Not collateral damage: Trends in violence and hate crimes experienced by sex workers in the Republic of Ireland


Article

Not collateral damage:
Trends in violence and
hate crimes experienced
by sex workers in the
Republic of Ireland

Rosie Campbell
Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of

York, UK

Lucy Smith
UglyMugs.ie

Becky Leacy and Miriam Ryan
Chrysalis Community Drug Project, Dublin, Republic of

Ireland

Billie Stoica
GOSHH, Gender Orientation Sexual Health HIV, Limerick,

Republic of Ireland

Abstract

The Republic of Ireland’s new Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017 (2017 Act)

criminalised sex purchase. Drawing on primary data from reports made by sex workers

in Ireland to UglyMugs.ie, we analyse trends in violent and other crimes against sex

workers in Republic of Ireland (hereafter Ireland). Examining the four-year period

2015–2019, we highlight the various crimes sex workers experience, including incidents

Corresponding author:

Rosie Campbell, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, Heslington, York, North

Yorkshire YO10 5DD, UK.

Email: rosie.campbell@york.ac.uk

Irish Journal of Sociology

2020, Vol. 28(3) 280–313

! The Author(s) 2020

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0791603520939794

journals.sagepub.com/home/irj

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9008-3924
mailto:rosie.campbell@york.ac.uk
http://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/journals-permissions
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0791603520939794
journals.sagepub.com/home/irj
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1177%2F0791603520939794&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2020-07-22


of hate crime. Analysis of UglyMugs.ie data found that crimes (including violent offen-

ces) against sex workers increased following the introduction of the new law and

continued with low levels of reporting of said crimes to the police. The data suggest

that the 2017 Act heightens the risks for sex workers. Here, we advocate an intersec-

tional framework to provide a more nuanced understanding of how sex workers in

Ireland experience violent and other hate crimes (ICRSE, 2014). We suggest that con-

sidering the international research evidence, the most conducive framework in which

to reduce violence against sex workers is that of full decriminalisation (Platt et al, 2018).

But, as others have pointed out, that legal reform needs to be in tandem with other

policies and a refocusing of police resources on sex worker safety, better enabling

reporting and access to justice.

Keywords

Sex work, violence, hate crime, decriminalisation

Introduction

As other articles in this themed issue establish, Irish criminal law changed in 2017

when law was introduced (Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017 – hereafter

the 2017 Act), which made it a crime to pay for sexual activity with a prostitute, at

the same time laws on soliciting which criminalised sellers were removed. Brothel

keeping law, which is what is most often used to criminalise indoor sex workers,

remained in place. When announcing the Bill in 2014, the Minister for Justice and

Equality stated; ‘. . . I strongly believe that this proposal is the best suited to
address the trafficking and exploitation associated with prostitution. It sends a

clear message that purchasing sexual services contributes to exploitation’. She

also said ‘the proposal I am announcing today reflects an All-Island consensus

to targeting the predominantly exploitative nature of prostitution’ (Department of

Justice and Equality, 2014). This illustrates the government position that the aim

of the bill was to address trafficking and exploitation of people in sex work. Beegan

and Moran (2017: 71), examining how the law was situated within feminist

paradigms, stated that; ‘. . . there is undoubtedly a leaning towards the radical
feminist/abolitionist perspective in this decision as it favours the development of

the Nordic Model as an intervention to combat the exploitation of women in the

sex trade’.
Indeed, this legal change had been advocated for by the Irish neo-abolitionist

organisation Turn off the Red Light (TORL). The dominant narrative framing the

arguments of TORL was influenced by radical feminist analysis that prostitution is

itself a form of violence against women, created by patriarchal male demand,

which should be prohibited and eradicated (McGarry and Fitzgerald, 2018). Sex

work was identified as inherently violent, a form of sexual violence against women,

Campbell et al. 281



a coerced activity with trafficking predominant and harmful for the women
involved. Those advocating the law proposed it as a means of reducing male
demand for prostitution and hence reducing violence against women. Their argu-
ments reflected those who advocated for the criminalisation of purchasing com-
mercial sex as a regulatory framework modelled on law introduced in Sweden in
1998, followed by Norway in 2009, with such Nordic origins law which criminal-
ises purchasing is often referred to as the Nordic model. Whilst many of those who
supported the law will have had genuine concerns about exploitation, abuse and
violence experienced within sex work and hoped the law could reduce these and
reduce violence against women, whether this has happened in practice is debatable.
The Sex Workers Alliance of Ireland (SWAI) – the only Irish sex worker-led sex
worker rights organisation – has expressed its concerns about the detrimental
impacts that the 2017 Act will have on sex workers’ safety. SWAI and its support-
ers argue that it will lead to a further erosion of sex workers’ safety, increased
stigmatisation and social marginalisation of sex work, further criminalisation,
leading to continued mistrust and further deterioration in sex workers’ relations
with the police and an increase in crimes against sex workers (FitzGerald and
McGarry, 2016; Ward and Wylie, 2014). SWAI are one organisation who have
expressed the view that the new law which is supported by organisations who aim
to eradicate sex work ignores harms created by criminalisation of sex workers and
their clients:

[S]ex workers are collateral damage in the futile quest to eradicate sex work entirely.

We see organisations who support further criminalisation of sex work minimise or

ignore the harms and negative impacts that come from criminalisation (Kate

McGrew, quoted in Moore, 2018, Irish Independent).

This article argues that the sex workers safety should not be collateral damage
in public policy, and enhancing sex worker safety should be a priority in law and
policies shaping sex work.

