Mumsnet are debating prostitution in Ireland. Why aren't we?

I think driving it underground only increases the danger to vulnerable women.

Also I think that prohibition has not worked.

I support the Dutch or New Zealand Model. We should allow sex workers to sue pimps.

But the State should also allow consenting adults to make their own choices. The involvement of Church-linked bodies like Ruhama is against the spirit of secularism Ireland has been moving in since the 1990s.

The Nordic Model has some perverse outcomes, deterring sex workers from reporting violent clients to the police, for fear the sex workers will also be prosecuted if they work indoors. Also by banning sex workers from working indoors with another person, the law puts them without protection in cases of violent clients. So they end up working on the streets, and we don't want that because there might be family-settings nearby. The law pushes them into situations that the State also says it has a problem with.

Its interesting how selective some are. Some years ago the Left believed Scandinavia was a role model on everything, especially the Cradle to Grave welfare system and liberal immigration policies. With Scandinavia now becoming more restrictive on immigration e.g. Denmark, we don't hear that as much.

Also hardly any clients have been prosecuted. How would one prove such a thing? Proving someone is a pimp or a sex worker would be less challenging.

There is evidence that juries are reluctant to convict in these cases, or that the DPP drops prosecutions because of lack of evidence. There have only been 15 convictions out of 161 prosecutions since 2017. I think most people do not agree with this law. It goes against the wider liberalisation of society since the 1990s. Yes we want to protect women from forced prostitution. But I think we have just driven it further underground, by creating disincentives for reporting. One example is how a woman who works indoors with someone else can be charged with pimping, even if she doesn't control the other sex worker's income.

I find it very hard to believe there are only 161 clients of prostitutes in a country of 5.5 million.

Even some of the groups that campaigned for this law say it isn't working. Ruhama however believes the solution is increased enforcement. Ruhama was founded by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Ireland.

In England, solicitation (not prostitution) is illegal but local councils have some autonomy for so-called "tolerance zones". Has that been considered here?

What has mumsnet to do with anything? There have been plenty of threads discussing prostitution on Boards over the years. It seems either the OP registered to shill a book or didn't bother to review the site for previous discussions on the topic. Their contribution so far has been to ask questions, promote a book and offer no new insight themselves. Perhaps it's they who needs to wake up.

It's the style of your posting that makes people suspicious not just that you're a new user. The unnecessary big gaps between each paragraph and your lack of giving your own opinion on the matter other than "why aren't you all talking about it".

As the idiot you refer to, I can assure you I can read threads. It still doesn't make the post I referred to anymore intelligible. I'm sure you know what the references were relating to but I, honestly, don't. It's that simple. You assumed people knew what you were getting at but it wasn't so.