So for those that don’t know, TORL stands for Turn Off the Red Light. It was a campaign in Ireland to eradicate sex work by criminalizing clients spearheaded by NGOs founded and run by nuns that ran Magdalene laundries with a recent (1996) history of trafficking.
The Irish government in recent months has twice recently refused dealings with SWAI because our values are not in alignment with TORL, which again is spearheaded by Magdalene NGOs.
This doesn’t bode well for the outcome of the Swedish model review. This law failed in every regard save for making those the law was supposed to protect more vulnerable therefore more dependent on those that pushed for these laws, whose funding benefits from our vulnerability.
That the Irish government plan to open more direct provision centers and allow these NGOs to run them is terrifying and heartbreaking.
For the record, I don’t know one sex worker that is not in favour of helping those that prefer not to engage in sex work getting out of it, but the way to turn off the red light rests in help and not criminalization.
Give us preferable employment opportunities, access to affordable or free third level education. Fuck Ruhama’s in-house self-esteem classes, give us self-efficacy classes by someone that doesn’t benefit from our vulnerability. Give us access to affordable housing and childcare.
Allow those in DP to work. Create viable coercion-free PREFERABLE employment opportunities for Mincéiri and trans folk. Allow students to work more than 40 hours. Give the undocumented opportunities to support themselves without resorting to sex work.
You cannot and will not turn off the red light. Those that pushed for these laws know this. You can however dim the light by offering preferable options. Anything else is just criminalizing survival.
