Monitoring and Evaluation

From The Implementation of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017, Part IV – An Interim Review:

From Report:
“The enactment of new legislation needs to be monitored and evaluated to ensure there are no unforeseen consequences. The following needs to be in place to ensure the legislation is monitored and evaluated and any findings should result in interventions to ensure optimum implementation of the law.

Further research should be resourced:
The Sexual Exploitation Research Programme in UCD is conducting research to consider the harm within the commercial sex trade and any unforeseen consequences of the legislation. The research will document the consequences of prostitution for the health and well-being of girls and women and the ongoing needs and any barriers for women in relation to exiting. It is also working with An Garda Síochána and others stakeholders to explore the application and enforcement of the law, and the impact on those within the Commercial Sex Trade. These will beimportant pieces of work for the review process.

However, further resources should be made available to conduct empirical research and gather data in critical areas to monitor and evaluate implementation of the legislation.

Some suggested areas include
  • Mapping the scale and extent of prostitution and trafficking for sexual exploitation on the streets and in indoor locations;
  • Identifying emerging patterns of the sex trade in terms oftargeting and recruitment;
  • Investigating the number of prostitution-related activities and number of individuals advertised online;
  • Sentencing patterns of buyers and organisers should be monitored closely to ensure consistency and that the sentence is commensurate with the seriousness of the offence;
  • Analysis of the link between those attempting to exit prostitution and those securing their immigration status;
  • The link between Child Abuse and the Commercial Sex Trade.”
Comment:
I find it unacceptable that organisations such as Ruhama and the Immigrant Council of Ireland, Doras Luimni,Dublin Rape Crisis Centre and Children’s Rights Alliance, who demanded this legislation from a social perspective and continue to apply for funding to enforce it from a social perspective should try to present future research as limited to a criminal justice perspective. The first concern of research should be the impact on sex workers themselves,which has already been shown to be wholly bad in Northern Ireland so that, unless the High Committee is prepared to accept the research and findings in the Northern Ireland report of September 2019 as stated to be accurate and sufficient this should be be the primary focus of research south of the border too.

Clarifying the heavily disputed facts of sex workers lives, demographics of the sex industry and persistent reports of the negative impact of Nordic Model Legislation are key factors in the validity of any assessment, non of which can be considered established without conclusive evidence and reasonable consensus in which the views of active sex workers are paramount. If you do not care about monitoring the consequences of your actions on other people’s real lives you have no moral right to make decisions that impact upon them at all.

 Comment:
The Sexual Exploitation Research Programme in UCD has an exclusively abolitionist perspective on sex work that fails to acknowledge the opinions of active sex workers or collate and interpret data impartially. Equally the antipathy the vast majority of sex workers feel towards abolitionists in general, and particularly those who lobbied for section IV of the 2017 Sexual Offences Act (such as SERP members Denise Charlton former Chair and current Strategic Advisor of “Turn Off the Red Light”, Dr Monica O’Connor also of “Turn Off the Red Light as well as author of well known abolitionist work “The Sex Economy” and Ruth Breslin formerly of Eaves London and policy and communications manager at Ruhama) make it unreasonable to frame their participation in evaluation in terms conditional upon engagement with SERP. Biased evaluation serves no useful purpose.

Comment:
Why is there no mention of the Irish Sex Work Research Network which is:
  • fully accreditted
  • much more active than SERP, across a far broader brief,
  • enjoys a good relationship with all levels of sex workers
  • has two research projects in the pipeline directly related to this year’s review of the impact of the sexual offences act.
  • one of these projects “Working it” is unique in that it aims to consult directly with street workers who have been largely ignored up to this point.

Comment:
Cognitive bias is acknowledged to introduce an unacceptable level of distortion into risk assessment in areas of Justice and Social Policy. This must be taken into account in evaluating the impact of legislation.

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