Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

-----the long consultations carried out at the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality. Like Senator Katherine Zappone, I was proud to be part of that and part of the small group which travelled to Sweden and heard direct evidence from those engaged in front-line implementation of the Swedish approach there. Our committee received 800 written submissions. We heard from 26 individuals and representatives of groups through public hearings. Senators may be interested to know that, through hearings, we heard from those for and against the Swedish approach. We heard from those engaged in prostitution both for and against the Swedish approach. I ask colleagues to look at the evidence basis of our recommendations and our report which is careful and well-worded and sets out how persuasive we found the evidence on the reduction of demand for prostitution in Sweden since the introduction of the prohibition on buying sex there in 1999. We noted that 80% of the submissions to us favoured the Swedish approach, that these were drawn from a broad cross-section of civil society, including, trade unions, frontline medical workers, service providers and those working with migrants, in particular.

We also found, again on evidence we heard, that prostitution is widely available across Ireland. It is highly organised, highly profitable, highly exploitative and largely controlled by organised crime interests. We heard that women enter prostitution in Ireland at a young age, many under 18, many are trafficked into prostitution and the vast majority are subject to control by a third party or pimped.

Even those witnesses who told us that they had entered prostitution freely and who argued against the Swedish approach said they represented, at most, 15% to 20% of those engaged in prostitution. Clearly, there is a huge level of coercion and exploitation taking place on a daily basis across Ireland in the actual reality of prostitution and yet I know, as a former practising lawyer, how flawed our current Irish model for regulating prostitution is based on public order and on prohibiting the visible manifestation of prostitution through criminalising loitering and soliciting.

I welcome the Minister's undertaking that she will bring forward amendments in this House to further decriminalise those women and men involved in selling sex and prostitution by removing those who offer sexual services from the existing offences of solicitation and loitering. We did not address this directly in the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality report but we asked the Minister to make those amendments to the legislation. We found ultimately that the focus of our current law on regulating supply and on targeting those engaged in selling sex, because those convicted of prostitution-related offences are overwhelmingly women and overwhelmingly those selling sex, was flawed and ineffective and we argued instead that we should adopt, as we are going to do in this legislation, a different approach which targets demand and criminalises only the purchase and not the sale of sex, similar to that introduced not only in Sweden but in other jurisdictions, including Norway, Iceland, Canada and, very recently, our neighbouring jurisdiction of Northern Ireland. There are real and valid concerns that if we do not adopt a similar law, we may become a safe haven for traffickers moving women South. We know the immense levels of exploitation here in the sex industry and we know who extensive it is.

The approach we are seeking to adopt in sections 20 and 21 is a sensible alternative one. We also found from our studies in Sweden and in our research that the Swedish law is part of a multi-policy initiative; it is not just a penal law approach. The Swedish authorities have also introduced harm reduction measures, initiatives to support those exiting from prostitution and, generally, they have adopted a holistic approach to tackling prostitution.