Sanders (2016) challenges the conceptualisation of sex work as inherently vio-
lent and points to three dynamics that shape violence in sex work: first, the envi-
ronment in which sex work happens; second, the relationship of sex work to state.
She argues ‘. . . how prostitution is governed in any one jurisdiction and associated
treatment of violence against sex workers by the police and judicial system dictates
the very organization of the sex industry and the regulation, health and safety of
the sex work communities’ (Sanders, 2016: 93) and third, social status and stigma
and their effects on societal attitudes toward sex workers. In this article, we
acknowledge these dynamics and their complex interplay which shape sex workers’
experiences of work-related victimisation. We approach sex work and sex worker
experiences as situated within the complex intersections of patriarchal gender
relations, race, nationality, class, sexual identity and other structural axis within
neo-liberal capitalism, within which sex workers are denied the limited work-based
protections, human rights and labour rights other workers have. Their work is

282 Irish Journal of Sociology 28(3)



criminalised which heightens their vulnerability to violence, other crimes and forms
of labour exploitation. We adopt an intersectional understanding of sex work and
violence against sex workers, which recognises how different and multiple forms of
oppression at the structural level (e.g. race, ethnicity, gender based violence, sexual
orientation, socio-economic status, economic deprivation, migration, drug use) can
intersect and shape sex workers’ experience differentially (ICRSE, 2014). At a
micro-level, this acknowledges how ‘. . . some sub-communities of sex workers,
transgender sex workers, migrant sex workers, sex workers living with HIV, or
sex workers who use drugs, are particularly vulnerable to multiple forms of exclu-
sion and discrimination’ (ICRSE, 2014: 2). We approach violence against sex
workers as a social justice issue because it denies individuals’ – and particularly
women’s – human right to live and work in safety (FitzGerald and McGarry,
2018). Whilst we approach sex work as gendered with the majority of sex workers
in Ireland being women, we also acknowledge that the focus and conceptualisation
of sex work as violence against women mean that the debate and policy in Ireland
have not adequately considered the experiences of male sex workers or captured
the diversity of gender identifications of sex workers, as (Smith et al., 2015) have
noted is often the case.

Building on discussions we had at a workshop on ‘Sex Work and Violence’ held
at the Irish Sex Work Research Network conference in November 2018, we
respond to Irish practitioners’ concerns that since the 2017 Act was introduced,
they had witnessed an increase in anti-social behaviour, violent and other crimes
against sex workers, particularly amongst migrant and transgender sex workers,
identifying this as an area needing further research. In the context of debates about
the impact of law on violence and other harms, we would argue the importance of
monitoring and researching such harms, so policy impacts can be assessed. Deering
et al. (2014: 9) describe ‘major gaps in documentation of violence against sex
workers in most parts of the world’. Notwithstanding ongoing arguments about
violence and other harms experienced by sex workers in Ireland, at the time of
writing, no government body has examined the nature and level of violent and
other crimes against sex workers, conducted an impact assessment prior to intro-
duction of the 2017 Act or put in place mechanisms to assess the impact of the law
on sex worker safety. The government has committed to review and report on the
legislation after three years, and, as part of this process, it will assess the Act’s
impact on sex workers’ safety and well-being, and we hope that the government
will commission independent academic research to review the legislation. A pri-
mary objective of this paper is to contribute to a developing body of sex work
scholarship in Ireland, building an understanding of trends in violent and other
crimes against sex workers based on data. To do this, we use primary data gener-
ated through sex workers’ online reports of crime and anti-social behaviour,
including incidents of hate crime, over a four-year period between 2015 and
2019 to UglyMugs.ie (UM),

1
a third-party reporting and alerting scheme for sex

workers in Ireland. Before proceeding, it is important to establish the following
parameters around our discussion. When examining crimes committed against sex

Campbell et al. 283



workers, the focus obviously becomes on work-related victimisation. In this paper,
we draw on data from a reporting scheme designed to enable sex workers to report
such incidents of victimisation. It is important to set this in the wider context of
commercial sex encounters and note that most commercial sex interactions go
without violence and harassment (Brewis and Linstead, 2000; Kinnell, 2008).
Recognising a disproportionate level of victimisation is important but equally to
characterise all commercial sex encounters as involving victimisation is not accu-
rate. Ellison et al. (2019), assessing the law criminalising purchasing sexual services
in Northern Ireland (NI), carried out an online survey of 199 sex workers; 51%
(n ¼ 75) said that they had never been the victim of a crime while doing sex work in
NI, compared to 49% (n ¼ 72) who said they had been the victim of a crime, i.e.
slightly more reported never being a victim of crime.

We are very mindful that our analysis is based on data from a third-party
reporting system that receives reports from sex workers in Ireland who have
been victimised; it does not necessarily reflect the experiences of the wider sex
worker population in Ireland. We did not have access to any recent survey data
which would inform about a wider sample of sex workers beyond those who report
to UM. These limitations notwithstanding, we think that our analysis provides
some important insights about trends in violent and other crimes against sex
workers in Ireland, and this makes an important contribution to Ireland’s emerg-
ing research base. We aim to contribute to an understanding of the type of victim-
isation Irish sex workers experience, in relation to the new law. We are also
proposing that data indicates that the new law has not reduced crime and abuse
experienced by sex workers nor has it improved confidence in sex workers to report
victimisation to the police. We further put forward that victimisation reported to
UM shows that the targeted hostility sex workers report, manifested in a range of
crimes and anti-social behaviour, meets established definitions of hate crime.

We structure our article as follows. First, we discuss the literature on the prev-
alence and nature of sex workers’ victimisation in Ireland, contextualised within
the wider, global literature. Second, we analyse trends in violent and other crimes
against sex workers in Ireland based upon primary data sampled from reports
made by sex workers in Ireland to UM. Finally, as our data highlight very low
levels of reporting of crime by sex workers to the police in Ireland, suggest that
tackling violence against sex workers requires a refocusing of policing resources to
promote sex worker safety and mechanisms to empower them to report crimes
committed against them, facilitating their right to access to justice. Therefore, it is
our contention in this article that advocating for the full decriminalisation of sex
work is the most conducive framework to achieve this.

