Thank you for inviting Sex Workers Alliance Ireland to speak. A special hello to the sex workers amongst us tonight.
When was the last time you heard someone respectfully use the words “sex worker” in your workplace? Have you ever heard a joke made at a sex worker’s expense? Have you ever seen a movie where the main character is a sex worker, but their job is inconsequential to the plot? Have you ever raved about a documentary that showcases how sex work improves someone’s life?
Often when we think about violence in relation to sex work, we might not recognise how our own behaviour contributes to stigma and discrimination against sex workers. When we hear the words “sex worker” do we think about taboo sexual activity, or do we think about informed consent? Do we think about vilifying and criminalising customers, or do we think about sex workers wanting to work together for safety without the risk of criminal conviction? Do we think about who is profiting from sex work or do we think about sex workers topping up the gas meter to heat their home? Do we think about the permanency of nudes being posted online or do we think about financial companies stealing money and banning sex workers from earning online?
Moral panic is muddying our ability to hear what sex workers have to say. Sex workers are telling us that they want decriminalisation so that they can choose where, with whom and how they work. Safely. The 2019 review of the criminalisation of paying for sexual services in Northern Ireland, reported that a heightened fear of crime has contributed to a climate whereby sex workers feel further marginalised and stigmatised. This is evidence that politicians are choosing to retain these laws whilst being aware that they are continuing to oppress the sex worker community. How we can continue to accept this is unfathomable.
Violence is perpetrated via marginalisation and stigma. I ask you now, to take a moment to imagine the fear experienced by people who say, “I am a sex worker”. Tonight, we have come together as a community to declare that we are united against violence. As always, I ask you to show your solidarity with sex worker rights by giving a big cheer now woo. Reclaim the night, thank you.
Risk of eviction, mass surveillance and threats to our livelihood are just some of the issues that sex workers have faced just days into the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence.
“We have been inundated with calls and messages from sex workers who have received texts from the Gardaí. These texts have terrorised a population that is already fearful of interaction with the Gardaí” says Linda Kavanagh from the Sex Workers Alliance Ireland (SWAI).
“This week there have been reports of so-called welfare checks by Gardaí on sex workers, where Gardaí have posed as clients and lied to sex workers to get access to them. The Gardaí have then taken the names of the landlords of these premises. Brothel raids have been conducted both north and south of the border and there have been trafficking arrests. However, there is no mention of the welfare of the sex workers who worked there. This is not how to go about combatting trafficking and exploitation in the sex industry.”
“The 2017 law is failing on its own terms. It has pushed sex work underground, away from Gardaí and services that can help. The law does nothing to improve the situation of a population who are already on the margins of society. In order to improve relationships with Gardaí, we must decriminalise sex work so that sex workers can feel safe reporting crimes against them. Sex workers deserve to be safe and they deserve laws that uphold their safety.”
SWAI is frequently contacted by academics, organisations, and individual researchers within and outside of Ireland to support their research by identifying participants, promoting research, facilitating peer interviews, and participating in advisory panels.
We are aware of the sex worker community being over-researched by non-peers without outcomes that improve sex workers’ lives. SWAI is concerned about the fatigue and potential for increased poor mental health outcomes for sex workers participating in interviews, with little or no appropriate follow-up offered by professionals.
We recognise that there may be occasional variations to the rule, however where there is capacity, we shall be prioritising our labour/knowledge/network access towards research requests that are conducted by sex worker researchers and concerning topics which support the objectives of a) improving the working and living conditions of sex workers, b) progressing our work to eliminate stigma and discrimination, and c) increasing access to support services
If you would like to contact us regarding your research, please complete our criteria of assessment for requests of SWAI engagement with research:
Do you have lived experience in the sex industry (all responses will be treated with confidentiality, more details below)?
Have you already secured funding for your research? If yes, please specify.
What are the needs of the research?
Do you want SWAI to promote?
Do you want SWAI to recruit participants? If yes, what is the agreed participant payment?
Do you want SWAI to recruit peer researchers? If yes, what is the reimbursement of labour to SWAI?
Do you want SWAI staff to participate in advisory panels? If yes, how many hours will be required?
Other requirements, please detail.
How does the research topic align with SWAI’s values and Mission Statement?
All applications received will be confidential in accordance with our policy of not ‘outing’ sex workers. We will respond to your request based on the information you have provided and our availability. Please note that our staff work part-time. It is recommended that you do not rely solely on SWAI participation as we have very limited capacity to approve requests.
We are so pleased to announce the new SWAI board! The Sex Workers Alliance Ireland welcome Leea Berry, Leah Butler and Lianne O’Hara to our board of directors.
