Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I intend to move amendment No. 23. We have looked at this entire issue the wrong way around. Rather than start with data, evidence and research and then deciding what policy to adopt, we started with a model that was an alleged solution and we are talking about carrying out a review after the event. That is regrettable. It contrasts sharply with the approach taken in the UK where a significant body of research was undertaken in advance of any proposals being put forward to alter legislation, which to me is a far better way. Interestingly, the Home Affairs Select Committee interim report found disadvantages to a sex buyer law based on the fact that provisions already exist for criminal offences associated with the sex industry. The finding is that demand is not reduced, just displaced. The committee also very worryingly cited harassment and other negative effects on sex workers. That bolsters the point I made last night that already sex workers are very vulnerable to exploitation by the Garda who are in a position of power. There were 70 reports to GSOC of threats and demands for sexual favours from the Garda. The health and policing implications are important as well. The conclusion of the British report is that the sex buyer law is based on the premise that prostitution is morally wrong and therefore illegal, whereas the law at present in Britain makes no such moral judgment.

We acknowledge that the intention of many of the supporters of the sex buyer law is to protect sex workers, especially women, from the harm, violence and exploitation that can occur in the sex industry but we also note that the sex buyer law makes no attempt to discriminate between prostitution which occurs between two consenting adults and that which involves exploitation. Much of the rhetoric also denies sex workers the opportunity to speak for themselves and to make their own choices, which is absolutely critical in terms of our amendment because we have devised the Bill while excluding the voice of the sex workers themselves. Our amendment calls for any review to put those people, and the organisations which work on the front line in harm reduction, as the core component. That is absolutely critical.

I echo the points made by Deputy Jonathan O’Brien. Given the Minister's proviso is "not later than three years" I hope she will commence the review earlier. We, like many of the others who proposed amendments suggested a two-year provision.

A review of this type is not expensive. The representative organisations for sex workers and harm reduction agencies have their own records and data and publish yearly statistics, as do the gardaí in some instances, so it is just a matter of centralising data. However, we need to engage with the sex workers themselves.

The only contention put forward by those supporting the so-called Swedish model is that if we criminalise the purchase of sex, we will reduce demand and therefore have an impact on trafficking. This proposition is nonsense and I would love to see the evidence for it. There are already laws dealing with trafficking, which is the abhorrent forced bonded labour, abduction, kidnap, false imprisonment, rape and exploitation of women. Human trafficking is abhorrent. I am intrigued in some ways by the over-concentration on sex trafficking in contrast with the coercion and exploitation of people who are trafficked for other purposes, which is an interesting point. Given that we are talking about the health and vulnerability of a very marginalised group of people, we need to move far more quickly than three years. Our legislation should have been about enabling those vulnerable people to take control over their own lives and protect their health but we have disempowered them through this legislation by putting the power of negotiation, place of work and so on much more into the hands of the buyer by criminalisation. Our starting point should have been the health and human rights of sex workers. Part of the problem with the legislation is that if all sex work is exploitation and there is no room for distinguishing between forced and voluntary sexual activity between consenting adults, in essence, you are saying that all women are victims and that the women or gay men involved do not know their own minds and cannot make a rational decision. We might not like that decision, it might not be one we would pick for ourselves and it might not be one that those people would pick for themselves if they had an alternative but it is a valid decision and choice for them to make and it is wrong for us to say that they do not have that right or do not know their own minds. People may say that only a few people are in these circumstances. Is it the case that minorities do not deserve protection and that just because somebody is in a minority, we should exclude their voice and silence them? It is completely wrong.

Our amendment puts the focus on the sex workers themselves. A very worrying trend in other jurisdictions that I could see happening here is moneys being diverted into organisations that worked with people to help them exit the industry. We are all in favour of people exiting the industry when they have choices and alternatives but the problem has been that much of the energy has been taken away from groups engaged in harm reduction which has put people's lives at risk. This part also needs to be analysed.

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