4 days ago
Heartbreaking truth about ‘depraved' image dividing ritzy Melbourne suburb
A woman stands in front of an abandoned shop on the busiest street in Melbourne for sex workers.
She is photographed by locals who share her image on social media alongside a message written in chalk.
'I don't suck c*** for $50. Ask your mum,' the message reads.
In a local Facebook group for residents of the glitzy Melbourne bayside suburb of St Kilda, the photographer shares a crude description of the scene.
'Protesting prossie depravity for our kids to enjoy.'
The image sums up a huge divide in St Kilda among locals who either view it with sympathy and an attempt at understanding or who choose instead to gawk and judge.
The picture is important, but it's what it doesn't show that matters more.
Less than 30m from where that woman is standing, on quiet, residential Greeves Street, a crime that shocked Australia took place.
At 2am on July 21, 2013, street-based sex worker Tracy Connelly was beaten to death inside her van after a night on Melbourne's red light mile. More than seven other St Kilda-based sex workers have lost their lives since.
Ms Connelly's killer remains on the loose and her murder remains unsolved — a tragic and terrifying reminder of the dangers faced by those who work the streets, often because they have no other choice.
Among them are the woman who was bullied into homelessness from her residential care home, the woman who witnessed a brutal murder and now lives in a world of scary hallucinations and the woman whose young life was spent in a war zone and who now heavily self-medicates to manage the trauma she witnessed.
We know this because all of them visited St Kilda Gatehouse on the same street where Ms Connelly was murdered.
They stopped in because it is one of the only places in Melbourne where they can get a coffee and a snack without judgment.
CEO of the non-profit organisation Nickie Gyomber told that the image of the woman in front of the abandoned shop 'can suggest things that are untrue'.
'How likely is it that someone who is navigating homelessness — and this includes finding a toilet and a glass of water — is going to use valuable resources to write two-tone crafted messages on a street corner?' she said.
She said it was 'disappointing and sad to see pictures and comments such as this posted to social media' because 'many of the women shown are having some of the most difficult days of their lives, exhausted from a cold night unable to properly sleep'.
Street-based sex work in Victoria is legal. It was decriminalised in 2022. Prior to that, sex work was only legal if it took place under certain conditions set out in the Sex Work Act 1994.
But even advocates admit it can be jarring, especially in areas frequented by children. The stigma around it has not gone away.
'On the whole, the St Kilda community is very kind and understanding of the challenges for people living with the consequences of life trauma,' Ms Gyomber said.
'However, visible homelessness, sex work, and messages in public spaces can feel confronting — talking about these things with kids on the way to school can feel like a lot at 8:30am. 'But it is up to us — both as community and individuals — as to whether we use these sights to educate ourselves about causes of and responses to trauma. Alternatively, we can gawk and judge.'
She says they put their lives at risk every single day using 'sex work to survive'. Many are addicted to street drugs that they used to self-medicate because of their past traumas.
'The risks faced by these women are enormous: sexual violence, mental health distress and crisis, everyday hunger, and poverty,' she said.
She said the women who she sees are very aware of Ms Connelly's murder.
'Tracey Connelly's murder continues to grieve the women we support and we continue to hope for a time when there is accountability for her tragic loss.
'Safety is always an issue with a narrative that sex workers or people with life-controlling addiction or navigating homelessness are somehow 'less than'. It is a dehumanising narrative makes violence more likely.'
A survey of sex workers conducted by St Kilda Gatehouse gathered first-hand accounts of what life on the street is like.
'In 2018, I started coming to drop in. I ended up there because someone had picked me up from Balaclava Station and dropped me off. I was unconscious on the platform. I can't really remember it. And I don't know who picked me up and dropped me at the drop in. But I am so lucky they did,' said one woman.
'It's really tough living on the street and not many people understand us,' another said.
A third said simply: 'You see some pretty crazy stuff on the streets. People are bad.'
previously spoke with sex worker Renee *, a friend of Ms Connelly who described her as 'a beautiful person'.
'I'm self sufficient, but I've been that way since I was 16,' she said.
'I respect the other girls, but most of them are heavy drug users. I don't take drugs ... I don't do this to pay for a drug habit.'
She is an outlier but she is proof that stereotypes don't always fit. It's a truism that Ms Gyomber wishes St Kilda locals would learn to embrace.
'I wonder why this it's confronting (to see pictures of sex workers on the street),' she said.
'Why is it difficult to see someone in a difficult circumstance? What is it bringing up, emotionally, for us?
'I wonder whether these images stir an uncomfortable compassion, maybe something against the narrative that we all have equal choice in how we live.
'Trauma shapes these people's lives and all of the choices available to them — that is a hard truth to confront.'
