On Monday, October 20th, TD Ruth Coppinger launched a decriminalisation of sex work bill. The bill removes criminal sanctions for sex workers working together or hiring people to assist their work (e.g., security or a driver). In a press release from Red Umbrella Éireann, they made sure to underscore that the bill does not decriminalise violence against sex workers, including rape, exploitation, or trafficking. They wrote “the current client criminalisation and brothel-keeping laws have failed and have actively made the lives of current sex workers worse”.
The bill was co-created by Red Umbrella Éireann, the Sex Workers Alliance Ireland and the Street Workers Collective. Red Umbrella Éireann said they were “drawing on lived experience and mountains of evidence to bring forward a piece of legislation to fully decriminalise sex work and introduce regulations that centre the safety of sex workers”.
Coppinger said, criticising the 2017 Sexual Offences Act, that “Violence against sex workers, either by clients or by members of the Gardaí, remains widespread” and that the current legislation has made “[sex workers] more vulnerable to this violence”. Coppinger will be bringing the bill into the Dáil and pursuing support from TDs and Senators to progress the bill.
Red Umbrella Éireann claims that since the introduction of the 2017 bill under the “Nordic Model”, violence against sex workers has increased by 92%. UglyMugs.ie, a report service for sex workers in Ireland, showed that in the first year after the law, there was a 54% increase in crime and a 77% increase in violent crime.
The Street Workers Collective said the bill “is a direct response to this policy failure”, adding “You cannot criminalise people out of poverty”, and that the bill is “focused on protecting sex workers in work and removing barriers for those who want to do something else rather than trapping people in a punitive system”.
Linda Kavanagh, a spokesperson for Sex Workers Ireland, said, “Anyone who cares about violence against sex workers, violence against women, the rights of the LGBTQI+ community, migrants, undocumented people, people in poverty and insecure housing or homelessness, people in addiction and people with disabilities MUST support this bill.”
The bill is influenced by existing decriminalisation laws in New Zealand and parts of Australia, and Belgium.
