Ettie Rout

(1877-1936) – Safe Sex Campaigner - “The guardian angel of the ANZACs” or “the most wicked woman in Britain”

Ettie Rout set up the New Zealand Volunteer Sisterhood to care for New Zealand Soldiers in Egypt, 1915. While in Egypt she became concerned with the high venereal disease rate amongst the NZ soldiers and considered this a medical rather than a moral issue. So she began to promote “safe sex” to the military authorities and the troops. She recommended the issue of prophylactic kits and the establishment of recommended brothels. She had little success in convincing the New Zealand Medical Corps or military authorities of the need for both.

She then travelled to Paris, France and set up a social and sexual welfare service for ANZACs, giving them advice on “safe brothels” of which she had inspected herself as the Medical Corps refused to do this. She was considered a saint by the soldiers and referred to as, “the guardian angel of the ANZACs” by a French venereologist, but also denounced in the House of Lords as “the most wicked woman in Britain”.

In 1917 she went to London to try and convince the New Zealand Medical Corps to adopt prophylactic measures. The prophylactic kits that she produced in conjunction with researchers contained calomel ointment, condoms and condy’s crystals. These kits she sold at the New Zealand Medical Soldiers Club, which she set up in Hornchurch, close to the New Zealand Convalescent Hospital.

She also sent a letter which was published by the New Zealand Times outlining the problem of Venereal Disease amongst soldiers, and suggested use of prophylactics and approved brothels, this caused an outrage in New Zealand. She was accused of encouraging vice and condemned as “an agent of satan” by god-fearing New Zealand women. This letter however was later to be instrumental in the decision of the Minister of Defence, James Allen, to approve the issue of the kits.

The New Zealand Expeditionary Force adopted her kit by the end of 1917, and made it a free and compulsory kit given to soldiers going on leave. She received no credit for her role in the development of the kit and its adoption and was even banned from being mentioned in New Zealand newspapers, under the War Regulations Act for the rest of the war.

Ironically Ettie Rout was awarded the Reconnaissance Francaise by the French Government for her work, but received no recognition from New Zealand for her efforts until well after her death in 1936.