TravellerHints! New Zealand Department of Immigration has modified it’s NZ Skills list recently
The NZ Skills list for the skilled visa is going to go through several updates and changes.
The biggest change is going to change the way you look at Prostitution and Escort, as they will now be officially admitted to the list.
As per statistic, the government of New Zealand is making a tremendous step forward in a completely unexpected way. And they have some reasons behind.
NZ Skills and Demography
There are several disadvantages New Zealand has in comparison to their big neighbor – Australia.
The social and economic differences make the majority of young generation move to live in Australia, or even America and Europe.
Since lots of young people are gone, the aging male population in New Zealand is facing problems when looking for a casual one night stand.
Especially taking into the consideration the vast nature of New Zealand. The casual sex is simply not happening.
Even the young male part of parliament (Male MP) might also be facing the same difficulty, plus it gets harder to get a great looking and good quality Escort service for a reasonable price.
Besides, lots of people coming to New Zealand focus on the tourism sector – nature and adventure travel is simply attractive for many.
And take it or leave it, those travelers need those casual occasions too. But it might lead to a struggle due to the low population density of New Zealand.
Some number reflecting a research is showing that the percentages of people with different than heterosexual sexuality are growing.
Together with same-sex marriages, New Zealand is making another positive step forward by legalizing sex tourism (similar to places like Bangkok or Manila in Asia Pacific region) to boost the destination popularity amongst tourist searching for more than just the pristine nature.
On the other hand, New Zealand does want to make it right and does not want to abuse the sex industry including all people involved.
This move can help to attract masses of new tourists to New Zealand without harming its nature.
The idea is to develop eco-tourism industry in New Zealand. The country suffered from the gas exploration and its economy needs a recovery.
The combination of nature and (eco) sex tourism sounds like a perfect solution.
Therefore, it opens a new way for migrants to get to the kiwi land. They can now start their new life in New Zealand by adding their skills to their visa application.
With that, they can claim point to receive the visa approval by having NZ skills as a sex worker or an escort.
These NZ skills are included in the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO) list.
For you to meet the requirements as a qualified sex worker or an escort, you will be required to have ANZSCO skill level 5.
Travellerhints looked up on NZ Immigration website before published the article about assessment bod, there nothing nominated any responsible institutions.
Further on, the criteria include compulsory secondary education requirement.
People will be also classified as a skilled worker of ANZSCO level 5 only if you reach the minimum pay level of NZ$36.44 (US$25.87) per hour, which get the total of NZ$75,795 (US$53,818) per year based (by the regular 40 hours work week).
Each applicant should also possess some recognized relevant qualification or have a minimum of three years of work experience in the industry.
Even though escorts and sex workers are now included on the skilled employment list, there is no real lack of them. You would not find those occupancies on the skill-shortage list.
Despite prostitution being listed as skilled employment, applying for a PR status as a sex worker would not be an easy nut to crack.
Difficult. As per the New Zealand Association of Migration and Investment agency:
“Even though prostitution is a lawful occupation, it is not an occupation that an immigrant can undertake on a temporary visa, sex work is specifically accepted,” said Peter Moses, an NZAMI spokesman and lawyer specializing in immigration law.
“An applicant would have to be onshore lawfully and not working, or off-shore while applying for residence. And they would need a formal offer of employment.”
The new legislation movement is known as the Prostitution Reform Act. It passed through New Zealand’s parliament in 2003 in a tumultuous vote and the decision to legalize prostitution was actually accepted and welcomed by many people in the country.
New Zealand intended to make prostitution a legal occupation in order to protect sex workers and their human rights and to prevent their exploitation.
Those are the reasons why New Zealand is nowadays known as a country with the best working conditions for prostitutes and people involved in the industry.
Despite all that, the research in 2008 showed that the number of sex workers actually didn’t grow as a result of the change in the legislation.
As it seems, social stigmas and society’s opinion regarding involvement in the sex industry still remains quite negative.
