Human Trafficking and Prostitution: Motion

Human Trafficking and Prostitution: Motion

Wednesday, 12 October 2011

Senator Ivana Bacik: I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, and thank and commend Senator Katherine Zappone and the other Independent Senators for bringing forward the motion. This is a very important debate that has been ongoing for some time, as acknowledged by the Minister of State and others. I also thank and commend the many NGOs which have been working on this issue for many years, notably Ruhama which has been working on the front line with women engaged in prostitution.

I commend the Turn Off the Red Light campaign which was commenced to bring to an end prostitution and sex trafficking in Ireland. Many of us, including the Minister of State, were present at the launch of the campaign in Buswells some time ago. The Labour Party is one of the 40 organisations which signed up to it. I am proud to represent the Labour Party, which fully supports the aim of ensuring the putting in place of legislation to criminalise the purchase of sex. All Members agree with the aim of the Independent Senators, which is to put forward a legislative model in Ireland that is robust, will work within our constitutional system and will ensure the same outcome that has been achieved in Sweden. Like other Members, I have read the ten-year evaluation of the Swedish legislation. I had been interested to ascertain how that model has worked and there were some highly positive and exciting findings, notably that street prostitution has halved in Sweden since the introduction of that legislation. Moreover, as others have mentioned, Norway has followed suit. However, as Senator Power acknowledged, it is vital to build a coalition on this issue and the success of the Turn off the Red Light campaign to date is that it has built a broad-based coalition of different groups comprising civil society groups, political parties, trade unions and so on. One must move forward with this united front to legislate in a way that will stand up within our system.

That said, it is understandable that many would have found the Government's counter-motion and its wording somewhat disappointing in that it appears to suggest there is no sense of urgency in moving forward to the legislative model. I assure the Independent Senators in particular, as well as colleagues on the other side of the House, this is not the Government's intention and certainly as far as the Labour Party is concerned, as the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, has stated, it will be pressing in government to ensure the introduction of this legislation. However, as the Minister of State also observed, one cannot simply transpose the exact same model from a very different legal system. Particular issues arise in this jurisdiction and one must ensure the legislation one introduces is robust. I speak as someone who has defended successfully some women accused of offences under the 1993 Act under which, as the figures demonstrate, it is extremely difficult to prosecute.

The Minister of State has clarified the wording of the motion and has assured Members there is a sense of urgency at Government level and the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, has already taken some concrete steps to further matters. On Monday, he will publish the Dignity Project report arising out of his examination of the Swedish law and I understand that within six months, either the Minister himself or the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, will return to this House to report on progress that has been made. The Minister of State has referred to submissions being invited, which would be useful. The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality, of which Senator Bradford, other Senators and I are members, would be a useful forum in which to take submissions on potential models for the legislation and on how the legislation might be framed. The joint committee is doing this at present in respect of the vetting bureau Bill and will do so with regard to the withholding of information Bill. It is carrying out similar exercises on legislation that have complex drafting aspects and would be a useful forum. I am reassured by the Minister of State's statement to the effect there will be urgency in this regard and the Government will move forward in line with Labour Party policy and the intentions of the Turn off the Red Light campaign.

I will comment briefly on the history of legislation in this regard in Ireland. It has tended, the 1993 Act follows this model, to criminalise only the public display of the sale of sex and not the sale or purchase of sex itself directly and the Minister of State has referred to this. Our legislation prohibits loitering or soliciting for the purpose of prostitution, which of course means that those who seek to purchase sex, the clients, are criminalised and in some cases usually are prosecuted with more frequency than the women themselves. However, this is of course only where loitering or soliciting is done in public and there are quite difficult evidential barriers to get over when prosecuting. The origins of the Act date back to 19th-century law in which criminalisation of prostitution again was based on public order legislation. I refer to the Vagrancy Act 1824, which penalised the common prostitutes and to the horrendous Contagious Diseases Acts 1864 to 1869, which provided for compulsory incarceration for prostitutes.

The 1993 Act, which was introduced to try to reform the law, certainly was a great improvement on what had gone before when some horrifically repressive legislation had been in place. It did at least create gender-neutral offences for the first time and no longer simply criminalised the women. Moreover, as the Minister of State noted, it also introduced offences in respect of brothel-keeping, as well as offences that were much more protective of those who were engaged in prostitution. Unfortunately, however, it retained those traditional elements of loitering and soliciting and clearly the main thrust of the legislation was to try to control the display of prostitution in public. This concern perhaps was based on a political concern to protect neighbourhoods and so-called respectable society from this public display. The trafficking legislation, which was passed much more recently, shows the change in thinking and is much more concerned about protecting the victim. However, some evidential difficulties have also been identified with this legislation. This is also perhaps a consequence of the Supreme Court judgment in the CC case, with which some of us disagreed fundamentally, which overturned the strict liability offence of unlawful carnal knowledge and provided that a defence must be present where someone states he or she made a mistake as to the age of the underage child. This may be an issue that must be grappled with in framing a Swedish-style law prohibiting solely the purchase of sex or in other words, the Swedish model of criminalising the buyers that tackles demand rather than supply.

As the Government counter-motion, the Independent Senators and everyone else acknowledge, it is of course not simply about legislation and other ways must also be considered to tackle demand in particular, and to seek to end exploitation. I note the Turn off the Red Light campaign and others have been looking at ways of closing down telephone lines or websites because the manifest advertising of telephone lines or websites is perhaps the most obvious proof of prostitution. The Swedish evaluation demonstrates the potential that lies in the model being used there to criminalise the clients and to focus on demand. It also demonstrates a way forward away from the old model, on which Ireland has been far too reliant in the past, of criminalising only public display in criminalising loitering and soliciting in a public order sense. All Members are united in their desire to see a fundamental shift in the law away from the emphasis on public order and towards protection of the victim and a recognition of those engaged in prostitution as victims themselves, be they victims of trafficking or of exploitation even if they have not been trafficked. This is the great merit of the Swedish legislation and is what we must replicate in Ireland. However, the Government side can assure Members on both sides of the House that all are united in that aim. It is in this spirit that I second the amendment and am greatly reassured by that to which the Minister of State has committed on the record of this House.