordinator of Women’s Space, said:
“The changes I have observed in the women’s lives have been profound. Just having the confidence now, of knowing someone is really on their side, and will support them emotionally … gives them the boost they need to start to consider other options for themselves; to start thinking about actually doing something else with their lives, and no longer being at the mercy of the streets.”
I think few of us would be brave enough or kind enough to offer our friendship, acceptance and compassion to these women on whom society has turned its back. I think it is important for us to be aware of and appreciative of such wonderful initiatives on the part of people of faith in the community—people who believe in the dignity of the human spirit, the possibility of changing lives for the better, of genuine healing of the heart and soul and of giving people a new start, no matter what their past has involved.
We believe God expects us to enable people to “choose life, and not death”. I want to thank the organisers, supporters and volunteers who help in the work of Women’s Space in Kings Cross for the brave work they undertake in providing a safe place and the offer of friendship to those abject street women who are so in need of it. I also congratulate the Baptist Union and the Baptist Inner City Ministry for tackling in a positive manner a dreadful social problem that the rest of society closes its eyes to.
