Ask your Candidate By-Election 2021

  1. What do you think about our sex work laws? 
  2. Are you aware of the Sex Workers Alliance Ireland (SWAI), the only front-line, sex worker-led organisation in Ireland?
  3. Are you aware that when sex workers must work alone to work legally? 100% of sex workers SWAI speaks to want the option to work with a friend. Two sex workers were given a jail sentence in 2019, one of whom was pregnant. 
  4. Are you aware that almost all of the people who have been prosecuted under our brothel-keeping laws are young, migrant women? Not traffickers, not pimps but the very people that our laws are supposed to “rescue”. Did you realise that many more sex workers due to brothel-keeping laws have been arrested than their clients?   
  5. Are you aware that since the laws changed in 2017 there has been a 92% increase in violent crime against sex workers? Are you aware that there has also been a near 20% decrease in willingness to report to Gardai? 
  6. During the pandemic, we got a taste of what End Demand looks like. Most sex workers in Ireland were unable to access government supports and over half were unable to give up sex work. Did our sex work laws help sex workers during this frightening time?
  7. Do you support the rights of sex workers, beyond them exiting sex work? What do you think sex workers would need to leave sex work or to not engage in the first place? 
  8. Are you aware that there is a review of the law currently underway? Will you push for SWAI and currently working sex workers to be involved in the review? Our voices were actively excluded from the consultation when the law was introduced.

 

Politicians will try and avoid answers to hard questions so you can use this opportunity to inform them

We have made a handy printable guide so you can stick this on your door and be ready for whenever politicians call to your home looking for a vote.