Unsafe sex: Law of unintended circumstances

ANY law that banned the purchase of something but not its sale would seem very strange and unworkable or, at least, a contradiction in terms.

Sex is different. Buying sex was made illegal here on foot of a campaign to mirror the situation in Sweden. On March 27, it became illegal to buy sex, a law legislators and well-meaning campaigners forecast would change the sex industry for the better by outlawing pimping and brothels. But they didn’t reckon on another law — that of unintended consequences.

As the recent protests by residents of Dorset St in Dublin has revealed, sex for sale is back on the street and there has been a noticeable rise in the number of so-called ‘massage parlours’ operated by women and men working alone.

All the new law has done is to make sex workers feel less safe and to make life unpleasant for locals by increasing the number of massage parlours. Consideration should be given to the approach taken by New Zealand, which decriminalised the sex trade in 2003 and made it the safest place anywhere to practise the world’s oldest profession.