The New Zealand Prostitutes Collective was established in 1987 by sex workers, and soon afterwards began lobbying for a change to the laws that were seeing us taken before the courts on prostitution related offences. Many of us knew firsthand the experience of being pulled out of our work, either from the street, or from massage parlours, and accused of soliciting in a public place, brothel keeping was also against the law and we could be sent to prison.