Dr. Eilis Ward:

Dr. Wylie and I will address our marks on issues of prostitution and trafficking as distinct but interrelated phenomena. We do not represent any institutional, organisational or advocacy position. We are here as social scientists who have been working on research in this area for about ten years.

We want to make three general statements and then I will speak generally on the sex trade and my colleague will speak on sex trafficking. Any discussion of prostitution must be based on the recognition it is associated with both rights and risks and any productive analysis and workable policy must consider both questions. We know very little about prostitution and the sex trade in Ireland. There has been very little competence research and there are very few benchmarks against which the change could be measured. We are aware the sex trade in Ireland has been largely privatised and may be largely beyond the reach of the State in terms of traditional surveillance and interventions. Our knowledge of sex trafficking is also very scant. This raises similar questions in terms of measuring change and the effectiveness of policy.

We have four comments to make about the sex trade and prostitution in Ireland. We have a very limited knowledge base of the sex trade in Ireland. That is particularly problematic when it comes to making statements or establishing causality between changing the law and changing practice. We know nothing about transactional sex. We know very little about social policies and practice, we know little about gender equality research and practice and we know very little about vulnerability and practice, in other words what it is about the women involved in the Irish sex trade, their vulnerability profile and involvement in the sex trade.

There have been some micro-studies and drawing on those we know the Irish sex trade has adapted to every single change in the law or policy since the foundation of the State. The sex trade has simply changed and this reflects a global pattern whereby the sex trade is infinitely adaptable to all laws and changes in policy.

Such research prompts two generalisable conclusions. Every one of our statements is based on evidence-based research. The generalisable conclusions are that prostitution may be an area of public policy which cannot be managed or controlled effectively primarily by law, although not by social policy. In addition, prostitution may be an area of public policy that can never be completely abolished.

Related micro-studies reveal a vast diversity of experience of those in the sex trade in Ireland, with both men and women with different sorts of experiences. There are different experiences with levels of risk and risk taking behaviour, and different experiences with vulnerability. Two of the studies based on research among prostitutes in Dublin support the case for managed zones or decriminalisation. Furthermore, Dr. Kathryn McGarry's micro-study on women and risk-taking in the sex trade in Dublin supports the concern that abolitionist regimes such as the Swedish model increase risk, especially for the most vulnerable in the sex trade.

Both of these conclusions drawn from Irish studies are supported by two consistent themes in the international literature, namely, that women in prostitution are not homogenous and are not all victims and they do not wish to be seen as victims - many first-person stories and narratives resist this label - and abolitionist or prohibitionist regimes increase the risk for marginal questionable gains.

Recent discourses in Ireland proposing the Swedish model are not supported by evidence-based research that validates the suppositions contained within the Swedish model. There is no evidence to say the suppositions in the model support its applicability to Ireland, largely because we do not have the comprehensive research that would be required for policy change in this area.

We suggest the situation captured above constitutes an unwise basis for the implementation of legal change, particularly given the critical literature on the Swedish model that is now beginning to emerge. From the point of view of prostitution, the State's current legal framework may be as good as it gets, an accident of history rather than planning, in that it enables the containment of the growth of the industry. In addition, its intention is not to criminalise the sex worker, although in practice it does, and it enables policies to minimise the risk to the individuals involved in the sex trade and risk in terms of public health issues.