There is a review of the Swedish model underway and submissions are being accepted at [email protected] until September 11th.
The Swedish model purportedly criminalizes the clients of sex workers and not sex workers themselves. But... (a thread)

Even well funded NGOs pushing for this law readily admit in their own literature that economic necessity drives most people into sex work. How does removing their means of income address needs that drives people to enter sex work? It doesn’t, it just removes their last resort.

If the only source of water in a village was less than satisfactory would you remove it to save the villagers without first supplying alternative better sources of water? No, of course not. That would kill everyone in the village.

When the Swedish model was introduced in Ireland violence against sex workers increased 92%.

The law originated in Sweden 20 years ago (hence the name) & has was introduced in several countries since. PSNI protested the law, saying it would make their jobs more difficult. Research commissioned by the NI govt (Ellison et al., 2019) showed concerns to be well founded.

There is always talk about the supply of exit supports when this law is proposed but even the NGOs that push for these laws admit they never materialize (High Level Working Group, 2019).

Instead those that are driven to sex work face eviction through brothel keeping laws, deportation and imprisonment, like 2 young women, one pregnant, sentenced to 9 months last year by judge desmond zaidan solely for the crime of working together for safety like gardai do.

When these NGOs realized that people in direct provision were resorting to sex work for survival the resounding cry wasn’t how do we remove their need to enter sex work but how do we stop them engaging in it.

If you think purchase of a service can be safely criminalized (bear in mind only sex workers are being evicted and imprisoned, never clients. I was evicted by Gardai and my client sent on his way) without hurting the seller, try and come up with an example where this might work.

Imagine if the only job you could find was baking cakes but the sale of cakes was criminalised. After you make the sale the gardai raid your bakery and take the money from the sale because it was earned from “crime” and give it to these well-funded NGOs.

The cake customer isn’t arrested because the gardai also love cake and are customers themselves, so the customer is sent on his way with a warning. Then they call your landlord and make him evict the baker. Who benefits here? How was the baker helped?

The more a person is marginalized the more likely they are to end up in sex work. Seriously, try and find a job in Ireland as a middle-aged intersex and trans person.

When gardaí bullied my landlord into evicting me other options didn’t magically materialize. No assistance was offered.

This law wasn’t just a disaster for me, its been a disaster for Ireland and vulnerable communities and individuals within Ireland.

It’s lead to Ireland’s fall to tier 2 watchlist on the trafficking in persons report. gardaí confessed to us that all trafficking intel has dried up since the law was introduced. Neither sex workers nor clients will risk reporting anything suspicious.

Coupled with Ireland’s sub par sex ed, the gardaí’s insistence on using condoms as evidence against the advice of WHO, Amnesty International and UNAIDS, contributing to Ireland’s highest HIV levels ever.

Below I will make a comprehensive list of the types of the groups that have benefitted from the implementation of the Swedish model of client criminalization:
1). Magdalene order affiliated NGOs receiving millions on funding which mostly goes toward salaries and overhead.

If you have a heart please send a submission to the justice department at [email protected] before Sept 11th. If you would prefer to write anonymously I’m happy to email it in for you.