Official Report on N.Ireland sex purchase law declares it a failure

Article 64A of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Criminal Justice and Support for Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) 2015 made it a criminal offence ‘to pay for the sexual services of a person’. The Act also included a requirement on the Department Of Justice to review the operation of Article 64A after a period of three years and to report to the Northern Ireland Assembly on the findings of the review. This report has now been published.

Key findings of the research include:

A trend analysis of 173,460 advertisements indicates that the legislation has had little effect on the supply of or demand for sexual services

This analysis indicates there has been a 5% increase in the number of sex work advertisements since the law was changed

Sex workers reported a surge in business in the period following introduction of the legislation

The number of unique sex workers advertising also increased in the post law period from 3,351 to 3,973, an increase of 622
1,450 advertisements for sexual services were noted over a 6-day period in April 2019

It is estimated that the number of sex workers advertising per day is 308, similar to the number noted in the earlier research

Based on the premise that criminalisation would end demand for commercial sexual services there should have been a greater ‘tailing off’ of sex worker advertising during the period following the implementation of Article 64A. This has not occurred

The on-street prostitution sector has declined further since the 2014 research, from around 20 to less than 10

Serious crimes against sex workers in Northern Ireland are comparatively rare. However, between 2015 and 2018 there has been an increase in the number of reports on the Uglymugs.ie website in relation to, for example, assaults (from 3 to 13) sexual assaults (from 1 to 13) and threatening behaviour (from 10 to 42)

Sex workers are exposed to higher rates of anti-social and nuisance behaviour

Sex workers reported higher levels of anxiety and unease, and increased stigmatisation.

You can read the complete 177 page report at [www.justice-ni.gov.uk] or the seven page Department of Justice summary at [www.justice-ni.gov.uk].

There has been a predictable response from Julie Bindel.

[www.independent.co.uk]

Interesting. I did my own research after the law was introduced in 2015 using a similar methodology, though much less rigorous I'm sure. I came to a similar conclusion - that there was a small rise in on-line advertising and from this I concluded that the law was ineffective. I did similar research when Eire introduced a similar law. Guess what; same result. Looking wider, Sweden is held up as the shining example of the Nordic Law. Try putting "Stockholm Escort" into any search engine if you want to see how effective the law is there.

At the time, PSNI said, though not in so many words, that they had better things to do with their time than hounding adult consensual paid-for sex.

Julie Bindel's response is typically muddled thinking, whereby she blames Police Service Northern Ireland (PSNI) for lack of enforcement and conflates prostitution with organised crime, without providing any evidence (which she seldom does). Surely, if organised crime were a serious factor then PSNI would take more than an interest? Making an aspect of prostitution illegal (buying sex in this case) makes it more likely that organised crime will become involved, because if there is no crime then nothing for criminal gangs to exploit.

I am strongly believe under age sex, trafficking and the use of force to coerce women (and men) to sell sex should be illegal, as it is now with a whole raft of laws to prevent such actions. However I believe the criminal law has no role when consenting adults agree to buy and sell sexual services.