Thread by @wendylyon

(Thread)
So I've finally had a read through the DOJ-NI commissioned review of the #enddemand law, which you can download from here justice-ni.gov.uk/news/report-pu…

It is quite unambiguous in its findings. The law appears to have failed in almost every conceivable respect. I will go through some of the more notable findings here.

Firstly, the report notes that NI is unique among Nordic Model jurisdictions in that it had prevalence data from before the law was brought in. No other jurisdiction bothered to scope out its sex industry first, so no one else has before-and-after stats.

The methodology used:
* Analysis of Escort Ireland ads, 2012-2018
* Data scraping from three other online ad sites for six consecutive days in 2019
* Analysis of 2,556 anonymised reports to @uglymugsie
* Surveys of 199 sex workers / 1,296 clients
* Analysis of official data

Stakeholder interviews also conducted with criminal justice professionals, support services, and 13 sex workers - seven of whom worked both before and after the law change, the others only after the law change.

(It's noted that some of the support services contacted either didn't reply to emails and phone calls, or outright refused to take part. This is concerning and raises questions as to whether they should be involved in service provision at all.)

One of the most important findings of the research is that there is virtually no street sector left in the North. There wasn't much before the law came in, but there's none now. This MAY be due to the law change, but importantly, no one knows where they went - online? exited? 🤷‍♀️

The reason this is so important is that many of the assumptions that underpinned the law - as well as much of the research from other jurisdictions - was based in large part on the street sector and "typical" street worker characteristics.

I'll come back to this later. For now, some key demographics of the sex workers who responded:
* 74.4% did survey in English, 18.1% in Romanian, 75% in Spanish
* Gender is broken down as 151 female, 26 male, 20 trans, 1 other (DSTM)
* 42.4% were 26-35, 22.7% 19-25, 0<18, 6.6% 50+

Sorry - should read 7.5% in Spanish (thanks @cathalmalone)

40.6% had at least a university degree,19.3% a vocational qualification. Only 2% had no qualifications and only 9.7% left secondary school at 16. This has implications for "exit" strategies that assume a lack of education among this population.

Nationality is reported as 25.3% Irish, 20.8% Romanian, 10.1% English, 7.3% Northern Irish, 7.3% Spanish. 41.7% said they use a different nationality for work purposes, including ***94.2%*** of the Romanians who took part in the survey.

The reason for this appears to be due to the widespread stereotype of Romanians being more likely to be victims of trafficking, and hence more likely to be targets of police raids.

Only 64% of respondents live in the North. The others travel there for work reasons. As the report notes, this also has implications for government "exit" strategies.

In terms of reasons for entering sex work I'm just gonna C&P the table

Respondents were allowed to tick up to three boxes - they didn't rank them 1,2,3 as far as I can tell?

93.3% said they had never been coerced or trafficked into the sex industry, but 20.7% knew of someone who had. (That wording is interesting - "knew of" rather than "knew"?)

64.6% had dipped in and out of sex work, while 46.3% did sex work in addition to another job. So again, we are not looking at an industry comprising people who lack the ability to earn income any other way.

Nearly 1/5 are full-time or part-time students. And here's another table that I'll just let speak for itself:

77.5% said they totally abstain from alcohol while working and 97.5% say the same re drugs. Again, completely in contrast to the stereotype of (especially) street-based workers which seems to inform so much policy.

Here's another table.

For those of you at the back now muttering "this study obviously isn't representative" - where's YOUR methodologically-sound research showing otherwise?

The study also asked about sex workers' perception of danger under the law. A clear majority (56.7%) agreed that sex work is now more dangerous. Only 14.2% say it's less dangerous since the law.

The report then turns to recorded offences under the law. These are hard to accurately report because for various reasons a detected offence might not be recorded, but it's safe to conclude that there isn't a huge amount of enforcement.

Only two convictions, and neither were for what the law was designed for. In one case a man made a rude gesture to a non-sex working woman which suggested he would pay her for sex. The law was used basically as a way to penalise a creepy guy for being a creep.

In the other, a man approached a 14yo. In exchange for dropping a more serious charge of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, he pleaded guilty to offering payment for sex. (The excuse is the PPS wasn't sure it could overcome the burden of proving he knew her age.)

So maybe the problem with the law is just that they aren't enforcing it properly? Well, recall that before the law was introduced the PSNI made some pretty cogent arguments against it, based on having officers "embedded" in Sweden for a cross-border anti-trafficking investigation

and they basically said that the Swedish police's claims of having defeated prostitution generally, and trafficking specifically, were a load of rubbish:

[The report also notes that even Swedish Telegenic Super Vice Cop says in his book that there are 20-30 sex workers on Stockholm's streets, which is comparable to the number one of the report's authors saw in Manchester in his recent research there]

The main problem the PSNI say is that they simply don't have the extensive surveillance powers the Swedes have, and it's hard to prove payment has been made. (Swedes admit some "false positives" in their arrests - men who weren't paying, but were just having extramarital affairs)

As to the rumoured paramilitary involvement, PSNI say they are not involved in sex trafficking. They are, however, often involved in vigilante action against sex workers.

The PSNI also repeat what many other law-enforcement agencies have said, contrary to supporters of FOSTA/SESTA: online escort ad platforms cooperate and assist in detecting victims of human trafficking.