Leea Berry is a Domina and activist taking the role of Treasurer of the Board. Her experiences of harassment and eventually eviction by the Gardaí under the Nordic model in Ireland make her an ideal candidate, with lived experience of life as a sex worker in Ireland.
Leah Butler is taking the role of Chair of the Board and has a BA (Hons) in History and Folklore with structured electives in Equality Studies from University College Dublin. She brings a wealth of experience in grassroots activism and community organising to this role.
Lianne O’Hara is taking the role of Secretary. She is a poet and playwright. Her debut play Fluff, following two Dublin strippers through an evening’s work, sold out a six-show run at the Smock Alley Theatre as part of Dublin Fringe Festival 2022. Her deep ties to the sex worker community are invaluable to our organisation.
This board, along with our new coordinator Mardi Kennedy, will ensure a sustainable, sex worker community-focused organisation fighting for the human rights and safety of sex workers on the island of Ireland. To find out more about our team please check out the About Us section of the website.
We are also seeking additional board members for SWAI. If you are interested please read this Board Call Out post and email [email protected]. We are actively seeking board members from diverse and non-traditional backgrounds, and particularly welcome applications from current or former sex workers. Come join our team in the fight to ensure the voices of sex workers are heard
Sex Workers Alliance Ireland (SWAI) advocates for the human rights and safety of sex workers on the island of Ireland. SWAI is dedicated to decriminalisation, destigmatisation, and community development through outreach, changes in policy and legislation, and increased visibility of sex work in society.
SWAI is a frontline, sex worker-led and community-focused non-governmental organisation in Ireland. We understand ‘sex workers’ as anyone engaged in transactional sexual services indoor, outdoor, and online – including but not limited to street workers, brothel workers, strippers, escorts, those working in massage parlours, online content creators, and pro dommes. Within this definition, we recognise differences in gender, socio-economic background, ethnicity, migratory status, sexuality, and how these may influence one’s work experiences and definitions of self in relation to sex work (working girl, prostitute, entertainer, dancer, gigolo, masseuse, etc).
SWAI believes in full decriminalisation, human rights for sex workers, equality, confidentiality, bodily autonomy, freedom of movement and migration, inclusion, anti-capitalism, and anti-white supremacy. We have a strict policy of not outing sex workers.
The Role:
Sex Workers Alliance Ireland (SWAI) seeks applications for appointment as directors of its Board, who are Trustees and volunteers.
The Board is made up of six to seven directors, including three officers (Chair, Secretary and Treasurer).
For Board directors, a range of skills are sought, both within and outside the community development sector, to devise and implement a strategy of advocacy, education, and research in relation to the advance of human rights for sex workers, and to govern the organisation, as a company limited by guarantee and not-for-profit NGO.
Responsibilities will include the following:
Providing input to the strategic direction of SWAI and contributing with insight, oversight, and experience in strategic planning in the sector
Policy formation, planning and implementation as required
Governance responsibilities
Essential Skills/Qualities required for the role:
An understanding of and commitment to SWAI’s objectives, in particular advocacy and education in relation to the advance of human rights for sex workers
Commitment to the highest levels of governance
Desirable Skills/Qualities/Profile required for Board members:
Persons with experience in sex work, indoor, outdoor, or online
Persons with experience as Chair, Treasurer, or Secretary
A deep appreciation and knowledge of the community development sector
An understanding of horizontal, non-hierarchical organising
An understanding of the current landscape in relation to sex work in Ireland, both in policy and legal frameworks and in the community
Persons with experience in finance; research; accounting; administration; or
Practising or retired academics, solicitors, barristers, mental health professionals, social workers, in Ireland or Northern Ireland
General duties of a Trustee:
Comply with the organisation’s governing documents
Ensuring the organisation is complying with its purpose for the public benefit
Acting in the best interest of the organisation
Act with reasonable care and skill
Manage the assets of the organisation
Term:
The vacancy will be appointed by co-option on and with effect from 15 February 2023. The term will last until the next Annual General Meeting (September 2023), at which there is a possibility of election for a subsequent term of at least one year.
Board Meetings:
There will be 6 board meetings per year. There will also be monthly team meetings that board directors are requested to attend. Board and team meetings are typically held online.
Diversity:
Sex Workers Alliance Ireland is committed to diversity in appointments to the Board and team, in terms of gender; age; ethnicity; sexual orientation; the inclusion of sex workers and those involved in community development; geography in terms of residence or place of business on the island of Ireland (including both legal jurisdictions).
The Nomination Committee, led by the Chair, has been asked to have regard to the skills and diversity on the Board and to recommend appointments, where possible, on the basis of bringing the Board towards a balance ensuring the highest level of diversity possible.
