David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

They are open to the most severe challenge. I refer to a 2007 report of the National Board of Health and Welfare in Sweden. That is quite official; it is a fairly authoritative voice. It states:

It is also difficult to discern any clear trend of development: has the extent of prostitution increased or decreased? We cannot give any unambiguous answer to that question. [How does the Minister respond to that?] At most, we can discern that street prostitution is slowly returning, after swiftly disappearing in the wake of the law against purchasing sexual services. But as said, that refers to street prostitution, which is the most obvious manifestation. With regard to increases and decreases in other areas of prostitution - the 'hidden prostitution' - we are even less able to make any statements.

The Minister of State does not want to have a review because he does not want to face these facts.

Women involved in prostitution say that criminalising clients will see more women being trafficked into Ireland. After all, pimps always have access to clients. The new law will cause sex workers to be much more secretive about their job and unlikely to reach out to agencies for help and support. This is the wonderful way in which the Minister of State is helping women. The Swedish National Police Board issued a press release in 2010, a decade or so after the new law was introduced in that country, which stated:

Serious organized crime, including prostitution and trafficking, has increased in strength, power and complexity during the past decade. It constitutes a serious social problem in Sweden and organised crime makes large amounts of money from the exploitation and trafficking of people under slave-like conditions.

That is the effect in another jurisdiction of the law the Minister of State proposes to introduce here. No wonder he does not want to learn about its effects. No wonder he does not want to have an examination or review of the provisions he has brought forward.

In a survey of sex workers in the United Kingdom, a roughly similar jurisdiction to ours with a very similar social make-up and so on, one of the key findings was that the large majority of interviewed migrant workers in the sex industry were not forced or trafficked into prostitution. In Northern Ireland, it was found that 98% of prostitutes interviewed were fully against the provisions the Government is introducing here. The UK study found that immigration status is by far the most important factor restricting sex workers' ability to exercise their rights in their professional and private lives. Working in the sex industry, it noted, is often a way for migrants to avoid the unrewarding and sometimes exploitative conditions they meet in non-sexual jobs.

I turn now to the negative consequences of the law, particularly the increased risk of violence. Although there is no reliable study on the issue, sex workers express fear of increased violence, as well as the conviction of an actual increase. Unlike speakers on the other side of the House, I am referring to actual research. Other speakers can only cite their jaunt to Sweden where they failed to engage with any of the groups working with prostitutes. They refused, for example, to meet representatives of the Rose Alliance and ignored the fact that when they were there, figures were released showing an enormous increase in prostitution and trafficking. I am referring to research conducted by Dodillet and Östergren in 2011, Scoular in 2010, Hubbard in 2008, the Norwegian Ministry of Justice in 2004 and Östergren in 2004. The Skarhed report of 2010 notes that a 2003 Swedish Government report referred to a heightened risk for sex workers because of greater competition among women for fewer clients. However, being a Swedish Government report, it concluded that this increase in violence was not the fault of the law but of the women themselves. As I said, the report by Queen's University, Belfast, noted that criminalisation of clients is not considered a useful policy measure by the vast majority of sex workers. Only 2% of the 171 workers who took part in its survey agreed that criminalising clients was a good idea. That is the level of support for these changes among sex workers.

In Sweden, sex workers and researchers say the crackdown on street-based sex selling has forced women to move to more hidden and thus potentially dangerous locations. The men still on the streets are reportedly the more dangerous ones, while the nicer, safer clients have moved to the Internet. That is a factor of which no account seems to have been taken. Since the 1980s, there has been a significant drift from the street to the Internet, a reality that is not reflected in this law. As sex workers avail of more hidden locations to avoid the police, they may end up in the hands of third parties in an effort to stay out of the view of the police and secure clients. That is documented in the 2011 paper by Dodillet and Östergren, the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare report of 2007 and the 2008 paper by Bernstein. Is the Minister of State prepared to deal with these facts? Will he indicate whether he or his advisers have read the Queen's University report, Research into Prostitution in Northern Ireland?

I take this opportunity to offer a number of comments by Irish sex workers. It is vital that their voices are not silenced.