Ms Sarah Benson:

I thank the Chairman and committee members for the opportunity to speak today on the important issue of sexual violence and in our case, specifically focusing on prostitution as a form of sexual gender-based violence. Ruhama is a long standing member of the national steering committee on violence against women we regard our own operations as directly working to combat violence against women through front line engagement with and support and advocacy on behalf of women affected by prostitution. From Ruhama's perspective, prostitution constitutes violence against women and is a fundamental violation of women's and girls' human rights. Prostitution is inherently harmful and abusive. It violates the human dignity and integrity guaranteed to all in the UN Declaration on Human Rights 1949.
Whether consciously or not, some people consider prostitution to be a reasonable choice for a particular sector or class of women. Prostitution is somehow acceptable for poor women, vulnerable women, indigenous women, women of colour, of different race, instead of being seen as sexual exploitation and a human rights violation. If this view is accepted, it is a toleration of the creation of a separate, expendable, throwaway class of women. Intrinsic to prostitution are numerous violations of human rights: sexual harassment, economic servitude, educational deprivation, partner and family violence, racism, class issues, vulnerability to frequent physical and sexual assault, degrading treatment, trafficking and child abuse. While the number of boys and men prostitution is small, women and girls represent the overwhelming majority of those bought and sold in the sex trade. Prostitution is not an isolated individual act; it is part of an organised system, which feeds on abuse, distress, vulnerability and inequality. Obviously not all women in poverty or drug addiction or who have been abused, become ensnared in prostitution. However, it is clear that both the risk and reality of prostitution for millions of women and girls internationally are closely connected with other forms of gender-based violence and can be said to be a direct consequence of gender inequality. This understanding of prostitution is also supported by a vast amount of research both nationally and internationally. It is a view borne out in numerous international conventions, plans and resolutions which are highlighted in our written submission to the committee.
The starting position that prostitution is a form of gender-based violence is fundamental to achieving an effective and meaningful response. Such a response must target three areas: prevention, which means stopping vulnerable women and girls from being drawn into prostitution; protection, which involves practical supports for those in prostitution; and an exit strategy to explore and facilitate opportunities for those wishing to leave. Some activists and feminists, as well as organisations supported by the sex trade, argue that prostitution per seshould be exempted from the category of human rights violations. They propose that instead of seeing prostitution as a human rights violation, the assumption should be that prostitution is a human right, a right of a woman to do what she wants with her body. Prostitution in this argument is constructed as sex work and it is proposed that all aspects of prostitution, soliciting, selling, buying and pimping, be decriminalised.
Ruhama contends that countries that have tried to regulate or decriminalise the sex trade have been shown to have failed on the key objectives for which regulation was introduced in the first place, such as reducing stigma, violence or harm to those in prostitution. Regulated and decriminalised environments create a huge increase in not only the regulated but also the illegal trade, proportionately increasing sex trafficking and effectively removing much of the already limited power the prostituted woman or girl, by conferring it on pimps and organisers who are legitimised and transformed into businessmen. Countries that have taken this approach also fail to give any meaningful consideration or resourcing to either prevention or exiting supports for those at risk of or in prostitution. This is because viewing prostitution as simply work helps to keep women in prostitution, whereas viewing prostitution as a violation of women's human rights helps keep women and girls out of prostitution. Ruhama recommends the following measures as a minimum response in Ireland, which we believe are congruent with a positive action against domestic and sexual violence and also with the committee's separate recommendations on Ireland's prostitution laws. It is timely to note that just this morning, the European Parliament voted a landmark resolution confirming all forms of prostitution as violence against women, a human rights abuse and incompatible with the charter of fundamental rights. It called on member states to consider the Nordic model.
Ruhama recommends naming prostitution as a form of violence against women and girls in the national action plan on domestic, sexual and gender based violence and in policies and actions that may devolve from this plan; a recognition of the need for and resourcing of supports to those trapped in prostitution as vulnerable persons; recognition and resourcing of targeted interventions to high risk groups, specifically, minors in residential care settings or in receipt of social interventions due to neglect, abuse or at-risk behaviours. Grooming is still not an offence in this jurisdiction and this is one of the most common mechanisms for the exploitation of minors into prostitution; resourcing of preventative programmes, including education and awareness programmes on domestic and sexual violence in schools and colleges that explicitly incorporate the issue prostitution as a form of violence against, and a risk to, women and girls; legislative measures to ensure that those in prostitution are not criminalised but which target the sex buyer and others who are the source of demand for the exploitation of prostitution; awareness-raising programmes to educate boys and men about the harm of prostitution and to challenge perceptions of entitlement to buy sex, including targeting sex buyers as a part of any programmes on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence.