Prostitution Law in Ireland

Amnesty International has found that Ireland's prostitution laws are facilitating violent attacks against sex workers. Sex workers say they see police as a threat rather than a shield.

Research carried out by Amnesty International warned legislation implemented in 2017 was driving sex workers to put their lives at risk in a desperate bid to dodge the police. The organisation accused authorities of misusing the law, which was billed as being created to stop human trafficking and exploitation of sex workers. Amnesty reported:

Our research clearly shows that criminalising the purchase of sex is forcing sex workers to take more risks while penalising brothel-keeping is preventing sex workers from working together to ensure their own safety.

Ireland criminalised the buying of sex and substantially bolstered penalties dished out for brothel-keeping -- which is defined as two or more sex workers operating from the same property.

Many sex workers choose to work together to keep safe from clients but those doing so in Ireland can be sentenced to a year in jail or hit with a 5,000 euro (£4,187) fine under the 2017 laws.

The new research, based on interviews with sex workers, found most had been subjected to violence from clients while doing their jobs. But sex workers said they were too scared of the police to report attacks against them due to assuming the complaint would not be followed up - with them also voicing fears of experiencing harassment or violence from police officers.

The Irish government is presently reviewing the laws which are known as the Nordic Model after they were first introduced in Sweden.

Sex workers feel less safe, more stigmatised and in greater fear of gardai since a law criminalising the purchase of sex was enacted, a report from Maynooth university warns.

Commissioned by HIV Ireland, the study looks at how the Part 4 of the Sexual Offences Act (2017) has impacted sex workers.

The report, which HIV Ireland is submitting to a government review of the legislation, says:

The findings ... point to the negative impact of current laws on the abilities of sex workers to keep safe and reduce harms to their health and well-being, in line with mounting evidence from other jurisdictions where sex buyer laws are in place.

While some international women's groups and radical feminists support the utility of such sex purchase laws to send a symbolic message on sexual behaviour there is little consideration of the impact on sex workers' safety.

The report, by Dr Paul Ryan and Dr Kathryn McGarry, of the Department of Sociology at Maynooth University, calls for the law to be repealed, to recognise the reality of sex work and keep those involved in it safe.

Gardai have only initiated 2 prosecutions under a law passed last year to criminalise the purchase of sex. The 2017 Sexual Offences Act -- which introduced the so-called Nordic model criminalises the customers of sex workers.

Under the law, women must be willing to participate in court proceedings against their clients. This contrasts with Scandinavia where the law lets police officers testify about the paid for sex.

The Times say Garda sources claim some women are often frightened to face a punter in court, as they may be linked to organised crime gangs who can threaten the women's family and friends. But in reality the women aren't going to do very well in business if they don't look after their customers.

Gardai sources also claim the force is missing out on valuable tip-offs from punters about trafficked women, because men are unsurprisingly unwilling to get involved when they themselves would be prosecuted.

The purchasing of sex will be outlawed under new criminal offences. Miserable ministers signed have agreed to a bill that will see those buying sex face fines of €500 or up to €5,000 if the person is trafficked.

'Justice' Minister Frances Fitzgerald is expected to publish the final legislation next week and make an announcement on when the new criminal offence will be enacted. It is unclear if it will or will not decriminalise sex workers in brothels or on the streets.

A group which calls itself the sex workers alliance of Ireland said it was a sad day for sex workers and that there are efforts in Sweden to decriminalise sex workers or soliciting by prostitutes.

Update: Discriminatory Law

24th September 2015. See  article from irishtimes.com

New legislation on sexual offences criminalises paying for sex with prostitutes, but ensures the person offering sexual services is not guilty of a crime. Presumably Ireland does not have laws against inciting people (their customers) to commit a crime.

Minister for Injustice Frances Fitzgerald published the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill 2015 on Wednesday, claiming she was committed to addressing the very real and tragic crimes of trafficking and exploitation associated with prostitution. She said:

I am convinced that targeting the demand for such services is the way forward.

Ms Fitzgerald said her proposals mirrored the approach adopted in Northern Ireland and other jurisdictions which she said had seen a reduction in demand for the services provided by prostitutes.

Irish anti-prostitution campaigners have noted 26 extra profiles listed on escort agency websites in Donegal, Cavan, Monaghan, Leitrim and Louth.

The campaign group, Immigrant Council of Ireland (ICI, not a state body), has noted an increase in online escort profiles from 51 to 77.

The group is claiming this to be an in increase of prostitution activity in southern border counties of 51%.

Inevitably now that men will be persecuted for buying sex in the north, there will be a proportion of the sex trade that moves to more tolerant jurisdictions, but counting online profiles is no more than a stab in the dark about quantifying resultant cross border trade.

Brian Killoran of the ICI claimed:

The initial indications are that those who run prostitution have been feeling the heat of Northern Ireland's new laws even before they came into force and have been switching their operations to the South.