Prevalence and nature of sex work victimisation

Empirical research on sex workers’ global experience of violence, including work-
place violence over the lifetime, finds that between 45 and 75% of sex workers
experience violence (with 32–55% experiencing violence in the last year) (Deering

284 Irish Journal of Sociology 28(3)



et al., 2014). Studies grounded in sex workers’ complex, lived realities illustrate
their different experiences of risk in terms of prevalence and forms of victimisation
across sectors and various socio-economic realities (Platt et al., 2018; Shannon
et al., 2009). Studies which examine the different characteristics and prevalence
of violence between sex markets have found off-street sex workers reporting lower
levels of violence and identify higher levels of violence in street sex work (Church
et al., 2001; Deering et al., 2014; Sanders and Campbell, 2007; Weitzer, 2012).
Research also illustrates different patterns of victimisation within off-street mar-
kets, including internet-enabled sex work (Campbell et al., 2019; Kinnell, 2008;
Sanders, 2005; Sanders and Campbell, 2007; Sanders et al., 2018; Whittaker and
Hart, 1996).

Research has illustrated how the structure and organisation of indoor, parlour-
based sex work can reduce risk relative to street sex work with indoor settings
providing opportunities to introduce a range of protective measures to deter or
reduce risk (O’Doherty, 2011; Kinnell, 2008; Whittaker and Hart, 1996). Although
the extent to which these are in place varies within the sector (Lister, 2018; Pitcher,
2015). A primary reason why sex workers choose indoor locations to work is their
concerns for their safety (Lister, 2018), with brothel work or work flat sharing
providing an opportunity to have others present while they work, despite the fact
that working in a brothel can lead to prosecution.

Escorting, independently via the Internet or working for an agency and other
forms of online sex work, is the largest sector of the UK and Irish sex industries for
workers of all genders (Ellison et al., 2019; Sweeney and FitzGerald, 2017), but it is
the sector where a lacuna exists in relation to research on violent and other crimes
(Sanders et al., 2018). Yet, emerging international research is beginning to provide
a more detailed picture that resonates with emerging trends in sex workers’ expe-
riences of violent and other crimes in this sector in Ireland (Moorman and
Harrison, 2016; Sanders et al., 2016; Sanders et al., 2018). For example, Sanders
et al. (2016) in a UK-based survey of 240 internet-based sex workers (mainly
independent escorts) found that nearly half of respondents (47%) reported that
they had experienced crime in their sex work. The most common crimes experi-
enced were threatening or harassing texts, calls and emails; verbal abuse and
removal of condoms. This study suggested that internet-based sex workers do
experience less violent crime than street-based sex workers, but blackmail, stalking
and harassment by text and email were significant issues for online sex workers.
The ‘Beyond the Gaze’ (BtG) research project, the largest study to date of the
safety, regulation and working conditions of internet-based sex work in the UK
(Sanders et al., 2018), found that in their survey of 651 online sex workers, 80.8%
(n ¼ 518) reported experiencing at least one form of crime in the past five years and
62.4% (n ¼ 400) experienced at least one type of crime in the past year. The
patterns of crime types experienced were distinctive when compared to those
reported in studies of street sex work. For online workers, the majority of
crimes was digitally facilitated, with the two most commonly experienced crimes
being persistent or repeated/unwanted contact or attempts to contact sex workers

Campbell et al. 285



through email, text or social media and threatening or harassing texts, calls or

emails. The study found that digitally facilitated crimes were often part of patterns

of harassment and stalking and often involved ‘outing’ or threats to publicly out

sex workers to: neighbours, friends, family, police, universities, employers, social

services or generally online including ‘doxing’ (maliciously posting private or iden-

tifying details about workers online). Physical assaults and sexual violence were

reported at lower levels, but still at higher rates than the general population.

Ellison et al. (2019) carried out an online survey of 199 sex workers working in

NI, none of whom identified as street sex workers, reflecting the Northern Irish sex

work population which is ‘almost exclusively based online’ (p. 38). They found that

amongst those respondents who said they had been victimised while doing sex

work in NI, the most common offence categories in order of prevalence were

abusive or threatening phone calls/messages (73.3% of sex workers in their

survey reported receiving these in the previous 12 months), in-person threatening

or abusive behaviour (50.6% said they had experienced such in the previous

1 months), assault, robbery and rape/sexual assault. The later, as in the BtG

research, reported by less than 10% of those who experienced a crime in the last

year. The Ellison et al. (2019) study is significant because it provides a substantive

and contemporary study of sex work in NI which includes data on sex worker

victimisation.
In the Irish context, there is limited contemporary, empirical academic or

other published research on crimes committed against sex workers. Over 20

years ago, O’Connor (1996) carried out a qualitative study with 86 women

working in sex work in Dublin and Cork, with experiences of violence being

one topic examined. Amongst participants, 20% (n ¼ 17) had been ‘beaten by a
client’ and 11% had been ‘forced to have sex’. That study included street and

indoor parlour workers, yet sex work in Ireland has changed considerably since

then, particularly with the rise of online sex work. Sweeney and Fitzgerald

(2017) describe Irish sex work as having moved from brothel-based sex work

and street work to escorting, with more isolated, independent and mobile work-

ing, with many sex workers travelling within Ireland to reach more customers.

Their recent qualitative study on migrant sex workers’ health found that fear of

violence, robbery and refusal to pay for services ‘combined with the need to

remain invisible and on the margins due to their precarious legal status impact-

ed migrant sex workers’ health’ (Sweeney and FitzGerald, 2017; Sweeney et al.,

2019). In interviews, sex workers described actual incidents of crime such as

rapes, physical assault and abuse or the risk of being a target of these.

