The new Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill was introduced yesterday to the Dáil. Included in the legislation is two new offences which criminalise paying for sexual activity with a sex worker.
In both cases, the person providing the sexual service does not commit an offence.
Sex workers in Ireland say it won’t protect them and are calling for the sex industry to be completely decriminalised.
Shona Murray has been speaking to sex workers and former sex workers, and asked them how they felt about these particular offences.
Caitriona, who’s 24 and lives in Dublin and works around the country in the sex industry as a sex worker, spoke to Shona about her profession.
She went on to ask Catriona whether she’d suffered from violence from some of her clients. Catriona stated that she doesn’t wish to discuss this because she feels that if she talks about violence people point to the fact that she should not have been a prostitute in the first place:
Shona also spoke to people who have left the industry who support this legislation.
Mia was a prostitute for six years to feed a drug habit and experienced some really horrific situations.
One particular incident occurred around Christmas time in 2009, when eight middle-aged, middle-class men who were on a Christmas party booked her and a friend. They told them there would be just four men, but eight showed up. Things turned nasty and they were gang raped.
She also spoke about another really traumatic event:
Mia supports the legislation, and says its a fundamental shift in how Ireland treats women:
Catriona believes buying sex should be legal and acknowledged as a legitimate profession, and Ireland should look to New Zealand where sex workers have been supported by the Prostitution Reform Act 2003, which decriminalises prostitution and prostitutes are protected by the same laws about violence, sexual assault rape and all the rest that apply to all. Rape and sexual violence also carry very heavy sentences.
Mia says she respects women who want to work as sex workers, but the fact that they’ll lose their jobs doesn’t keep her awake at night.
