Last week many sex workers learnt for the first time of REACH, what appeared to be a new support organisation for sex workers in Ireland. REACH isn’t actually new, but it only came to mass attention last week when it launched a new high profile all island advertising campaign.

I first heard of REACH a year ago. I wrote to the EU in March 2014 requesting information about the project. However the EU replied that they had no record of REACH. Last month I wrote to the EU again, asking them to check their records once more, and today I received a reply confirming that they did award the REACH project a grant of €284.302 in November 2013. The EU say the REACH project began in December 2013 and is set to last 2 years. The beneficiaries are the Irish Department of Justice and Equality and Ruhama. Associate partners are the Northern Irish Department of Justice and the Irish Health Service Executive and Child and Family Support Agency.

I’ve spoken to a number of sex workers about REACH since the REACH advertising campaign launched.

One sex worker told me she contacted REACH seeking assistance last week by email. Yesterday she got a reply by email stating that she’d need to telephone instead. Another sex worker who contacted REACH last week told me she did get a swifter response. She’d asked for help re housing, problems she was having with her landlord. However the response she got offered no help, just a suggestion that she contact a housing charity instead. Another sex worker who asked about safety support got a response suggesting she visit the REACH or Ruhama websites, and, very surprisingly to me, it was also suggested she visit UglyMugs.ie. I’ve never before had a sex worker tell me Ruhama has recommended UglyMugs.ie to her, but that is what she reported to me. A further sex worker told me she was just advised to read the REACH and Ruhama websites for advice.

The above four sex workers all contacted REACH in the Republic of Ireland. Sex workers in Northern Ireland told me that it was actually impossible to contact REACH in Northern Ireland, both the phone number and email address did not work. I checked the phone number myself and asked others to check it too and can confirm texting REACH to 0808 802 1414 does not work, this phone number is set up to reject all SMS messages.

So what is REACH? It doesn’t appear to be able to offer any support to sex workers North or South. It seems it is just yet more public money into the coffers of anti sex work campaigners. I expect most of the €284.302 is going to Ireland's greediest anti sex work organisation of them all, Ruhama.

Republic of Ireland crime statistics. Data provided by the CSO (Central Statistics Office) on 04/12/14 in response to a PQ (Parliamentary Question) by Joan Collins TD. FAQ about CSO recorded crime statistics available here.

Incidents of offences recorded, detected, with relevant proceedings and court outcomes 2003-2012

Brothel keeping

	Recorded	Detected	With relevant proceedings	Court proceedings commenced	Conviction	Pending	Non-conviction
2003	6	3	2	1	1	0	0
2004	5	3	1	1	1	0	0
2005	8	4	1	1	1	0	0
2006	13	10	3	2	2	0	0
2007	14	10	7	7	5	2	0
2008	29	24	10	7	5	1	1
2009	26	24	18	18	10	3	5
2010	67	59	32	28	21	4	3
2011	57	48	23	23	14	5	4
2012	69	56	24	23	7	5	11

Organisation of prostitution

	Recorded	Detected	With relevant proceedings	Court proceedings commenced	Conviction	Pending	Non-conviction
2003	122	115	100	93	56	26	11
2004	25	24	16	13	8	3	2
2005	19	19	13	13	6	4	3
2006	16	15	15	13	8	3	2
2007	33	24	20	20	17	0	3
2008	11	9	6	5	3	0	2
2009	7	7	6	6	3	0	3
2010	3	3	3	3	3	0	0
2011	14	8	6	6	4	1	1
2012	3	1	0	0	0	0	0

Prostitution, including soliciting etc.

	Recorded	Detected	With relevant proceedings	Court proceedings commenced	Conviction	Pending	Non-conviction
2003	61	59	55	54	35	15	4
2004	189	183	172	161	94	50	17
2005	58	52	41	35	19	10	6
2006	77	72	53	48	34	10	4
2007	62	59	50	45	33	3	9
2008	96	90	77	72	54	6	12
2009	60	56	45	45	18	3	24
2010	135	116	92	89	27	7	55
2011	157	148	122	118	36	8	74
2012	76	67	54	52	10	4	38

Sex workers are increasingly being sent to prison in the Republic of Ireland since the launch of the Turn Off the Red Light (TORL) campaign to further criminalise sex work in 2011.

In 2011 the now disbanded TORL opposition campaign, Turn Off the Blue Light (TOBL), carried out research which found that the brothel keeping laws were being used almost exclusively to criminalise sex workers, rather than the owners or managers of brothels. TOBL identified 55 persons convicted of brothel keeping offences from 2008 – 2011 (to 27 July) via media reports and found that 91% appeared to be sex workers, not owners or managers of brothels who had sex workers working for them. Further 93% were women and 98% were non nationals.

