Sir, – Sex Workers Alliance Ireland welcomes Conor Lally’s article (Home News, October 18th) highlighting the difficulties attached to introducing the Swedish-style law on prostitution which would criminalise the buyers of sexual services while giving immunity to the sellers.
Evidence from Swedish sex workers shows that the law has put them at much greater physical risk from dangerous clients; they have less time to assess the client as the deal takes place very hurriedly; genuine clients are afraid of being arrested, demands for unprotected sex have increased and there is more violence. (Purchasing Sexual Services in Sweden and the Netherlands: Legal Regulation and Experiences, Norwegian Ministry of Justice and the Police, (2004); Prostitution in Sweden, 2003).
Furthermore, research from Sweden to the UNAIDs group shows that 18 per cent of street sex workers are not using condoms . In addition, street prostitution has returned to two-thirds of its pre-criminalisation level in Stockholm (Prostitution in Sweden, Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare 2003). Therefore, if this law does not work in Sweden, why would Ireland consider introducing it?
Ireland should study interventions and policies in other countries, for example Queensland, Australia and New Zealand; or the initiatives trialled in Liverpool and supported by Merseyside Police and Liverpool City Council to address crimes against sex workers; police treating crimes against sex workers as hate crime and the role of a specialist independent sexual violence adviser (to support sex workers who have been victims of crime). – Yours, etc,