Researchers in Ireland have highlighted the need for further research

(FitzGerald and McGarry, 2016; McGarry and FitzGerald, 2018; Ryan, 2019;

Ryan and Huschke, 2017; Ward and Wylie, 2014, 2016) to provide an up-to-

date empirical baseline about the nature of violence against sex workers in

Ireland in a variety of contexts. And it is in this context that we situate the

current article’s contribution to the literature by focusing on original data on

286 Irish Journal of Sociology 28(3)



victimisation made available through UM and consider how legal changes have
shaped victimisation and its prevalence.

Criminalisation, stigma, hate crime and sex worker victimisation

Ireland’s decision to introduce legislation that criminalises sex purchase mirrors
trends in other jurisdictions. Debates about sex work law in Ireland and the
proposals to make it a crime to criminalise purchasing reflected wider academic
and policy debates about the regulation of sex work. Therefore, it is important to
consider what international research shows about the impact of regulatory frame-
works on sex worker safety including the criminalisation of selling and purchasing
sex. There is a considerable body of work that identifies how the social margin-
alisation, stigmatisation and criminalisation of sex work place sex workers in vul-
nerable positions, heightening the risk of work-related violent and other crimes
(Deering et al., 2014). Platt et al. (2018) in their systematic review of sex work
studies that examine how law and policing practices globally affect sex workers’
health, safety and well-being found that the key harmful impacts of arrests and
harassment of sex workers or their clients which accompany criminalisation were
displacement of sex workers to isolated work locations, the disruption of peer
support networks and access to services, limitation of risk reduction and deterring
sex workers from carrying condoms. The review also found that enacted or feared
police enforcement which targeted sex workers, clients or third parties organising
sex work displaces sex workers into isolated and dangerous work locations and
disrupts risk reduction strategies, such as screening and negotiating with clients,
carrying condoms and working with others.

Legislation that criminalises sex workers working together for safety through
brothel keeping is one way that the criminal law impedes sex workers implement-
ing safer working practices and reporting crime to the police (Pitcher, 2015). Such
legislation is in place in Ireland, and the new legislation increased penalties for
brothel keeping and has been used against sex workers themselves working togeth-
er in small groups. For example, in June 2019, two migrant workers from Romania
working together in Newbridge, County Kildare, were found guilty of brothel
keeping at the Naas District Court. Each woman receiving nine months prison
sentences, one of the convicted women was pregnant at the time of the conviction
(Oppenheim, 2019). Such actions further undermine sex workers’ trust and confi-
dence in the police. The impact of policing activities associated with policing
brothels, experienced as ‘raids’ by sex workers, have a range of impacts; not
only can they be frightening (Scoular et al., 2019) but they can also cause
economic deprivation due to loss of earnings when business is disrupted or
closed (Lister, 2018).

A key finding from research in settings where sex work is criminalised is that sex
workers have restricted access to protection and justice due to a difficult and often
adversarial relationship between sex workers and the police. The police are the
‘agency’ sex workers are meant to go to for protection and to report crime but at

Campbell et al. 287



the same time, the police are the state body empowered to arrest them, their
customers or others with whom they work. In some jurisdictions, police incivility,
misconduct and abuse are commonplace, and the police are often one of the
groups who perpetrate violence, harassment and extortion against sex workers
(Sherman et al., 2015; SWAN, 2009; Platt et al., 2018). Platt et al. (2018: 34)
describe policing in criminalised environments as ‘creating an environment of
impunity for perpetrators of violence’. Research shows that the majority of
work-related crime experienced by sex workers remains unreported to the police
due to fear of arrest or other action, not being taken seriously, public identifica-
tion, stressful and protracted court cases with uncertain outcomes being salient
amongst other reasons (Boff, 2012; Campbell et al., 2019; Kinnell, 2008; Sanders
et al., 2018).

Barriers to reporting are heightened for migrant sex workers with concern that
contact with the police may lead to deportation or other immigration action for
those with irregular or illegal status (Mai, 2009). Sweeney and FitzGerald (2017)
found that female, migrant sex workers in Ireland feared reporting crimes and
abuse they experienced to the Garda�ı (the Irish police force) due to the risk of
self-identifying as sex workers, their precarious legal status in Ireland (risk of
potential deportation), as well as language difficulties.

There is a lacuna in our understanding of the effect that the introduction of the
2017 Act has had on policing of sex work in Ireland and the implications this has
had on sex worker safety. The Irish criminalisation of purchasing commercial sex
occurred within a broader international context and debate around the best legis-
lative models for regulating sex work. Studies, specifically examining the effects of
criminalising sex purchase in a number of national jurisdictions, report that crim-
inalisation has an adverse effect on sex worker safety (Platt et al., 2018). Findings
reveal several important facts, namely (i) that violent crime increases (LeBail et al.
2019), (ii) the prosecution and penalisation of sex workers does not end, (iii) sex
workers remain subject to high levels of policing and (iv) targeting of sex workers
by the police increases in multiple, intersecting ways, with policing remaining
focused on the repression of sex workers via public order or immigration agendas.
Research in three jurisdictions that have introduced criminalisation of sex pur-
chase found that sex work regulation operated primarily through immigration and
third-party laws, with migrant workers as the primary targets (Vuolaj€arvi, 2018).
This increases sex workers’ precarity because they are pushed to work in riskier
conditions and are less able to enact screening and other safety strategies (e.g.
rushed negotiations on street) (Landsberg et al., 2017). Indoor workers who pre-
viously would not go to buyers’ homes or other outcall locations, are now under
increased pressure to do so to avoid detection by the police or eviction from their
own homes (Amnesty International, 2016).

