Landlords engaging in ‘sex for rent’ arrangements should be targeted by new laws - report

Landlords who are engaging in “sex for rent” arrangements should be targeted in a clearly named offence and the powers of the Residential Tenancies Board should be broadened to support renters facing harassment, a report from the National Women’s Council (NWCI) has said.

The report, published on Thursday, made nine recommendations on how sex for rent in Ireland’s rental market should be tackled by the Government.

These included that user-to-user platforms, such as those carrying ads for sex for rent arrangements, should be brought under the remit of the Online Safety Commissioner.

Any new law against the arrangements “should recognise sex for rent as a sexual offence, apart and removed from sex purchase laws, to avoid the stigmatisation and low reporting encountered in other jurisdictions”, the report said.

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It also recommended that the Department of Justice legislate to bring renters in licensee arrangements under the Residential Tenancy Act to give them greater legal protection, and the Department of Housing Heritage and Local Government should “broaden the remit of the Residential Tenancies Board to cover issues of sexual harassment within rental housing”.

Financial sanctions should be put on any social media platforms failing to filter visible harmful content offering such arrangements, it said.

Calling on the new domestic, sexual and gender based violence agency, Cuan, to conduct large scale research into the issue in Ireland, the NWC said the research should “begin to scope out the extent of the issue in terms of prevalence, so it can be addressed in terms of policy and the provision of services and supports for victims”.

Most landlords seeking these exploitative arrangements do not openly specify sex for rent when they advertise, the report said, which was “in part to avoid detection and having their ad filtered out by moderators”.

Instead, landlords “intentionally make the text ambiguous and ill defined”, however, most had “key characteristics” including an absence of photographs of the property, no advertised rental price, or declaring the rental price as negotiable, a failure to identify the exact location of the property, and targeting a particular type of renter – mostly female and frequently referring to a preferred demeanour.

In sample ads, landlords sought “submissive women who would like to trade in return for lodgings” and “non-party type women” and stated they were “open to offers in return of favours”. Others included a request for a photograph of a physical description of the woman.

Feargha Ní Bhroin, NWC’s Violence Against Women Officer and author of the report, said sex for rent exploitation was “gendered”, with women “overwhelmingly” the people who are impacted most.

It is a “damaging, degrading and dehumanising” exploitation women were facing, Orla O’Connor, director of the National Women’s Council, said.

“Our research has shown us that it is the most marginalised women who are impacted. We are talking about women experiencing homelessness, migrant women including women refugees who are trying to leave Direct Provision, women fleeing domestic violence. And we know it is happening all over the country,” she said.

“However, there is also a lack of in-depth research about the real prevalence of this form of sexual exploitation,” Ms O’Connor added.

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