A LEGISLATIVE FAILURE

Sex workers are invisible in Ireland. But they are there. Despite the grinding stigma they face, structural violence, harassment and assaults, a government that refuses to engage with them and laws that put them in danger, sex workers are here, advocating for their right to have a say in the policies that affect them.

Since 2017, paying for sexual services has been criminalised in Ireland. These new laws also increased the fines on so-called ‘brothel keeping’, where two or more sex workers share a space, and introduced a jail sentence for this crime.

Sex workers are forced to work alone to work legally. They deprioritise their own safety and risk assessments to ensure their client feels safe. Sex work has been pushed underground, away from services that can help them and increasing the opportunity for exploitation. Less than 1 per cent of sex workers report crimes against them to the Gardaí, compared to 90 per cent of the general population, who have trust in the force.

These laws are failing on their own terms. Despite all the fanfare when they were passed, it has been recently revealed that very few people have been prosecuted for purchasing sex.

Gardaí routinely pose as clients to gain access to the workers to perform supposed welfare checks. Condoms have been used as evidence that sex work has occurred, flying in the face of any HIV prevention strategy.

None of this has increased sex workers’ trust in Gardaí. None of this has decreased trafficking or exploitation. None of this has prevented the murder, rape, assault and harassment of sex workers.

These new laws included a three-year review to be completed by 2020, conducted by an independent reviewer. The farcical journey of this review, including a reviewer who has been removed from the process, three different Ministers for Justice, and a five-year delay, means the Department of Justice will finalise the review. We find this deeply unethical, as it seems like the Department of Justice is reviewing itself.

Throughout this process, there has been a lack of engagement with the Sex Workers Alliance Ireland (SWAI), one of the major stakeholders of this review. Sex workers were written out of the 2019 LGBTI Inclusion Strategy, even though the queer community makes up a significant portion of the sex work population.

Sex work is driven by the need to earn money. Sex work is an economic activity done by people who are already on the margins, whether they be LGBTQ+, homeless or in precarious housing, drug users, single parents, people in need of mental health support, undocumented or migrants and those living in poverty. Sex workers need structural reform and resources, not the criminalisation of their income.

SWAI will run out of money in the first half of this year. We are worried that the review of the law regarding sex work will be pushed out until we run out of money, and we will be unable to coordinate a response. We are concerned that without support for SWAI, the voices of sex workers will disappear in Ireland. Sex workers will lack a crucial voice to express and stand up for their wants and needs without SWAI.

Globally, sex worker-led organisations struggle to get funding, and SWAI is no exception. We struggle to fund our core work because we are perceived as too radical for publicly critiquing the Nordic Model, government, and policing. We reject the conflation of sex work with human trafficking and gender-based violence by socalled feminist organisations and refuse to uphold these injustices against sex workers.

We need your support. We launched a crowdfund called 28 Days for SWAI in February to try and keep our doors open. We are keeping this crowdfund open for a few weeks as we have not hit our target yet, you can donate here: 28-days-for-swai.causevox.com, or at the QR code below.

SWAI calls for the full decriminalisation of sex work in Ireland and the immediate release of the review of the law.