The report goes on to discuss the law's impact on helping sex workers leave the industry. In a word: zilch. There've been no new supports offered, and the language itself is highly alienating (probably because they completely misunderstand the target audience).

The report recommends instead that 6 Co authorities look at @BeyondtheGaze, a massive study of online sex workers conducted by University of Leicester researchers.

There's also a mention of how the Stakeholder Governance Group which was supposed to inform policy didn't get off the ground because of an objection to its composition. The nature of the objection isn't spelled out, but from memory (as well as reading between the lines) ...

I think the DUP objected to @SWAIIreland being involved. Paul Givan, I think, said that since SWAI opposed the law they shouldn't be involved in its implementation.
The DUP.
Said this.
In the Assembly.
Which was established by the GFA.
Remind me where the DUP stood on the GFA?🤦‍♀️

(Sorry, that's just something that's always annoyed me.)

The review was supposed to examine the law's impact on human trafficking, but as the report notes, the statistics involved don't lend themselves to any conclusions. Numbers are too small.

Turning to the analysis of online ads, there obviously have to be caveats in any such study but the report's authors have gone to great lengths to ensure their data can be as accurate as possible - certainly more than TORL did when they claimed the law drove traffickers South.

Again, I think their findings are best expressed with a table:

That's the number of ads, total. The number of ads for unique sex workers is of course lower but substantially mirrors the overall totals:

The average age listed in the ads is 31, with the highest percentage in the 26-30 age group. No change since before the law. (Obviously listed age may not be real age, but it's telling that it isn't anywhere near as low as antis often portray it to be.)

Looking across the four different platforms included in the research, the offers conclude that on any one day there are 308 sex workers advertising in the North. This is consistent with the 2014 (pre-law) finding of 300-350 per day.

The findings from the client survey are next. This survey was conducted anonymously for ethical, methodological, and legal reasons. Respondents came from all over the island but skip logic was used to direct them to North or South tailored questions as appropriate.

86.5% of those who paid for sex in the North live there, while 11.9% travel there for work or social reasons. All were male, but there were a small number of female clients in the ROI-only survey (told you it happens here @turnoffrl)

They ID as 38.9% Irish, 29.5% British, 25.4% Northern Irish. 81.8% are employed full-time or self-employed. 43% earn £20,000-40,000 per year. 34.5% are in their 30s, 21.3% 50+

42.8% have at least a university qualification. 48.1% are single, 27.3% are married. 59.1% have paid for sex inside and outside NI - 20.8% only inside. (The pattern is similar in the South, although a larger percentage pays only in ROI.)

Interesting demand pattern from before and after the law:

In a very key quote, the authors note "If we triangulate data from our different sources it points in the same general direction. Namely, that the supply of prostitution services in Northern Ireland appears to have increased following the legislation, presumably to meet demand."

A majority of clients were aware of the law change (55.2%) and several of those who weren't said that they thought it was already illegal to pay for sex. So it's not a case of needing to "raise awareness about the law", contrary to what some have suggested.

53.5% said they wouldn't change their sex buying habits because of the law. 27.1% said they'd still pay for sex, but less often. (Those are NI numbers but ROI are very similar.) Only 11.6% said they would stop. That's a pretty crummy deterrent factor.

Approximately 45% in both jurisdictions said they'd take more precautions when paying for sex. Let's look at some tables again:

Isn't it ironic that the online reviews system, which is so frequently cited by antis as a justification for criminalising clients, is now absolutely depended on by so many clients (and hence by sex workers who need their business)?

Of course if they turn violent, having a separate mobile phone will also make it harder to trace them - and there's the whole thing about only going to workers who work alone, which of course incentivises them to risk their safety by working alone.

One interesting finding is that only a small minority of sex workers have any contact with Ruhama or Women's Aid. They have much more contact with SWAI, and a majority use the Ugly Mugs app. This raises serious questions about where government funding is going.

There is a lot of detail about the violence reported by sex workers. The authors are hesitant to draw causative conclusions about serious offences due to what they regard as a low overall number (both before and after the law), but the findings re less serious offences are stark:

Between 2016 and 2018, abusive phone calls have increased by 677%, threatening behaviour by over 200%. Also, "the number of clients who feel that they can talk a provider around to providing 'free sex' has increased by 1725%".

Clients apparently now think that since they're the ones who are assuming the risk under the law, they should have more say in the service they get.

The authors also seem to think that the actual risk of violence to indoor workers is somewhat overstated, but are very clear that there is a heightened fear and anxiety among sex workers since the law came in, and greater marginalisation and stigma.

As for reporting a crime against them to the PSNI, 39.6% said they would not (and 27.3% said "don't know"). Here's why:

(I highlighted the accommodation one because in my experience that's a MASSIVE issue - in Dublin, obvs - and as an excuse to remind y'all that Ruhama supports making landlords criminally liable for allowing sex work to take place on their property.)

The PSNI officers in the study all but admit that if a migrant sex worker is found to be undocumented she will be reported to immigration authorities. This is NOT how you go about building trust in the community, folks.

Finally, the report notes the existence of PSNI sex work liaison officers but says they are no substitute for a peer group which can act as a bridge between police and community. SWAI does its best to fill that role in the 26 (with no funding) but it's a big void in the North.

This was way longer than I'd intended it to be and I didn't even cover everything I highlighted in the report. No doubt the usual suspects will try to discredit it but hopefully more reasonable open minds can read it and learn something. Sin é.

Just got the full stat, here it is