Mary White (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister here this evening. I will refer to key points in her speech which I fully support. The Minister said that the House will agree that the provisions of this Bill are a significant step forward in targeting those that abuse children as well as offering some further protection of victims of sexual offences. She said the Bill will substantially strengthen our law, to target our most vulnerable - our children - and to send a message to all victims of sexual offences that we recognise the unfathomable harm and trauma inflicted upon them and that we support them.

I believe that the sexual abuse of a child is on par with murder and that we are lax in our vigilance of potential predators of children, albeit in innocent circumstances. There are children in Ireland who are being minded by people where there is no oversight or Garda vetting. The vast majority of pre-school children in this country are in situations where there is no vetting of the people who are minding them. One day this will blow up in our faces.

I understand from the passion in the Minister’s voice that she is totally in support of the Bill. That is her prerogative. I would, however, like to deal with the section 20, as there is great confusion on this aspect. No matter what happens in the future, following the next election I will not be returning to the Seanad but leaving that aside, it is never wrong to say the right thing. I am a left of centre feminist but I am not an extreme feminist. I treat men and women equally but I believe that on this issue there is an alliance between extreme feminists and extreme conservatives. It is an extraordinary alliance and the less said on that the better, but I feel I must be honest with myself and say it. In this regard I believe that section 20 confuses trafficking with prostitution. It is daft. We all oppose trafficking of human beings. We are totally and utterly opposed to it. Our record is very poor on trafficking, criminalising trafficking and the people who traffic human beings. I want this to be on my record in this House, even as I do not intend to be here again following the election.

The buying and selling of sexual services in a private dwelling in Ireland is currently legal but virtually all other activities associated with buying and selling sexual services are criminalised. For example, it is illegal for more than one person to sell sexual services in a private place, it is illegal to buy sexual services on the street or in a public place and it is illegal to sell sexual services on the street or in a public place. Section 20 criminalises the purchase of sex in Ireland making it illegal to pay a person for sexual services. The stated aim of criminalising the purchase of sex is to stop sexual exploitation and trafficking by ending the demand.

However, in countries such as Sweden, where similar laws were introduced, there is no coherent evidence that demand is reduced or that exploitation and trafficking are decreased, as outlined by Sex Workers Alliance Ireland in its paper on criminalisation and safety. The sex industry merely adjusts and sex work continues, further from the authorities and further from safety. Independent research shows that the legislation proposed in line with section 20 simply does not work, rather it increases the risk of exploitation, trafficking and abuse. Sweden enacted legislation in 1999 to criminalise the purchase of sex. However, in the sex workers report, there are ten reasons outlining why the Swedish law does not work. Dr. Kathryn McGarry of NUI Maynooth states how the people that the Swedish ban purports to protect are the very people most adversely impacted by the ban. The report goes on to state that the 2010 official evaluation of the Swedish sex purchase ban provides little valid evidence of any noticeable difference since the introduction of the ban. Instead, sex workers were forced to sell their sex in areas less familiar, less safe and less visible. Their relationship with the law enforcement agencies deteriorated further.

Criminalised environments limit the abilities of sex workers to manage their own safety. It pushes those who may be more vulnerable in the first instance, street-based sex workers for example, to less familiar areas out of sight from law enforcers. The ban on the purchase of sex fails to acknowledge how and why women and men make choices to sell sex and it merely imposes constraints on sex workers in their abilities to make contact with clients. Evidence is growing on the adverse effects of the sex purchase ban on sex worker's lives in Sweden. There are negative impacts, not just on sex worker's ability to keep safe, but also threatening sex worker’s personal lives in terms of eviction, child custody arrangements and immigration problems. Women’s voices are too often sidelined and silenced in debates on sex work.Instead, women are often infantilised regarding their choice to sell sex, as something that they have been coerced into through circumstances. By only allowing voices that fit a particular victim frame to be heard, we deny women the opportunity to speak for themselves, to own their own issues and, crucially, to be involved in decisions that affect their lives. Sex workers themselves should be at the centre of any policy or law which directly impacts their lives.