It’s breathtaking! Look at the Magdalen laundries run by these very same religious orders who are now the trustees of the Ruhama and the Irish Immigration Council. Perhaps 30,000 women, many of them sex workers, were trafficked through their network. The last one was only shut down in 1996. Watch “Sinners”. In that film, we see that many of the so-called “fallen women” gave birth to their babies whilst in their Magdalene laundry prison. Then the babies were taken from them, often against their wishes. These babies were then given to “good Catholic families”.
We should learn from our own history, not import a zero-tolerance approach from Sweden. Incidentally, the Swedish Sex Purchase Act of 1999 was imported from the USA where, if I’m not mistaken, every US state (even Nevada, save for a few counties) bans the sale and purchase of sex as well as all other related activities. There have been “John Schools” in the USA since 1996 where men are “treated” for purchasing sex.
People will say that the situation is different in Sweden to US states. In Sweden, they’ll say only the purchase of sex is criminalized but the sale of sex isn’t. This is a distinction without a difference. By criminalizing the purchase of sex, livelihood is removed from all sex workers. Many are driven more into the shadows particularly vulnerable migrant workers. They may be deported if they present themselves to the police. They are exposed to a higher risk of violence from customers and criminal gangs and are exposed to a higher risk of catching STIs.
We need to adopt a harm reduction approach as is adopted in New Zealand. Let the sex workers unionize in the Republic of Ireland. Empower them. Give them their full human, civil, labour, legal, health and safety rights just as are given to all other workers. The Dutch and German approaches are flawed because their laws are crafted from the point of view of maintaining law and order. Instead, give street sex workers the right to solicit anywhere they like in the country. Allow brothels and smaller sex worker led cooperatives the right to set up anywhere in the country. Local authorities can then pass bylaws if they wish to regulate where the brothels and sex worker led and operated cooperatives can set up. Brothels will be subject to national registration and regulation requirements.
Give sex workers the benefit of the doubt. Assume they are law-abiding citizens just like any other category of citizen unless proven otherwise on an individual case-by-case basis. The police’s default job is to protect them not prosecute them. Let the sex workers have access to the courts where they can take and receive cases in their own name.
Make it a criminal offense for a John to refuse to wear a condom. Load the legal dice in favour of the sex worker in order to deter any would-be ugly mug from raising his hand in violence and intimidation against a sex worker. Provide hot lines between brothels and sex worker owned and operated cooperatives and the local police station so that they can phone in complaints against violent customers.
I am sure you have heard of Robert Pickton who for a number of years terrorized and murdered many vulnerable street workers and drug addicts in Vancouver. After he was finally caught, he bragged in prison that he killed 49 people. Sex workers who were physically abused by him but not murdered went to the police to complain about him. But because they were sex workers, their complaints were not taken seriously and Robert Pickton continued with his killing spree. In Canada, the situation relating to sex work is similar to the Republic of Ireland. The sale and purchase of sex is not prohibited but related surrounding activities are, such as soliciting, procuring, keeping a brothel or, bawdyhouse in Canada speak, and living off the avails of prostitution.
We ought to fully decriminalize and legalize prostitution in the Republic of Ireland (but not legalize in the German or Dutch sense). We ought to legalize in the New Zealand sense. Sex work is a profession and so we give sex workers their full civil, health, safety, human and legal rights like are given to all other workers.
Sex work is not going to go away with the wave of a legislative wand. Time to regulate and tax where possible. It’s time to recognize the profession officially without necessarily approving of it as an profession open to everyone. We recognize it but not promote it. There is a difference.
Frank Duff and his Legion of Mary successfully campaigned to shut down the Red light district of Monto in the 1920s. Ultimately, his zero tolerance and pseudo moral campaign didn’t work. Organized prostitution was removed but prostitution broadly was only driven underground. Organized prostitution re-emerged in the 1970s as the Republic of Ireland started to liberalize and open up particularly after our accession to the EEC.
Anyone who says that, with some amazing legislative sleight-of-hand prostitution can be wiped out, is an idiot. The Social Democratic party of Sweden that passed the Sex Purchase act in 1999 believed they could wipe out the sex industry. They were wrong. There was a renewed clampdown on the industry after 2008. Police stats between 2008 and 2010 show that across a broad category of sex related and trafficking related categories such as the purchase of sex with children and adults and trafficking for sexual and not sexual purposes there have been huge increases.
Sweden is selling a fantasy of itself to the world. Most of the rest of the world won’t be taken in.
