Ms Lucy Smith:

UglyMugs.ieis a sex worker safety scheme. The scheme improves the safety of sex workers and reduces crime committed against sex workers by bringing sex workers together to share information with each other about potential dangers. It is a free service available to all sex workers. It started out on the websiteEscort-Ireland.comand last year it became its own organisation, Safe IQ Limited.
How it works is that when a sex worker encounters a bad person or other danger, they report it to Ugly Mugs. Each incident reported is reviewed and a warning to all sex workers is then published. This scheme enables sex workers to be aware, both of specific offenders and of more general offending trends, which greatly improves their safety. It is a very successful scheme and that is because we have a great community of sex workers in Ireland. Sex workers do not agree about everything but when it comes to safety, sex workers in Ireland really support each other. This is vital in Ireland, as there are no other supports.
Last year the Taoiseach stood in this building and delivered an historic State apology to the so called "fallen women" incarcerated in Magdalene laundries but that was an apology for the "innocent" women imprisoned alongside sex workers, the unmarried mothers, the girls suspected of promiscuity. For sex workers, nothing has changed. The very same religious orders that ran the Magdalene laundries continue to dominate over sex workers today and the State, the media and the NGO sector all collude in that situation continuing on as is.
Ugly Mugs is highly used by sex workers. More than 4,500 incidents have been reported to date, and more than 60,000 discussion posts or comments on incidents have been made by sex workers. About half of reported incidents are crimes. We record both crimes and other incidents that may not be crimes but which sex workers define as abuse. Crimes include threats, robberies, assaults and rapes. Sex work is not inherently abusive. Currently most sex workers in Ireland are independent. Most clients are not abusive in any way to sex workers. It is not normal for sex workers to experience serious abuse but some sex workers do encounter serious abuse in the course of their work. The reason for this is the stigma around sex work. Ireland is a very hateful country towards sex workers and that has very damaging consequences.

It is also the result of bad laws. Sex work is made different to other work by laws which deliberately make it dangerous. Our brothel laws, which force sex workers to be lone workers, are the most potent example. Furthermore, we have a situation whereby sex workers feel unable to engage with the Garda and many offenders recognise this as a decreased risk of any consequences to their offending if they target sex workers. Only approximately 2% of sex workers who are victims of crime are going to the Garda at the moment and it has got far worse in recent years. The level of hate is up significantly in recent years and the level of arrests and prosecutions of sex workers is significantly up in recent years as well.

There is much we could do to prevent violence and abuse of sex workers but none of it is being done. Currently it is like there are two worlds: there is the real world of sex workers and then there is the fantasy world created by Turn Off the Red Light and they are so different it is like black and white. This committee did not consider the safety of sex workers at all during its prostitution consultation. As a result the committee recommended numerous new bad laws. There has been no decriminalisation of sex workers whatsoever despite the promises of decriminalisation. There is criminalisation of clients which is forcing sex workers underground even more. There are new laws against landlords to try to render sex workers homeless. We have seen the shut-down of telephones used by sex workers and the prosecution as paedophiles of anyone who uses sex work websites.

We have good community support networks within the sex work community and, whatever comes, sex workers will try to support each other to keep safe. However, the existing situation under which the State is only serving to cause harm to sex workers is altogether wrong.

I call on the committee to act to stop the extensive abuse of sex workers and sex trafficking victims by the media. I note that at the last hearings the committee asked Mr. Maguire of RTE what became of the group of-----