Ellison et al. (2019) in a study funded by Northern Ireland Department of
Justice reviewed the impact of a law introduced in 2015 to criminalise purchasing
sexual services. Reviewing research studies which have looked at the impact of sex
purchase legislation on risk and victimisation, they accepted as a general point that

288 Irish Journal of Sociology 28(3)



such law increases violence and abuse. However they also queried whether violence
and abuse have ‘increased at the same rate and at the same time in the on-street
and off-street sectors’ in countries where such laws have been adopted. They point
out that samples in these studies have consisted of more street sex workers, a sector
that global research suggests is more dangerous. They argue there is less evidence
to assess the impacts on indoor sex work, a sector which, as we have seen, whilst
not free from victimisation, is associated with lower levels of violent crime.

Ellison et al. (2019), reviewing the impact of law criminalising purchasing which
came into force in NI in 2015, specifically considered whether violence and abuse
towards sex workers had increased in NI after the law had been implemented. That
review is of particular interest to those concerned about violence and abuse
amongst sex workers in Ireland because, as in NI, sex work is mainly internet-
based indoor sex work. Drawing on a range of data sources including 2556 UM
reports from sex workers in NI, a survey of 199 online sex workers working in NI
and 13 narrative interviews, they drew a number of conclusions related to victim-
isation of sex workers. They concluded that assaults committed against sex work-
ers reported to UM had increased by 225% from 2016 to 2018; they cautioned that
these were reported in low numbers considering the size of the online sex worker
population estimated from data provided by a main online advertising platform
for escorts in Ireland and web scrapes of escort advertisements on three other
platforms. No such recent estimation is available for Ireland to enable contextu-
alisation of the data we analyse. In their survey of sex workers in NI, amongst
those who reported having experienced crimes in the past 12 months or 5 years, the
most common offences they had experienced were abusive or threatening phone
calls/messages, in-person threatening or abusive behaviour, assault, robbery and
rape and sexual assault. Of those offences reported abusive or threatening phone
calls or messages and in-person threatening and abusive behaviour had increased
in the last 12 months, 73.3% for the former and 50.6% of the later having expe-
rienced them in the last 12 months compared to 17.3% for assault, 14.6% rape and
9.3% sexual assault. They concluded that commercial sex was now more risky and
underground:

while direct evidence of massive increases in overt violence and abuse against sex

workers may not be necessarily evident in Northern Ireland, high levels of nuisance

and anti-social behaviour can be every bit as insidious with the potential impact on

sex workers mental health in the longer term. (Ellison et al., 2019: 147)

Their assessment highlighted the impact the new law had had on the fear of
crime. In their survey, 39.3% of sex workers who had never been victims of crime
reported that sex work is more dangerous since the new law, 31.8% said that it was
about the same as before and 28.7% said that it was less dangerous. And 74.6% of
those who had been a victim of crime thought that it was now more dangerous,
7.4% less and 17.95% the same. They suggested that the very high levels of anxiety
they found in interviews with sex workers about being outed as a sex worker due to

Campbell et al. 289



sex work stigma ‘combined with high levels of nuisance and anti-social behaviour
creates the perfect storm for a heightened state of “fear”’ (Ellison et al., 2019: 150).
They also suggested that such nuisance and anti-social behaviour targeted at sex
workers were acting as signal crimes for sex workers signalling ‘the likelihood of
more serious victimisation and the potential of harm to the individual’ (Ellison et al.,
2019: 152). They found sex workers in interviews expressed the view that purchasing
criminalisation had increased the stigmatisation of sex workers and contributed to a
‘heightened state of anxiety and concern’ (p. 153) about victimisation. Their inter-
views with sex workers highlighted not only how online and in-person abuse impacts
on the mental well-being of sex workers but also erodes sex workers’ sense of safety.
Describing the situation they found in NI, Ellison et al. (2019: 147) stated:

. . . through no fault of their own, sex workers are having to contend with higher rates of

nuisance and abusive behaviour than they were before Article 64A came into effect.

. . . some of these behaviours can be extremely distressing for the sex worker concerned

. . . What is presented as an asymmetric law, bearing more heavily on the purchaser of

sex, seems rather symmetric in practice and in many ways impacts more heavily on the

seller

They noted the contradiction that for a law which intended to address violence
against women, ‘it is somewhat paradoxical that it appears to have subjected many
women (and of course male sex workers) to a highly unsafe work context, resulting
in a heightened state of anxiety’ (Ellison et al. 2019: 142).

Researchers have long identified the ‘othering’ and stigmatisation of sex work-
ers (Benoit et al., 2018; O’Neill, 1997; Whitaker et al., 2011) including the specific
misogynistic ‘whore stigma’ (Pheterson, 1993), as causal factors in the dehuman-
isation of sex workers and denial of sex worker rights. Within this framing, sex-
working women are least deserving of all of respect and protection. Such othering
has been linked directly to high levels of targeted violence and hostility experienced
by sex workers. Academics have documented a range of dehumanising discourses,
which construct sex workers as pollutants, vectors of disease and urban blight.
Lowman (2000) described a ‘discourse of disposability’ prevalent in media descrip-
tions of policy actors’ efforts to ‘get rid’ of street prostitution from residential
areas’, treating sex workers as a disposable social outcast group, contributing to
a social milieu, in which violence against sex workers flourishes. Kinnell (2008:
164) identified this discourse in public statements from police, politicians, residents
groups and other policy actors using the language of cleaning up, eliminating and
eradicating sex work, reinforcing a ‘rhetoric of abhorrence’ which condones the
victimisation of sex workers, including extreme acts of violence, via a process of
cultural disinhibition.

