Sir, – It seems to me that the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality report into sex work should, more appropriately, result in a tribunal of public inquiry than any form of legislation. Sex workers are adults deemed mentally competent under law who are committing no crime and yet every possible obstacle has been placed in the way of them making any contribution to this consultation which is, after all, about their lives and their futures, and in a manner I feel certain is contrary to all parliamentary precedents, and in denial of their civil and constitutional rights.
That is not hard to do as the stigma against sex workers is so great that to risk exposure is to risk losing everything, and that is a risk no mother (and most sex workers are mothers) has the right to take.
The Oireachtas committee visited Sweden twice without speaking to a single one of the many Swedish sex workers and former sex workers whose lives have been devastated because of Sweden’s bizarre ideological legislation.
I also wish to suggest that the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality make amends for the travesty of their report into sex work by conducting the hearings they should have conducted in the first place with bona fide sex workers on a live audio feed only (to protect their identities). – Yours, etc,
GAYE DALTON,
Naas,
Co Kildare.
Sir, – The call by 14 academics for laws targeting the buyers of sex (May 20th) is a timely reminder of Ireland's inadequate response to the multibillion euro crime of human trafficking. The 12-month delay in implementing the unanimous recommendations of the Oireachtas Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality for such laws not only allows this crime to flourish but is also a betrayal of the women and girls who are being sexually exploited.
As a frontline agency that has supported more than 50 women, we are all too familiar with the reality of sex trafficking. The stories of survivors are all depressingly similar; sold as teenagers often by family members for about €3,000, tricked into coming to Ireland only for reality to dawn at Dublin Airport where passports are seized by a pimp and hours later starting life in a brothel to be raped many times a day.
Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald must not only introduce laws targeting demand for prostitution but should also use a new national action plan on human trafficking being prepared in her department to deliver real change.
In the past year Ireland has been criticised by the Council of Europe, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the US state department for failing to identify and protect victims of trafficking. It is unacceptable that as a result of our failings vulnerable women and girls are being placed in the direct provision system with no supports to help them recover.
We now have an opportunity to bring in substantive measures that will put pimps and traffickers out of business while at the same time protecting the vulnerable and exploited. – Yours, etc,
NUSHA YONKOVA,
Anti-Trafficking
Coordinator,
Immigrant Council
of Ireland,
Andrew Street, Dublin 2.