MINISTER FOR Justice Alan Shatter is examining advice from the Attorney General concerning the legal and constitutional implications of making it a criminal offence to buy sex.
It is currently not an offence to purchase or to sell sex, although soliciting on a street or in a public place for the purpose of prostitution is an offence. Trafficking people for sexual exploitation in any place is also against the law.
Mr Shatter said representatives from the Department of Justice and the Garda travelled to the Swedish capital, Stockholm, recently to observe the impact of legislation introduced there in 1999 to criminalise the purchase of sexual services.
“I am examining a report prepared by my department following the visit to Stockholm and which was submitted to the Attorney General’s Office.
“I am also examining the Attorney’s advice concerning the legal and constitutional implications of introducing a ban on the purchase of sex,” he said. “It is not an offence, in itself, to sell sex. In general, it is not an offence to purchase sex either . . . Consequently, neither party to the transaction is currently criminalised. Any proposal to amend the law in terms of criminalising the purchase of sex would require very careful examination.”
Mr Shatter was responding to a Dáil question from Fine Gael TD Simon Harris, who asked the Minister about the introduction of legislation to tackle sex trafficking and the criminalisation of the purchase of sex in Ireland.
The Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) Act 2008 criminalised the trafficking of persons for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
“With regard to prostitution, the criminal law is aimed at protecting society from the more intrusive aspects of such activity from a public order perspective, while also seeking to protect prostitutes from exploitation,” Mr Shatter said. Under the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1993, it is an offence to solicit in a street or public place for prostitution.
“The offence can be committed by the prostitute, the client or a third party – a pimp, for example,” Mr Shatter said. It is also an offence to organise prostitution, coerce or compel a person to be a prostitute, knowingly live on the earnings of a prostitute or keep or manage a brothel.