Campbell (2014) found that sex workers’ experiences of target victimisation in
Merseyside, UK, fitted several established definitions of hate crime, including those
that define hate crimes as expressions of prejudice, discrimination and power (Hall,
2005; Perry, 2001) against socially marginalised and othered groups. They pointed

290 Irish Journal of Sociology 28(3)



to over two decades of research evidencing the othering and social stigmatisation
of sex workers and how this has been linked to hostility and violence against sex
workers. To more fully understand sex workers’ experiences of hate crime, they
also drew on the definition of hate crime as violence, hostility and intimidation
perpetrated because of perceived difference or vulnerability (Chakraborti and
Garland, 2012), where perceived vulnerability describes perpetrators seeing ‘their
target: as weak, defenceless, powerless, with a limited capacity to resist’. Sex work-
ers in the study expressed the view that some offenders target sex workers in the
belief that they are ‘easy targets’, and they (the offender) will be more likely to ‘get
away with it’. Perpetrators believed that sex workers would not report to the police
or that they can exploit other vulnerabilities such as sex workers’ fears of public
identification or their situational vulnerability, with sex workers often working in
isolation to avoid criminalisation or detection. This resonates with some claims by
Ellison and Smith (2017) that identified some Irish sex workers’ experiences of
crime victimisation as akin to hate crime. They also drew on Perry’s (2001) struc-
tural conceptualisation of hate crime as violence and intimidation directed towards
stigmatised groups to reaffirm a hierarchical social order arguing ‘Perry’s concep-
tualisation captures some elements of how and why violence is directed towards
sex workers in the Irish context’ (p. 181). They point to sex workers as a highly
stigmatised and marginalised group. They also describe how in relation to wider
misogynistic violence against women ‘sex workers are often seen as easy targets in
so far as they are targeted by men with particularly misogynistic tendencies’ not
due to any ‘innate characteristics of the sex worker, rather it is sex workers situ-
ational and their stigmatised image which exposes them to certain kinds of risk’
(Ellison and Smith, 2017: 182). Ellison et al. (2019: 153) in considering violence and
abuse towards sex workers in NI, as part of a review of the impact of law crim-
inalising purchasing sexual services, described how criminal and other behaviours
towards sex workers ‘can reflect both bias motivation that defines the victim as a
legitimate target (hostility towards a perceived social group) and also as an easy
target insofar as sex workers can be seen as inherently vulnerable’. This framing of
the victimisation of sex workers within conceptualisations of hate crime is relevant
to our purposes because it makes visible the targeted hostility and intimidation sex
workers experience across a range of crime types, anti-social behaviour and nui-
sance. Recognising the hate elements of the crimes and nuisance incidents experi-
enced by sex workers brings into focus the origins of such behaviour, the severity
of impacts and points to potential ways forward for policy and the policing sex
workers experience of victimisation. It is important to note that Ireland has been
identified as being anomalous compared to other EU member states for not adopt-
ing laws which address the hate elements of crime. Haynes and Schweppe (2017)
evidence inadequacies in the criminal justice system in providing legal redress for
bias crime. Hate is recognised only through the Prohibition of Incitement to
Hatred Act 1989 which made it an offence to create or distribute racist, homo-
phobic and other discriminatory materials. In December 2019, the UN again urged
Ireland to introduce hate crime legislation (Pollack, 2019). Despite these legislative

Campbell et al. 291



limitations, some third sector and civil society groups working to promote the

rights of communities who are targets of racist, religious, disabalist, homophobic

and transphobic hate have embraced the concept of hate crime and supported hate

crime prevention and awareness campaigns, third-party reporting and monitoring

mechanisms and advocated for better responses from the Garda�ı (Sheenan and
Dwyer, 2017). Furthermore, this framing of sex workers experiences victimisation

through the prism of hate crime makes visible how sex workers are subjects of

other more recognised forms of hate crime but are rarely recognised in wider hate

crime policy debates.

The sample

For this paper, we carried out an analysis of a subset of UM Republic of Ireland

(ROI) report data for four years between 2015 and 2019. For our sample frame, we

purposefully selected the two years pre and post the 2017 Act coming into force.

During this period, a total of 14,370 reports were made into the scheme and form

our sample. UM was established in 2009 as an online third-party reporting and

alerting scheme with the aim of improving sex workers’ safety and reducing crime.

It works by providing an online platform through which sex workers can report

information about potential dangers and be alerted about these, many access and

report through a phone app and make a report by filling in a pro forma. UM has

been collecting data about crimes, anti-social behaviour and nuisance against sex

workers for over a decade, and it is the primary third-party reporting scheme for

sex workers in Ireland; indeed, there is no other comparable third-party reporting

scheme for sex workers. Ellison et al. (2019: 133) note that as violence and abuse

committed against sex workers is rarely reported to the police creating a ‘“dark

figure” in official sources . . . In this sense UM data is considerably more reliable
than official data (e.g. from police or government sources) given the fact that UM

is trusted by sex workers’.
In light of limited official data related to crimes against sex workers in Ireland

UM data, with the scheme’s longstanding history of receiving and recording

reports from sex workers for a decade, provides an important and useful source

of data. The sample of over 14,000 reports we draw on offers significant material to

work with, even if it may not be completely representative.

Methods and sources

We used a mixed-method approach combining qualitative and quantitative data

analysis. For quantitative analysis, we have presented the data as it is categorised

by the UM system. Anonymised data were provided by UM in MySQL relational

database format. Using PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) and SQL (Structured

Query Language), the data was then queried to produce statistical tables that

were exported to Excel. Graphs were then generated in Excel. We analysed the

total number of reports made to UM and a number of quantitative data variables.

292 Irish Journal of Sociology 28(3)



When making a report to UM, members can fill in a long or a short form, the short
form includes fewer fields and is the form the majority of members opt to use. This
form contains the data fields we have been able to draw upon in our analysis.
All victim reports include details about the date the incident happened and the date
the individual reported the incident to UM. UM records the location data for each
incident reported. With incidents where individuals do not record a location
because they experience abusive or threatening phone calls, UM assigns the loca-
tion where the sex worker was when the incident occurred as their location. An
incident type or multiple incident types are assigned to each report made to UM.
Sex workers fill in an online reporting form with tick boxes for predefined catego-
ries which describe the offence/behaviour they are reporting.

