Today is the last day to make submissions to the White Paper on Crime Unit, Department of Justice and Equality RE White Paper on Crime Discussion Document No. 4 ‘The Community and the Criminal Justice System’. Our submission is below. Email whitepaperoncrime@justice.ie to make yours.
We are ‘Turn Off the Blue Light’ (TOBL), a sex worker led association campaigning for the health, safety, human, civil and labour rights of sex workers.
We represent sex workers. Most sex workers in Ireland today work indoors, though there are also some outdoor sex workers. Although, for most, working in the sex industry is a choice, we recognise that sometimes persons are trafficked or otherwise coerced into the sex industry.
We welcome the special measures in place for victims of human trafficking, notably the entitlement of anonymity for victims of trafficking, similar to that in place for rape and sexual assault victims.
However, we believe ALL sex worker victims of crime or witnesses of crime should be entitled to anonymity, and we request that the Department of Justice considers this matter.
It is currently uniquely difficult for sex workers to engage with the criminal justice system.
The possibility of being identified as a sex worker in the media as a result of reporting a crime or being a witness in a court case is actively stopping many sex workers reporting crime.
There is huge discrimination against sex workers in society.
Being publicly identified as a sex worker can be extremely harmful to sex workers and their families.
Crime against sex workers is grossly under-reported at present, and in order to redress this, protection of anonymity for sex worker victims or witnesses of crime must be provided.
Unfortunately at this time there are criminals deliberately targeting sex workers, because they recognise the unique difficulties for sex workers in reporting crime, and subsequently view sex workers as ‘easy targets’ who are unlikely to report crime. Common crimes against sex workers include threats, harassment, assault, robbery and fraud.
It is good that the need for anonymity for victims of trafficking, rape and sexual assault has been recognised, but measures need to be put in place to enable sex workers to engage with the criminal justice system when they are a victim of crime or if they are a witness of crime.
We are happy to provide further information on request. We note that submissions to the White Paper on Crime Unit may be published, and as a result we have not included some information deemed sensitive.
