Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

To deal comprehensively with all the legislative aspects of trying to decriminalise sex work, which is the intent of our amendment, one would require further amendment of the 1993 Act. We take that point, but I do not think the suggestion that what we are doing is removing protection is correct. Deputy Catherine Connolly and others might add to what I said in that regard.

On the substantive issue, Deputy Bríd Smith made the biggest point. Everybody here is at one in wanting to ensure we protect women or people engaged in sex work from exploitation, abuse, violence, being treated in a degrading way, objectification and the commodification of women's sexuality against their will. We are probably all at one on that, but we believe a law and order approach is not the way to deal with those problems because in an effort to make things better, one ends up making things worse for the very people one believes one is trying to protect. That is the essence of it. A law and order approach does not and will not work. The evidence for that is increasing. It is obvious that if you criminalise the buyer of sex, prostitution will not end, as has been acknowledged by those who oppose this amendment. It will continue, people will continue to purchase sex and the people who do so will be the ones most willing to defy the law. They will be the more dangerous buyers of sex. The business will be driven underground in a way that will remove protections that may exist for sex workers. That point has been largely made.

Some people involved in sex work make a decision to do so. As Deputy Mick Wallace said, we should not stigmatise and patronise all those involved in sex work and assume that at least some of them do not make a decision of their own free will. However, I believe this is a minority, as Deputy Jan O'Sullivan said. If we want to do something about the majority of women who go into sex work because they are forced to do so, we need to look at what forces them into it. I do not believe it is demand - the fact that there are people willing to buy sex - that forces women who would not do so otherwise into sex work and the degradation involved in it if it is not their free choice. If the Government wants to do something about that, they need to look at the profile of people who are forced into sex work. What categories of people are being forced into sex work and what are we going to do to give them options so that if they do not want to be involved in sex work, they do not feel they have be involved in it? If you look at things that way, you are immediately into areas like student poverty or people who are denied rights because they are migrants or in direct provision or because in one way or another, they are on the margins or are vulnerable people who do not have other options available to them and who feel the necessity to engage in sex work to survive. That is the issue that needs to be addressed. It is about dealing with issues like low pay and precarious work that affects women. One of the terrible things is the increase in young university students getting involved in sex work because of high levels of student poverty. If you want to do something about that, it is not about a law and order approach, it is about dealing with escalating dire student poverty that is forcing young people in universities into feeling that they must go out and engage in sex work to survive.

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