Law to criminalise sex for rent a 'waste of time' if it does not address license agreements

The effort to legislate against sex for rent offers comes over two years after an investigation into the issue by the Irish Examiner, which has found sex for rent offers advertised online for locations in Cork, Limerick, Westmeath, Clare, and Dublin.

Legislation outlawing sex for rent will be a “waste of time” unless it tackles situations where rooms are being rented out under licence agreements instead of tenancies, according to the researcher of a new report.

The report on Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Harassment in the Rental Housing Market, is being launched on Thursday morning by the National Women’s Council.

It makes nine recommendations for the government on how sex for rent offers in the private rented sector can be tackled.

Representatives of human trafficking organisations in New York and members of local authorities in the UK are among 300 individuals who have signed up to attend an online seminar organised to launch the report.

According to the Department of Justice, work is continuing with the Office of the Attorney General to draft an amendment to the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Human Trafficking) Bill 2023. The bill is currently progressing through the Seanad.

However, the department admits that the issue is a complex one to legislate for "given the risk of unintentionally criminalising consensual relationships and as such, is currently subject to careful consideration from a legal perspective". 

Irish Examiner investigation

The effort to legislate against sex for rent offers comes over two years after an investigation into the issue by the Irish Examiner, which has found sex for rent offers advertised online for locations in Cork, Limerick, Westmeath, Clare, and Dublin.

Attempts to legislate against the practice include the Ban on Sex for Rent Bill introduced by the Social Democrats two years ago and the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) (Sex for Rent) Bill 2023 introduced last autumn by Sinn Féin. The Social Democrats' legislation failed to pass pre-legislative scrutiny while Sinn Féin’s bill was introduced in the Dáil in March.

However, the report’s researcher, Feargha Ni Bhroin, said both pieces of legislation do not tackle situations where a person living in a room in someone’s house is a licensee instead of a tenant. She said of the government’s attempts to criminalise sex for rent: "If it doesn’t tackle the licensee issue, it will be a waste of time I think because that is where it is all happening. People don’t seem to understand the importance of that." 

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She also said the lack of clarity around whether or not a crime has been committed when someone has been offered a sex for rent arrangement is making it difficult for organisations working in the area of housing advocacy as well as sexual violence supports to provide the right advice to people in such situations.

The report says the current tight rental market makes people more vulnerable to sex for rent offers. It found: “Marginalised and structurally vulnerable women are amongst those most harmed by sex-for-rent exploitation including those without alternative housing options due to poverty, disability, insecure immigration status, domestic or family violence, debt, a lack of family support or unstable/poorly paid employment. 

"The most precarious in our society are also those most in danger from the harms inherent to sex for rent arrangements or proposal.” It adds: “Sex for survival is just as much a feature of SFR as it is of prostitution, and it is equally damaging, dehumanising and harmful for women in this context.”