Looking at the punishments given to the 55 persons convicted of brothel keeping in the TOBL study, only three persons received jail sentences that were not suspended, and, only one of these was a sex worker who had no other sex workers working for him/her. That was the 2010 case of 35 year old Romanian woman, F.P., who was jailed for 3 months by a judge in Monaghan after she could not find the €1,000 bail surety which would have resulted in her receiving a suspended sentence. The Irish Independent reported at the time that F.P. asked the judge: “Who is going to look after my nine-year-old child?” to which he replied “That is not my problem.”

In the three years since the TOBL research was published the number of sex workers being sent to prison for brothel keeping offences appears to have increased significantly. Media research identifies five further cases of sex workers, who appeared to have no other sex workers working for them, jailed for brothel keeping, as follows:

Galway, March 2012: M.C., Romanian, female, age 34, sentenced to three months in prison

Kildare, December 2012: R.D.S.O., female, age 28 and K.C.S., female, age 57, both sentenced to four months in prison

Leitrim, September 2013: E.C., Romanian, female and D.H., Romanian, female, both sentenced to four months in prison

TORL organisations often financially profit from the criminalisation of sex workers. For example in the Leitrim case above the judge ordered that the money seized from the two sex workers he jailed be donated to Ruhama.

Additionally sex workers who appear to have no other sex workers working for them are being sent to jail under other laws. In February 2013 the Clare People reported on a case of two Romanian women jailed for 10 weeks each for knowingly living in whole or in part on the earnings of the prostitution of another person and aiding and abetting that prostitution. The women's solicitor said they had co-operated completely with the gardaí and had only become involved in prostitution in order to get money to send home to their families who lived in “dire poverty” in Romania. The judge accepted they were not part of a criminal organisation, but clearly this did not deter him from jailing them.

Although TORL frequently puts out the soundbite that it wants to “criminalise the buyer and decriminalise the seller” in reality TORL has only ever sought to ensure that the laws used to criminalise indoor sex workers remain in place.

Current Enniskillen case highlights hateful Northern Irish sex work policy.

On 16th October the PSNI Fermanagh Twitter account announced ‘Brothel raided by Police in Enniskillen in the Cornagrade area last night. A number of persons arrested as a result.‘ The following week the front page of the Fermanagh Herald newspaper revealed that the result of this operation was the arrest of a 35 year old woman on suspicion of brothel keeping.

In the meantime the DoJ had published independent research into sex work and the NI Assembly had promptly disregarded this research and passed Clause 6 of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Bill, which will criminalise the purchase of sex. Despite claims to the contrary from both the DUP and Sinn Féin, sex workers are not to be decriminalised under this legislation, the brothel laws that can be used to criminalise indoor sex workers remain.

It is generally accepted that indoor sex workers working alone are not breaking any laws, as a premises is not a ‘brothel’ unless two or more sex workers are working there. In England and Wales CPS guidance further advises against using the brothel laws to prosecute sex workers at all, outlining that charging practice should focus on "The need to penalise those who organise prostitutes and make a living from their earnings". But in Northern Ireland there appears to be no PSNI policy on sex work and the PPS issues no guidance. Therefore we do see the PSNI using the brothel keeping laws to criminalise indoor sex workers.

In this recent Enniskillen case, the PSNI appear to be attempting to use the brothel keeping laws against a sex worker who was working alone, which is even more severe than usually seen. The basis of the case is believed to be that, although the sex worker was working alone, a different sex worker worked at the same premises previously. (It can be argued that a premises can be legally classified as a brothel where it has been used by more than one person for the purpose of prostitution at different times.)

PSNI Inspector Roy Robinson gave the Fermanagh Herald a number of quotes on this Enniskillen case, describing it as a ‘positive’ police operation and saying “I think any sort of neighbours in the area would be pleased with the police action and response.” He goes on to say “These are girls who don’t want to be in the trade, they come here under false pretences probably and people are holding on to their passports and these people are slaves to those who are controlling them.” He finishes by encouraging people to ring Crimestoppers or the PSNI to report similar cases they may be aware of saying of the PSNI “we’re more than happy to investigate.” Left to devise his own sex work strategy in Enniskillen, Inspector Robinson appears to believe that all sex workers are victims of trafficking and the best way of dealing with this is arresting and prosecuting these victims of trafficking.

Yesterday the woman accused of brothel keeping in Enniskillen appeared in court. The case will continue in December. The front page of today’s ‘Impartial Reporter’ is apparently an article naming and shaming her. Where is the outcry about the treatment of this sex worker, or sex trafficking victim, if PSNI Inspector Robinson's views on her situation are to be believed? One thing Inspector Robinson is apparently correct about is that the lady's passport has been taken from her by a third party. However UglyMugs.ie understands that it is the PSNI who have taken the lady's passport from her, not a trafficker as the PSNI comments to the media suggest.

Update 03/12/14: Today this case was concluded in a manner satisfactory for the sex worker :)