Student prostitution increasingly common in Melbourne

Female students attending universities in and around Australia’s second largest city are increasingly employed in the lucrative prostitution industry, as a means to finance their education.

An estimated 40 percent of prostitutes in Melbourne are attending one of the city’s eight universities, according to The Age, a local Australian newspaper.

Student prostitutes can earn more than $1,000 on a good weekend night. The cost of higher education in Australia is the major reason for why students employ themselves as prostitutes, said Glen Barnes, owner of the largest brothel in Melbourne, called The Daily Planet.

“Most of the girls say it’s the rising costs of fees and being a student in an expensive city like Melbourne that is making them consider the sex industry,” he said. “We’ve got nearly 200 girls on our books and I’d say at least 35 percent are students.”

Representatives from local universities stressed there are many financial options open to students, including grants, scholarships and financial counselors.

Prostitution is currently legal in Melbourne.

WSU fraternity’s recognition revoked

Washington State University’s Alpha Kappa Lambda fraternity was punished on Feb. 21 for giving alcohol to minors and selling illegal substances. The University Conduct Board suspended recognition of the fraternity for five years.

“The intention of the conduct board is to ensure that most, if not all, of the current members of Alpha Kappa Lambda will have graduated and left the university before the fraternity regains recognition,” said University Conduct Board Chair Lisa J. McIntyre in an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

The loss of recognition means that the fraternity will be unable to receive university support and will be prohibited from participating in any university events. The fraternity’s recruitment program will also be restricted.

Members of Alpha Kappa Lambda were disappointed with the decision and plan to appeal to regain their status.

There is no chapter of the Alpha Kappa Lambda fraternity at the University of Washington.

Racist video surfaces at South African university

A video was leaked last week from the University of the Free State in South Africa depicting five elderly black women being degraded by four white residents of the university’s Reitz Hostel, a men’s dormitory.

The women were forced to guzzle beer, play rugby, run a race and eat food that supposedly was tainted with the men’s urine.

“There’s power, there’s race, there’s inequality, there’s humiliation,” said Anton Fisher, spokesman for the University of the Free State in an interview with The Christian Science Monitor. “This has certainly polarized certain members of the community who still think things are the way they were under apartheid.”

A disciplinary hearing is underway to determine how the four students will be punished.

The video was first brought to the attention of the media and university authorities when other students found and viewed the video on a local file-sharing network and subsequently reported it.

The video underscores continued racial unrest in a country still dealing with a legacy of apartheid.