It is important that Gardai­ monitor the increase in online activity and use our existing laws to ensure that pimps and traffickers are not viewing our border counties and major cities as safe havens after their business model has been wrecked in the North.

It is also essential that the Minister for Justice, Frances Fitzgerald TD, honour her commitment to publish sex buyer laws here and that we join Northern Ireland, the US, Canada and Sweden in shutting down the organised crime behind prostitution.

The Republic of Ireland's government has introduced a bill that will make it a criminal offence to pay for sex.

The bill comes a year after the Oireachtas 'Justice' Committee's Report on the Review of the Legislation on Prostitution in Ireland made the recommendation that the purchase of sexual services should be made illegal.

'Justice' Minister Frances Fitzgerald introduced the new legislation on November 27th , claiming that her proposed bill reflects an all-island consensus to targeting the predominantly exploitative nature of prostitution. The draft legislation makes purchasing sexual services a general offence, and the purchasing of sexual services from trafficked persons a more serious offence. The Irish Department of 'Justice' said:

In both cases, the persons selling the sexual service will not be subject to an offence Unlike the existing offences relating to prostitution such as soliciting, loitering or brothel keeping, this offence will specifically target the demand for prostitution.

However, as Ireland-based activist and writer Wendy Lyon pointed out on Twitter, the offence of paying for sexual services will be inserted into the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1993 as Section 5A and there is no repeal of any of the parts of the 1993 Act that currently criminalises sex workers. This bill will NOT decriminalise sex workers she wrote.

An Irish sex worker, Jenny, said:

I think [the Swedish Model] is a very very scary model and that people don't truly understand how far-reaching it can be.

You're basically playing cat and mouse against the police all the time if you introduce the Swedish model and you're just trying to work against the police and you're not getting any help. It's bad enough as it is already. It's going to be worse if they introduce the Swedish Model.

The Irish Government is officially making it illegal to pay for sexual services. It has been confirmed that a new bill, to be published on Thursday, will criminalise prostitution for the first time.

The legislation will make it illegal to pay for sexual services.

UglyMugs.ie invited Irish indoor sex workers to take part in the research, which aimed to learn more about escorts in Ireland and particularly about their experiences of crime and abuse. This is the first ever survey of indoor sex workers in Ireland and 195 female, male and trans* escorts took part. Although the survey cannot be considered representative of all persons selling sex in Ireland, 195 participants is a very significant proportion of the Irish sex worker population.

The escorts who took part in the survey were from 29 different countries. Most were aged in their 20s or 30s and highly educated. Just over half had worked in sex work in another country prior to becoming an escort in Ireland. 97.3% were self-employed independent escorts, though 33.3% had experience of working for a third party, e.g. an escort agency, in Ireland or elsewhere in the past.

Despite it being popularly reported in the media that children are involved in prostitution, there was no evidence of the involvement of any under 16s and only one participant was aged under 18.

Participants reported low alcohol and drug use, high condom use, and taking a number of security measures whilst working as an escort, the top ones being not getting in cars with clients (65.3%), taking more precautions when it is a new client (58.1%) and not working alone (41.1%) despite the laws in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland that force escorts to work alone if they want to work legally.

Ireland's sex worker population overwhelmingly works indoors with access to phones and the Internet, which is safe conditions, in comparison to outdoor sex working. However, many of the participants reported experiences of a wide range of crime and abuses. It is also clear that a wide range of persons commit crime against sex workers in Ireland, not only clients.

66.7% of participants who had been a victim of crime whilst working as an escort in Ireland did not report to the police. The high level of stigma associated with being an escort being the primary barrier to engaging with police.

Participants said that other escorts were the biggest source of help to them after experiencing crime. The research confirmed that currently there are no useful support services for escorts in Ireland, but escorts would welcome the establishment of a variety of sex worker support services.

Fear of media exposure amongst escorts in Ireland is very high, even higher than fear of crime, with 74.6% of participants worried or very worried about being exposed as an escort in the newspapers or other media.

Recommendations include further research, a review of laws and policies that put sex workers at risk, tackling media abuse of sex workers and the provision of police sex worker liaison services and general advice, legal advice, health services and exiting services for sex workers.

The full report outlines that a number of factors put escort at risk of violence and abuse. The lack of support services and good relations with police, mean offenders specifically target escorts, in the belief that they are people in society without any help, who offenders can abuse with a very low risk of facing any consequences as a result. The media portrayal of escorts as people with no rights, no choices, helpless victims who can't say no to anything or anybody, is also sending a very dangerous message to offenders.

UglyMugs.ie is a scheme that aims to improve the safety of sex workers in Ireland and reduce crimes committed against them, by bringing sex workers together to share information about potential dangers.

Commenting on the research, UglyMugs.ie said:

There has never been any independent research into indoor sex work in Ireland. Instead of asking sex workers about their lives, we ask anti-prostitution campaigners. As our initial research here has shown, the Irish public are being grossly misled. Proper independent research must now be carried out now to establish the reality of indoor sex work in Ireland, so sensible legislation can be put in place.