MECPATHS welcomes the Sexual Offences Act 2017, which criminalises the purchase of sex and decriminalises those selling sex. The provision of the necessary resources to ensure the effective enforcement of this law, and guarantee the protections within it, is fundamental to its success; the law will only be as good as its implementation. We feel more resources need to be put in place for those who wish to exit prostitution.
The new sexual offences law targets the demand for the purchase of sex by deterring buyers. Decriminalising the seller allows women to exit prostitution without being criminalised and allows them to come forward and seek the assistance and supports that they may require. In Sweden, at least 60% of women in prostitution have availed of the well-funded government exit-strategies and succeeded in exiting prostitution*. Anecdotal evidence indicates that the majority of women in prostitution would not be there if they felt they had other options.
Hotels are venues for prostitution and prostitution is the context in which much sex trafficking happens. In some hotels perhaps a blind eye has been turned to the fact that prostitution was occurring or hotel staff have not been aware of it. With the new law in place if someone in a hotel has purchased sex and is using the hotel for this purpose they are committing a crime on the premises.
Hotels have a responsibility, to children, to society, to their staff, to their guests and to themselves to train their staff to be aware of trafficking and to report suspected cases.
The Hotel Proprietors Act 1963 states that hotels have a duty as to the safety of guests:
4.—(1) Where a person is received as a guest at a hotel, whether or not under special contract, the proprietor of the hotel is under a duty to take reasonable care of the person of the guest and to ensure that, for the purpose of personal use by the guest, the premises are as safe as reasonable care and skill can make them.
The new law obliges hotels to report suspected prostitution on the premises. It is always better to report and be wrong than to let a victim of trafficking walk away and allow their abuse to continue. Always contact the Gardai and never try to directly intervene.
* The full Scottish government report on prostitution policies can be seen at www.scottish.parliament.uk