Catherine Healy

Who is Catherine Healy?

Catherine Healy is a New Zealand sex workers' rights activist, field researcher and former prostitute working for decriminalisation of prostitution and generally for the improvement of the sex work profession. She is the national coordinator and a founding member of the New Zealand Prostitutes' Collective.

She was employed as a primary school teacher, though in an interview by Joseph Romanos for The Dominion Post, Healy said, to increase her earnings for the purpose of travelling, she then worked in a massage parlor. In the 1980s, Healy worked in brothels and massage parlors.

Healey and her fellow members of the NZPC initiated a campaign for decriminalisation of prostitution. Prostitution was finally decriminalised in New Zealand in 2003 after the implementation of the Prostitution Reform Act 2003. On 24 February 2010, Healy was invited by the Oxford Union at the University of Oxford to debate whether prostitution should be decriminalised. She became the second New Zealander after David Lange to be invited to debate at the university. At the university, she argued for decriminalisation of prostitution and won the debate.

Healy has membership of various boards and committees.