Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Pringle for bringing the issue to the Chamber. There is probably some merit in certain points but this is not a model with which we should move forward. I oppose the criminalisation of prostitution as it drives those in the industry into more unsafe places than they would occupy. Much has been made of the Swedish model, introduced in 1999, which is understood by many to be progressive as it purports not to punish the sex worker, who is usually but not always a women, but rather the purchaser of sex. The legislation was intended to address the demand side of sex by eliminating street-based prostitution and new sex workers from entering the industry. The legalisation was part of a general initiative to end all barriers to the equality of women in Sweden and was based on the conviction that prostitution involves structural violence against women and that no woman voluntarily decides to be a prostitute.

Information has come through that the process is not working in the way intended, and it has been very hard to ascertain how effective the model has been with regard to its main aims. A certain amount of research has been done indicating that a number of serious problems have arisen for the very people the law purports to protect. Women engaged in street-based prostitution, who have always been the most vulnerable group, have reported that their situations have become more difficult, as they are forced out of urban, brightly lit areas with CCTV and are forced to negotiate sex in more remote, industrial or rural locations, increasing the risk of violence and removing them from contact with support services. Women cannot work together and help each other as they would be in breach of the law. They are more likely to accept unsafe sex and to put their health at risk in other ways. The police look for condoms as evidence of sex, which gives sex workers a strong incentive not to carry condoms. In the first year, the police used video cameras to harass clients and to collect evidence, which meant that they had to film both the exchange of money and the sex. Many women felt the law was being used by the police to violate their integrity.

Several countries, including Canada, Australia, Britain and New Zealand, have all explicitly rejected the Swedish model for precisely these reasons. Using the law to engineer social and economic change is fraught with danger. We should be speaking to women who work in the industry, as very few voluntarily go into the sex trade. Their work normally arises from conditions of inequality, their background, drug problems or not being able to access services that would enable them to feed their children or pay their mortgage. We should consider such issues as we cannot believe that we can solve the problem if we take the client out of the scenario through criminalisation, with women moving to the work force. We know that will not be the case.

There must be a fundamental change in how we define economic and social problems in this country and across the world. There are laws for dealing with trafficking and they should be put to robust use. Nevertheless, there is trafficking in the labour force, particularly with older and younger women being used in a very brutal way. They may literally be locked up and used for the service of other people. That is absolutely wrong. I do not want to trivialise the subject but only the other day we attended a meeting of migrant workers who have been exploited, with au-pairs being brought over via the Internet to families in Ireland. They can be exploited, with passports taken from them, and locked into homes to perform all sorts of menial work for an absolute pittance. These workers have no means to extricate themselves.

People in Africa and Europe are desperate to get work and are forced to go on these sites, with families over here desperate in some ways to get help in their home for child minding etc. Everybody is being exploited in those cases, and it is a similar dynamic with people in the sex trade who wish to earn a living. It is absolutely outrageous that society allows this to happen. I want to listen to the men and women involved in the industry and try to regulate it. We should let them outline how they believe they can be made safer and healthier. New Zealand has a system in place where offices can be set up for workers, which takes the pimp out of the equation, as sex workers organise themselves and regulate the industry. They have access to health and other supports.

Before prostitution was legalised in New Zealand, a sex worker was intimidated by a member of the police force, who intimidated the woman into providing sex in return for him not arresting her. After prostitution was legalised, she was able to bring that man to court and make it clear that she was being exploited and manipulated. He was convicted because of that, so perhaps we should legalise the practice and allow rights for sex workers.

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