Incident types are assigned in two ways: as described, they may be selected by
the UM member when submitting the report or they can be added to the report by
a UM administrator based on information provided in the free text ‘Description of
Incident’ field. UM has 47 incident types of which 29 are considered by UM to be
crime incident types and 18 non-crime incident types (Tables 3 and 4 list these).
UM considers a subset of 12 of the crime incident types to be violent crime,
including anal rape, assault (slapping, punching, kicking), assault with a weapon
(knife/gun/other), attempted rape/sexual assault, other sexual assault, drugging
(adminstered drug/poison), forced oral sex, groping/kissing without consent,
held against will, removal of condom without consent, strangulation/suffocation
and vaginal rape (see Tables 1 and 2). In general, crime incident types are those
where it is likely the perpetrator’s behaviour constitutes a criminal act, and non-
crime incident types are those where it is likely the perpetrator’s behaviour does
not constitute a criminal act. We examined the frequency of these in each year and
calculated increases and decreases. We were also able to examine the total number
of reports by gender. We were not able to examine reports by nationality because
this is not routinely recorded in the UM system; the majority of members opt not
to provide their nationality and UM does not insist on this for privacy.

For our qualitative data, we analysed the narrative responses in the free text box
where sex workers describe the incidents they are reporting. We did this for all
crime reports between 2015 and 2019. We carried out a preliminary content anal-
ysis using a directed approach (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005), using prior research to
identify key variables in the data for coding and collation of report narrative
extracts. Our analysis, which was a purposefully targeted one, used initial codes
informed by conceptualisations of sex workers’ experiences of hate crime using
various indicators of sex worker targeted hostility. We explored whether or not sex
workers’ reports of victimisation to UM contained indicators of hate crime–for
example, reports which contained descriptions of expressions of prejudice and
derogatory language about sex workers. Also, using conceptualisations of hate
crime as the outcome of the targeting of ‘perceived vulnerability’, we identified
incidents of sex worker targeted hate crime where there were indicators of ‘per-
ceived vulnerability’. For example, we took as indicators of perceived vulnerability
incidents where perpetrators threaten sex workers that they will inform police,

Campbell et al. 293



landlords or others parties, as these highlight that perpetrators were aware that this
would place sex workers in a difficult position and hence could be used against
them. Such indicators were prevalent in many sex workers’ reports made to UM.
Also, we identified cases in which sex workers included descriptive information in
their report that revealed other experiences of targeted hostility such as racism,
homophobia and anti-migrant sentiments. We also identified incidents where the
person reporting refers to incidents directly as a hate crime. We utilised extracts
from this qualitative data to illustrate sex workers’ experiences of targeted hostil-
ity. We did not carry out any level of longitudinal analysis, which enabled us to
assess changes in the levels of such experiences of hate crime victimisation over
time, and hence we have not extrapolated from the data to comment on trends
over time. Such experiences of targeted hostility are not visible in the statistical
data. We turn now to discuss our findings from our analysis of the UM data.

When completing membership of UM, sex workers agree to Terms of Service
which include agreement for UM to use anonymised data for public reporting and
academic research. Having analysed the free text qualitative data, we have ensured
that any personally identifying data was removed from any material used, fully
anonymising qualitative data. Also, for further anonymity, we have used regions of
Ireland and not specific towns.

Trends in violent and other crimes against sex workers in
Ireland

Report totals per year

Our analysis of UM data reveals that the total number of reports made to UM
between 2015 and 2019 has increased incrementally (see Figure 1). Crime reports,
as a subset of the total number of reports, have also increased incrementally
between 2015 and 2016 (n ¼ 607) with the largest increase from crime reports in
2016–2017 (n ¼ 945) to reports in 2017–2018 (n ¼ 1445). Sex workers’ reports to
UM of violent crime have increased specifically since 2015–2016 (n ¼ 168), reach-
ing their highest level during 2017–2018 (n ¼ 387). Indeed, comparing the two years
pre and the two years post-Ireland’s legislative change in this area, sex workers’
crime reports to UM increased by 91% and violent crime specifically increased
by 92%.

Whilst our preliminary analysis cannot prove direct causation, these increases
are a concern in terms of sex workers’ safety and raise issues around wider public
protection from crime. Previous research based on UM data (Ellison and Smith,
2017) analysed 7200 incident reports made to UM over a six-year period between
2009 and 2015, of which a subset were crime incidents (n ¼ 2945). The data showed
some year-on-year increases. We acknowledge that there could be other reasons
for increased reporting of crime to UM; for example, an increase in the number of
sex workers, better reporting or recording techniques, greater awareness of crime
amongst the sex worker population or greater awareness of the value of reporting

294 Irish Journal of Sociology 28(3)



incidents to a third-party scheme, particularly with increased public debate around

the introduction of the new law. Also, it is important to stress that we are not

proposing that it is only laws criminalising sex purchase that generate crimes

against sex workers. Rather, we recognise that a multiplicity of factors create an

adverse terrain for maximising sex worker safety. For example, policing, other laws

such as brothel keeping legislation, stigmatisation of sex work and lack of work-

based rights/protections contribute to this problem.
Interestingly, UM membership has remained the same in the period between

2015 and 2019, with between 6000 and 7000 users per year each year. Hence, it is

unlikely that this increase in reported crimes and incidents is due to an increase in

UM membership. However, as UM cannot split members into NI and ROI,
2
this

membership figure is an all-Ireland statistic.
This data shows that sex workers working throughout Ireland report crimes

they have experienced. The geographical distribution of crime reports 2015–2019

by region and county is detailed in Table 1. The largest number of reports were

incidents in Dublin 2019 (44.78%), which is unsurprising, given it is the capital and

has the largest population, followed by Cork 543 (12.04%), Limerick 470 (10.42%)

and Galway 268 (5.94%), reflecting larger urban population centres.

