Sir, – Denise Charlton's letter (January 16th) regarding the Sexual Offences Bill, disappointingly but not surprisingly, ties in the criminalisation of sex buyers with a totally unrelated topic, namely the recent scandal of Facebook pictures being "harvested".
Enacting the Sexual Offences Bill would make no difference as the sites concerned were not in Ireland, and, if any such offence took place in Ireland, it would be already covered under the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998 and the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2007.
Ms Charlton’s real aim is the criminalisation of the purchase of sex.
Contrary to Ms Charlton’s assertion that there is unanimous support for this Bill, the very people that this Bill is supposed to help, sex workers, are vociferously against it, because in every other jurisdiction where such legislation has been enacted, it has made life worse for sex workers.
The campaign to criminalise the buyers of sex is little more than a moral crusade by feminists and religious zealots. – Yours, etc,
PAUL WILLIAMS,
Kilkee,
Co Clare.