Prostitution is the selling of sexual services in exchange for money or some other benefit, for example – housing, gifts, goods. However, the profile of prostitution in Ireland has changed in recent years. The image of kerb crawlers approaching women on the street has been replaced by an industry that is now more hidden, more complex and more organised. The prevalence of sex trafficking, the use of technology and the increased ‘indoor’ nature of prostitution has resulted in a sexually exploitative world in which women are moved from town to town, concealed in short-term accommodation and controlled by criminal organisations that profit from their misery.
As of 2017, women who sell sex in Ireland are no longer criminalised. It is the men who buy access to their bodies that are breaking the law. Human trafficking, pimping, brothel keeping & other activities related to organised prostitution are also illegal in Ireland.
This is because in 2017, after intense lobbying from human and women’s rights organisations, Ireland implemented the Equality Model (also known as the Nordic Model). Since then we have seen reductions in sex trafficking and street prostitution, attitudinal changes, better exit services for women involved and lower numbers of men purchasing sex, amongst other successes.
Take Sweden for example. In a 2008 review of the law, carried out by the Swedish government, street prostitution had halved since the introduction of the law in 1999 and there was no evidence to suggest the situation for those in prostitution had worsened or that prostitution had ‘gone underground’. The Swedish National Crime Police confirmed that the law had acted as a deterrent to sex traffickers and reports of sex buying had decreased from 13.6% in 1996 to 7.9% in 2008.
From a gender equality standpoint, a Swedish survey revealed a marked change in attitudes to purchasing sex, coinciding with the new law. Support for the law (which the Swedish public had opposed originally) had increased to around 70-80% and public attitudes to women in prostitution had improved. This change in attitudes is what has reduced demand for prostituted women and increased public support for measures to provide exit strategies and better care for prostituted or ‘at risk’ women. Public support was strongest among youth, suggesting that the law conveyed new social values and norms in sexual interactions between men and women.
As a result, countries like Iceland, Norway, France, Ireland and Canada followed suit and implemented the Equality Model in their own countries. There is a growing realisation globally that prostitution is incompatible with gender equality and human rights. This is due to the inherent harm of a highly gendered sex trade (in almost every case, men buying sexual access to other individuals, primarily women females) and the danger of the commodification of sexual consent. There is also a high proportion of migrant, marginalised and disadvantaged communities present in the sex trade, as the system of prostitution itself is held in place by structural inequalities.
The Nordic Model was approved as the best model to address prostitution by the European Parliament in 2014 (The Honeyball Report) and by The Council of Europe in 2014 as well as a number of other bodies.
At Ruhama, we do not believe that anyone in prostitution themselves should be criminalised.
We do advocate for the criminalisation of the purchase of sex (Nordic/Equality Model). This position is informed by our frontline work with women who have experienced inordinate levels of violence, abuse, coercion and harm in the sex trade. We do not believe sex is a legitimate form of work for women or that the sex trade can be made a safe place for women to ‘work’.
Countries that have fully legalized and decriminalized prostitution have made the situation worse for individuals in prostitution. These regimes have proven to be failures, specifically as decriminalisation results in an expanded sex trade, a resulting increase in sex trafficking, criminality and sexual exploitation to meet demand and fewer exit options and services for women in prostitution who truly need them (as prostitution is deemed simply a form of ‘work’ under decriminalisation).
There is no credible data to suggest that violence increases with the Equality Model legislation in place. It makes no logical sense. The Equality Model has little to do with decisions made by perpetrators and buyers to commit acts of violence against women in prostitution. In fact, the balance of power between sex buyers and women shifts under the Equality Model. Women are decriminalised in the prostitution transaction and men are now criminalised, so they are at increased risk of detection by police, if they commit violent acts against women.
Perpetrators of sexual violence should solely be held to account for their actions. We have to confront the violence in the sex trade, not use the laws around prostitution as a scapegoat to absorb the blame for what is male violence against women, in almost every instance.
Violence is inherent to the sex trade. The women we support at Ruhama (reflected in international research also) have experienced enormous levels of violence, rape, sexual assault and harassment in the sex trade, regardless of the country they operated in or the legislation they operated under. This has much to do with the presence of organised crime in prostitution also. Where a sex trade exists, there will be violence against those in prostitution, carried out by violent individuals, organisers and sex buyers.
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