New Report Urges Ireland to Repeal Law Against Paying for Sex

MAYNOOTH, Ireland—About a week after another European country, the Netherlands, introduced a proposal to make sex work illegal again after 20 years of decriminalization, Ireland may soon consider changing a 2017 law that makes it a crime to purchase sexual services—at least if the recommendations in a new report by Maynooth University are followed. The report, Sex Worker Lives Under the Law, was sponsored by the advocacy group HIV Ireland and paid for by Open Society Foundations. According to the report, researchers found that the 2017 Sexual Offenses Act has made life more dangerous for sex workers by adopting what is popularly called the “Nordic model,” or “Swedish model” of sex work decriminalization. Under that model, and the Irish law, sex work itself is decriminalized, meaning sex workers would no longer be arrested or fined for performing their jobs. But the act of paying for sexual services is now criminalized—allowing police to stop and arrest customers of sex workers. “While some international women’s groups and radical feminists support the utility of such sex purchase laws to send a symbolic message on sexual behavior there is little consideration of the impact on sex workers’ safety,” the Maynooth University report says.  The study was based on focus group studies involving sex workers in four Irish cities. Many of the sex workers interviewed felt that the 2017 law did not offer protection, but instead simply categorized them as victims. “Protection is a very open-ended idea, it’s like they more want to protect you from yourself and your evil ways, these wretched women need to be brought into line and protected from themselves,” said one respondent identified as Gina. “That’s their version of protection.” The sex workers in the study also said that they believed that they were subjcet to increased police surveillance, as law enforcement attempted to track and arrest their paying customers. “As data from this study shows, sex workers perceive this to mean that abuse, harassment and violations of rights to services, supports, health and housing are justifiable to wider society,” the report states. HIV Ireland Director Stephen O’Hare said that the law, despite decriminalizing sex work itself, has actually driven sex workers underground, increasing the danger of their activities, and restricting their access to health care and other social services. "Since the introduction of the law, what we have seen is sex workers are more reluctant to engage with authorities, and those authorities might include the police, with whom they may be seeking protection, or to report abuse or violence," he said. “Also, they may be seeking community supports, such as health services and access to HIV services." The report concludes that repealing the law against paying for sexual services would take a significant step toward increasing the safety of sex workers. Photo By SG ZA / Wikimedia Commons