We particularly welcome applications from current or former sex workers.
Application Deadline:
Applications should be made to [email protected] by 15 January 2023 and will be treated strictly in confidence. Please include in your application previous board experience (if any), a short statement outlining your motivation for wanting to join the SWAI Board of Directors, and, if you wish, your status as a sex worker (if any).
Linda Kavanagh, communications manager for the Sex Workers Alliance Ireland (SWAI) says “The Trafficking in Persons Report released yesterday highlights that there has been no successful labour trafficking prosecutions in Ireland in the past year. Two prosecutions in Ireland show that the Irish government is still falling short of any meaningful reduction in sex trafficking. SWAI demands that sex work is decriminalised to help identify victims.”
She continued “It is no surprise to us that victims of labour trafficking were deported even though they self-identified. In a meeting with SWAI in 2020 senior Gardaí told us they did not believe self-identified trafficking victims existed and those claiming this status were doing so solely to avoid deportation.”
“Year after year the Trafficking in Persons report, and experts, acknowledge that Direct Provision is unsuitable accommodation for trafficking victims, which is a tacit acknowledgement that Direct Provision can compound trauma and is not fit for purpose. We support calls to End Direct Provision.”
“Since 2017 when the law introduced client criminalisation and increased fines and jail time for so-called brothel keeping, Ireland has struggled to identify trafficking victims. Gardaí themselves have admitted to us that intelligence has fallen since the law was introduced. This is because Gardaí are antagonising their best resource to combat sex trafficking, sex workers themselves.
Prevention and resilience to trafficking are better than prosecution after the fact. Central to anti-trafficking strategies in other sectors are workers’ ability to organise, unionise and report. Sex workers are not allowed to organise in this way because they must work alone to work legally. Other avenues of reporting and identification should be available to trafficking victims as recommended by this report. A firewall is needed between immigration and sex crimes so that undocumented people feel safe to report crimes against them without fear of deportation.
The war in Ukraine is cynically being used by sex work prohibitionists to push their agenda, despite there being no evidence that Ukrainian women are being trafficked here for sex. This is a waste of precious resources that could be used to help vulnerable people such as those in poverty, domestic violence situations, homelessness or addiction.
If the Gardaí and the state want to combat trafficking and organised crime they should use laws for those specific purposes, not arresting consensual adults. There is no evidence that client criminalisation reduces either sex work or trafficking. How long will Ireland continue to stubbornly refuse to listen to sex workers when they say they want to help, but they can’t?
The Sex Workers Alliance Ireland (SWAI) welcomes the news that the first country in Europe has decriminalised sex work. “Belgium has shown us that decriminalisation of sex work in Europe is possible and Ireland must sit up and pay attention to the mounting evidence that criminalisation of sex work creates vulnerability and increases violence.”
“Belgium has taken the historic step to ensure that sex workers’ safety is prioritised. By listening to sex workers and allies they removed sex work from criminal laws which allows it to be regulated like any other profession.”
These laws were brought in while increasing sentences for rape and centring consent within the law. Sex workers have been actively excluded from discussion on consent in Ireland which is extremely dangerous and short-sighted. The decriminalisation of sex work recognises in law that sex work and sex trafficking are separate. Laws that aim to reduce trafficking by “ending demand” for sex work, such as we have in Ireland, have led to sex workers becoming more vulnerable.
Belgium’s new laws state ensures that minors selling sex remains illegal as does pimping. The law now allows for sex workers to be legitimate employees, with all the rights granted to any other person in the labour force.
Allowing sex workers to legally hire 3rd parties such as accountants means that they are less open to exploitation. Sex work tends to be a cash business as banks in Belgium were prohibited from allowing sex workers to open an account. This law ensures sex workers can use banks and reduced the precarity that sex workers face. This also means that landlords are no longer prohibited from renting to sex workers. In Ireland, so-called Garda welfare checks have led to the eviction of a number of sex workers this winter.
Some aspects of the law remain a concern such as advertising remaining illegal. Bans on advertising lead to stigmatisation and sex workers being kicked off social media platforms. Without advertising some workers will be forced to return to outdoor working which is markedly less safe because sex workers have little time to screen their clients on the street.
We await the full details of this law but this news has given us hope while we await the overdue review of our own laws which has seen violence against sex workers increase by 92%. Sex workers deserve to be heard in Irish Society and Ireland must emulate Belgium by listening to active sex workers about what they need.
