Sir, – Under the banner of fighting violence against women, members of the Irish Girl Guides (March 8th) have again repeated the erroneous and false statements of the Turn Off the Red Light campaign.
A report by the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the American University Washington College of Law has found that the claims made by proponents of the Swedish model for criminalising the purchase of sex, are simply untrue, and do not stand up to close scrutiny. That report, quoting the official Swedish evaluation of the law, the Skarhed Report, found that violence against prostitutes had actually increased because of the law, and has made the profession more dangerous. This conclusion has also been echoed by the ministry of justice, in Norway, which has a similar law, in a report in 2004. The report from the Center for Human Rights went on to say it had become harder to prosecute for trafficking as clients won’t come forward to testify in trafficking cases, as they would be subject to criminal prosecution. Furthermore the UN rapporteur for health, Anand Grover, has expressed concern that Swedish law “is leading to poorer health outcomes for sex workers”.
Thanks to Turn Off the Red Light, campaign the rights of sex workers, often the poorest and most marginalised are in danger of being sacrificed on the twin altars of radical feminism and Catholic moral dogmatism.
The campaign has constantly peddled erroneous and false data and deliberately conflated the separate issues of violence against women, trafficking and prostitution. Three very separate issues lumped together. It is a shame to see an organisation like the Girl Guides duped into supporting a politically correct drive that will harm, not help, women. – Yours, etc,