Border Force raids targeting the workplaces of migrant sex workers have intensified in recent years - now happening almost twice weekly.
In a recent Data Access Request the Department of Home Affairs acknowledged they conducted 103 raids on sex worker workplaces across Australia in financial year 2025-6.
In one year that is 103 times our taxes funded groups of uniformed, armed officers entering sex worker workplaces during opening hours, with 5 - 15 sex workers on site, terrorising in total up to a thousand of individual sex workers. And the end result? Ten overstayers identified and detained. Ten in all 103 raids.
Asian migrant sex workers report experiencing:
harassment due to the prolonged presence of uniformed, armed officers stationed near their workplaces before and after “compliance operations”;
having their phones forcibly taken when attempting to photograph documents presented by ABF officers for signature; and
being denied access to translation apps, receiving inadequate or incorrect translation, or not being offered translation at all.
We need your help to expose and end this inhumane and unnecessary practice. These militarised raids do not protect workers - they terrorise them.
Uniformed, armed, and racially targeted raids on migrant workers’ workplaces are harmful and unjust. It’s time to stop pretending this is about “compliance.”
This is about power, racism, and the denial of basic human rights - and it must end.
Border Force raids targeting the workplaces of migrant sex workers have intensified in recent years - now happening almost twice weekly.
In a recent Data Access Request the Department of Home Affairs acknowledged they conducted 103 raids on sex worker workplaces across Australia in financial year 2025-6.
In one year that is 103 times our taxes funded groups of uniformed, armed officers entering sex worker workplaces during opening hours, with 5 - 15 sex workers on site, terrorising in total up to a thousand of individual sex workers. And the end result? Ten overstayers identified and detained. Ten in all 103 raids.
Asian migrant sex workers report experiencing:
harassment due to the prolonged presence of uniformed, armed officers stationed near their workplaces before and after “compliance operations”;
having their phones forcibly taken when attempting to photograph documents presented by ABF officers for signature; and
being denied access to translation apps, receiving inadequate or incorrect translation, or not being offered translation at all.
We need your help to expose and end this inhumane and unnecessary practice. These militarised raids do not protect workers - they terrorise them.
Uniformed, armed, and racially targeted raids on migrant workers’ workplaces are harmful and unjust. It’s time to stop pretending this is about “compliance.”
This is about power, racism, and the denial of basic human rights - and it must end.
