Campaign against prostitution runs into opposition

Academics and sex workers have hit out at the Turn Off the Red Light campaign aimed at criminalising the buying of sex, with one published paper claiming the campaign “silences other perspectives on prostitution”.

A two-day symposium beginning today in Queen’s University Belfast will hear from sex workers and academics on the subject of the possible criminalisation of the buying of sex, as advocated by the Turn Off the Red Light (TORL) campaign, and based on a model operating in Sweden.

One presentation at the event, organised by the Irish Research Council-funded Commercial Sex Research Network Ireland, is based on a recent paper published in the Journal of Social and Legal Studies which criticises a number of groups for the positions they have adopted in the debate and, in particular, while giving evidence to the Joint Oireachtas Committee which heard from stakeholders on the issue.