Today is International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers and we want to highlight how, through government policies, the state pushes people into sex work.Years of austerity, the housing crisis, lack of supports for people using drugs, Direct Provision, limits to how many hours international students can work, lack of decent employment, lack of affordable childcare and precarious work are all contributing factors as to why people enter sex work.
Aoife Bloom, board member of SWAI said “Once people have entered sex work the current law in place ensures they are not safe. Client criminalisation was introduced in 2017 along with increases in the penalties and a potential jail sentence for working together for safety. This means that to work legally sex workers must work alone. Almost all sex workers we speak to would like the option of sharing a premises for safety. Most of the people who have been arrested for so-called brothel-keeping have been young, migrant sex workers.”
Client criminalisation has not ended sex work in Ireland but it has given the client the upper hand in the negotiating process. A sex worker has to ensure the client feels safe as the client is the one taking the risk. The legal pressure that clients face is absorbed by sex workers. This means shorter negotiation times, more risk-taking such as not using a condom, less screening and taking on clients you would normally refuse to make up for lost income. The reality is sex work is still partially if not fully criminalised in Ireland. When you decriminalise the act of selling sex yet make all the conditions for selling sex illegal, it is just ideology.
Recently a spate of so-called welfare checks by Gardaí have terrorised sex workers and even resulted in evictions. In the middle of winter, during an increase in the numbers of people contracting COVID, at the height of the housing crisis sex workers are being forced out of their homes by their landlords who cannot rent to them for fear of prosecution. This is the direct result of the law passed in 2017 which was supposed to end exploitation. Both the Gardaí and landlords are obliged to follow the law. The reality is that the Gardaí can’t help people that they are criminalising.”
“We are already degraded, objectified and mistreated by so many abusers and sometimes by the general public, we do not need to be treated in the same manner by the government or by officers of the law.”
– Naomi, active sex worker in Ireland
Aoife says “Criminalising the purchase of sex has done nothing to remove the reasons why women sell sex in the first place, and neither did lockdown. No supports were put in place when this law was introduced. Sex work is an economic activity and sex workers need rights like all other workers. The first step is to decriminalise sex work so that the health and safety of sex workers can be prioritised.”
“I want it to be safe for everyone. It’s all about our safety.”
The Sex Workers Alliance Ireland (SWAI) invites all sex workers, supporters and allies to join us at a candlelit vigil to mark International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers #IDEVASW.
The review of the laws governing sex work has stalled, Garda “welfare checks” have resulted in sex workers being evicted and sex workers have been deported during a global pandemic.
We have also seen some more prosecutions of violent criminals who attacked sex workers in the aftermath of the change in the law in 2017. For the second year in a row Ireland languishes in the Tier 2 Watchlist of the Trafficking in Persons report. Despite the promises of client criminalisation fewer trafficking victims have been identified and violence against sex workers has increased by 92%.
Stigma against sex workers rages on and affects the health, safety and security of sex workers in Ireland. We will have a moment’s silence for those who have suffered violence and lost their lives due to this abhorrent stigma.
We ask you to join us on Friday Dec 17th to call for an end to violence against sex workers, and to acknowledge that our laws do not address the root needs of sex workers, which are rights, health, safety and security.
Please contact Linda privately & confidentially for more information or join us at 6:30pm outside Leinster House. Email: [email protected]
This Trans Day of Remembrance LGBTQI+ organisations must stand with the Sex Workers Alliance of Ireland (SWAI) when we call for the full decriminalisation of sex work. Any alternative is putting the health and safety of trans people at risk.
Aoife Bloom, board member of SWAI says “Today, on Trans Day of Remembrance 2021 we demand that society acknowledges how the majority of trans people who were killed in 2021 were trans sex workers.
2021 is a record-breaking year for violence against trans people. 375 gender diverse people were murdered and the majority of those murdered were black and migrant. Over half of those murdered were sex workers. When we talk about transphobic violence and Trans Day of Remembrance we’re usually talking about trans sex workers of colour.”
Our current model of client criminalisation does not respond to the circumstances of deep poverty, domestic violence, homelessness, precarity and drug use that may lead to people selling sex. Sex workers exist on the sharp end of misogyny, racism, transphobia and other forms of marginalisation. Sex workers must work alone to work legally which increases our vulnerability.
How long more can government, health authorities, and gender equality bodies here ignore the growing body of evidence that shows that their policies are damaging and endangering to the physical and mental health of this precarious group of people?
SWAI demands that organisations that claim to support trans people start to advocate and agitate for the full decriminalisation of sex work. Decriminalisation is essential for combating trans marginalisation and HIV rates, building trust with marginalised communities and providing access to sexual health supports. You cannot be pro LGBT rights without being pro-sex worker rights.”
