When Making Laws About Sex Work, Listen To Sex Workers…

Donna Moore is from Belfast, and works as an administrator.

At a time when violence against women is a hot topic, one group of women are overlooked in this discussion. And our current laws ensure that this group are among the most vulnerable of all – those women who work in the sex trade.

In January 2024, it was reported that since the introduction of a 2015 law which makes paying for sex illegal in Northern Ireland, there has been 75 arrests but only 1 conviction.

This law was brought in to combat human trafficking. Yet, in July 2023, Women’s Aid reported that the number of trafficking victims they supported increased from 47 in 2021 to 243. The majority of these trafficking victims were sexually exploited. The November 2024 report of two victims of sex trafficking being rescued from a south Belfast property prompted Women’s Aid to disclose that they receive one referral every day to provide support to a trafficking victim.

Lord Morrow, who designed the law, blamed a lack of enforcement for this discrepancy. However, the evidence would suggest that this law – based on the flawed ‘Nordic Model’ – was never going to work. That was the conclusion reached by Dr Caoimhe Ní Dhónaill on Slugger O’Toole in November 2019. This is also true of similar legislation which has been in place within the Republic of Ireland since 2017. And had those who have worked in the sex industry been consulted in the first place, and their insights paid attention to, this would have been clear.

Ruth Jacobs, a writer and former sex worker who worked in London, warned that such legislation would never stop trafficking, but would endanger sex workers. In an October 2014 interview with BBC News, Jacobs said:

“I believe there’s a lot of moral crusading going around, and pretending to want to stop trafficking, but really they want to end the purchasing of sex. That’s really dangerous because then trafficking victims aren’t being served, and sex workers are denied their rights and put in danger.”

Another writer and former sex worker, Anna Rajmon from the Czech Republic, can testify firsthand to how accurate Jacobs’s assessment is. Rajmon worked on the island of Ireland for three and a half years, employed by an agency which essentially did deny her rights and put her in danger. As she told Ann Murphy of the Irish Examiner:

“Several times I was raped and yet forced to take another ‘client.’ In tears and depression, I was thinking about suicide, but I stayed strong only because of my daughter.”

Rajmon has published a well-written account of her time in Ireland and Northern Ireland, Elis – Irish Call Girl, which was recently reviewed by Global Comment and outlines her time as a sex worker in sarcastically grim detail. And it was during her time working on the island of Ireland that a Romanian sex worker called Geila Ibram was murdered in Limerick on April 4, 2023.

Such testimony further vindicates Jacobs’s view – the figures that Women’s Aid reports show that trafficking victims are not served by the Nordic Model, and the cases of Rajmon and Ibram both show that this Model is dangerous for sex workers in general.

What are the alternatives? In an interview which Global Comment conducted with Rajmon as a companion piece to the book review, she was asked what legal requirements would be needed to address the issues in Ireland’s sex trade. Her reply shows that the issue is far from straightforward:

“That’s a very complex question…Full legalisation, as seen in other countries where this work is fully legalised, would have an impact, but it doesn’t come without drawbacks. For example, in Switzerland, full legalisation has brought both benefits and negatives.”

“On the other hand, a complete ban would likely open the door to even more trafficking and exploitation. Unfortunately, where there is demand, there will always be supply.”

Jacobs also had ideas on how the issue could be handled, stating that the policing model used in Merseyside at the time she was interviewed in 2014 was more ideal. There, sex workers are considered a minority and attacks against them are classified as hate crimes, and there is a greater emphasis on outreach projects and exiting services.

“Exiting services are really important,” said Jacobs. “Counselling, help with housing, referral to other services. When you’ve got no qualifications and no work history, these things aren’t minor. People can’t leave sex work if they can’t make money some other way.”

Both Jacobs and Rajmon are clearly very intelligent women with firsthand insights to contribute on this issue, but neither of them are likely to be heard. Neither those who advocate the flawed Nordic Model, nor those who favour full legalisation, will pay any heed to the more nuanced proposals put forward by these women, who understand the industry and the effects it has on those who work within it.

Jacobs, who published a hard-hitting book titled Soul Destruction: Unforgiveable – which is loosely based on her own experiences in sex work – had outlined in the Huffington Post back in 2014 the results of the legislation which Lord Morrow continues to champion:

“Clause 6 of Lord Morrow’s Bill is meant to abolish sex trafficking, but there is no evidence to suggest this will happen. The result will be that both sex trafficking victims and sex workers will suffer. In their effort to make it more difficult for men to procure sexual services, they will make it more difficult for support services and police to engage with women involved in sex work and also to identify and assist victims of sex trafficking.”

It’s hard to argue with the assessment Jacobs makes, and an account such as Rajmon’s provides empirical evidence in support of that assessment. In fact, the current situation is actually best summed up by Rajmon, so it only seems right to let her have the last word: