Press Release: Decriminalisation of sex work bill launched by TD Ruth Coppinger

The bill was co-created by Red Umbrella Éireann, the Sex Workers Alliance Ireland and the Street Workers Collective. These organisations are made up of sex workers and activists who are 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. 

Launching the bill yesterday at the Red Umbrella Film Festival, Ruth Coppinger said “Reducing demand was a key aim of the 2017 Sexual Offences Act — this incontrovertibly has not worked, as the Minister for Justice himself admitted after the review of the legislation was published. 

Crucially, violence against sex workers, either by clients or by members of the Gardaí, remains widespread and sex workers themselves have explained how the current legislation has been disempowering for them, making them therefore more vulnerable to this violence. 

Gender based violence and violence against queer people is rampant in every part of society. Any hint of further marginalisation or stigmatising of sex workers, of course, may worsen the type of violence they are vulnerable to experiencing.

I am very glad to support sex worker activists who have drafted a decriminalisation bill and are launching their campaign to build up support for the same. The bill has as its heart a desire to remove any means by which sex workers can be stigmatised, repressed or harassed by the state, or in any way criminalised. Anything less is discriminatory, and furthermore is exacerbating the intersection of sexism, racism, queerphobia and anti-working-class oppressions that so many sex workers' lives are affected by.” Ruth Coppinger will be bringing the bill to the Dáil and is seeking the support of TDs and Senators to progress the bill. 

“The Nordic Model was introduced under the premise that it would keep sex workers safe. However, research has shown that since its introduction 8 years ago, violence against sex workers has increased by 92%,” says Red Umbrella Éireann.

They continue “This bill is a direct response to this policy failure. Corroborated by thorough research and consultations with sex workers, this legislation directly addresses the dangers sex workers face — from reducing the risk of being a target for predators to removing barriers to reporting exploitation.”

The Street Workers Collective added “The model of criminalisation that we currently have allows Gardaí to continue to surveil and harass sex workers under the guise of protecting us. This is really dangerous because our experience with Gardaí is a violent one - one in five street workers have been sexually abused by them. It's crucial that we decriminalise sex work so that they don't have the same power to target us”.

“Criminalisation also prevents sex workers who want to leave from being able to do so. Many sex workers are doing sex work because of poverty and the current law just adds more suffering on top of the hardship we already face. You cannot criminalise people out of poverty. This 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, spokesperson for the Sex Workers Alliance Ireland (SWAI) 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. 

This bill removes criminal sanctions for sex workers working together or hiring people to help them in their work, such as security or a driver. It does NOT decriminalise violence against sex workers, rape, exploitation or trafficking. The current client criminalisation and brothel-keeping laws have failed and have actively made the lives of current sex workers worse. 

Since 2009, SWAI has campaigned for the decriminalisation of sex work. The bill pulls from existing decriminalisation laws in New Zealand/ Aotearoa, parts of Australia and Belgium. We are extremely proud to have co-created this bill and to have produced a piece of legislation that is evidence-based and reacts to the reality of sex workers' lives in Ireland.