Crime types and incidents reported by sex workers

UM adopts an approach to defining crime that is informed by sex workers’ per-

ceptions of crime. Each report made to UM is not individually scrutinised as to

whether it represents a criminal offence, which may result in overall under or over-

counting of crime. For example, incident types which represent abusive and threat-

ening behaviour are deemed a crime incident type by UM, but it may be the case

1537

2741

4598

5494

607
945

1445 1512

168 217 387 354

27 Mar 2015 - 26 
March 2016

27 Mar 2016 - 26 
March 2017

27 Mar 2017 - 26 
March 2018

27 Mar 2018 - 26 
March 2019

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

Total Reports Crime Reports Violent Crime Reports

Figure 1. Reports to UM by year 2015–2019.

Campbell et al. 295



that not all reports assigned these incident types would meet the thresholds
required to be deemed criminal offences in law.

UM does not count incident types involving the purchase of, or attempts to
purchase, sexual services as crimes, even though such activities are now
criminalised.

Non-crime incident types are those, which UM does not consider criminal but
are representative of behaviours which make sex workers uncomfortable, con-
cerned or distressed, and UM provides as a means through which sex workers
can report and alert other sex workers. Historically, ugly mugs schemes in other
jurisdictions took such reports because the behaviour of some of the individuals
concerned escalated to criminal incidents (Kinnell, 2008). Examples of such behav-
iours include conduct that is suspicious, potentially dangerous or time wasting.
Time wasters have emerged as one of the most common work-related problems
identified by sex workers in the indoor and online sector (Sanders et al., 2018).
Ellison et al. (2019: 137) describe UM as ‘not solely a crime focused reporting
mechanism’ and described how, for sex workers in NI, it is also used as a valued
‘work tool’ by individual sex workers allowing sex workers to share information
about potential time wasters.

We analysed the frequency of non-crime incident types in the two-year period
before and after Ireland’s new legislation (see Table 2). The most frequently
reported incident types in the period 2015–2017 were: No show/location Seeker
(n ¼ 1640), Look and go/arrived without money (n ¼ 434), Seeking free sex chat/no
intent to book (n ¼ 236), Suspicious behaviour (n ¼ 180) and Sought vaginal/anal
sex without condom (n ¼ 83). These five incident types were also the most frequent-
ly reported incident types in 2017–2019; No show/location Seeker (n ¼ 4171), Look
and go/arrived without money (n ¼ 1070), Suspicious behaviour (n ¼ 659), Seeking
free sex chat/no intent to book (n ¼ 569) and Sought vaginal/anal sex without
condom (n ¼ 276). The largest percentage increases found, when comparing the
two years pre and post the legislative change, were with the following non-crime

Table 1. Total UM 2015–2019 reports by region and county.

Region Number and percentage of reports

South-East Carlow 10 (0.22%), Kilkenny 26 (0.58%), Waterford 51 (1.13%),

Westmeath 112 (2.48%) and Wexford 53 (1.18%)

Border Cavan 86 (1.91%), Donegal 42 (0.93%), Leitrim 33 (0.73%),

Monaghan 38 (0.84%) and Sligo 30 (0.67%)

Mid-West Clare 46 (1.02%), Limerick 470 (10.42%) and Tipperary 76 (1.69%)

South-West Cork 543 (12.04%) and Kerry 148 (3.28%)

Dublin Dublin 2019 (44.78%)

West Galway 268 (5.94%), Mayo 131 (2.91%) and Roscommon 8 (0.18%)

Mid-East Kildare 92 (2.04%), Louth 133 (2.95%), Meath 18 (0.40%) and

Wicklow 3 (0.07%)

Midlands Laois 48 (1.06%), Longford 14 (0.31%) and Offaly 11 (0.24%)

296 Irish Journal of Sociology 28(3)



incident types: Other suspected danger (754.55%), Suspicious behaviour
(266.11%), Sought vaginal/anal sex without condom (232.53%), Unauthorised
photography/recording (216.67%) and Maliciously reported you to police/author-
ities (200.00%).

Analysing UM data for NI, Ellison et al. (2019) report that a far higher pro-
portion of UM reports related to what they refer to as low and intermediate level
offences (abuse on the telephone and threatening behaviour), rather than violence
and serious crime as well as anti-social and nuisance activities which for them
included seeking free sex, turning up without money, not showing up for a book-
ing, bogus outcalls, threatening to call landlord/police, threatening to damage the
sex worker’s reputation, drunkenness, illegal drug use, unauthorised photography/
video recording, pretending to be a police officer and nuisance text messages and
phone calls. This led them to observe that whilst serious and violent crimes against
sex workers in NI may not be as prevalent as assumed, following the criminalisa-
tion of purchasing, there had been a ‘gradual creeping up of certain violent offen-
ces’ (Ellison et al., 2019: 139).

Table 2. Non-crime incident types reported to UM 2015–2019.

Incident

27 March 2015–26

Mar 2017

Frequency (%)

27 Mar 2017–26

Mar 2019

Frequency (%)

Percent

increase/

decrease

Bogus outcall 49 (0.89%) 141 (1.12%) 187.76%

Drug user or in possession of drugs 62 (1.13%) 175 (1.39%) 182.26%

Drunk/intoxicated with alcohol 73 (1.33%) 194 (1.55%) 165.75%

Look and go/arrived without money 434 (7.93%) 1070 (8.52%) 146.54%

Maliciously reported you to hotel/

landlord

10 (0.18%) 24 (0.19%) 140.00%

Maliciously reported you to police/

authorities

1 (0.02%) 3 (0.02%) 200.00%

No show/location seeker 1640 (29.95%) 4171 (33.22%) 154.33%

Other 33 (0.60%) 49 (0.39%) 48.48%

Other suspected danger 11 (0.20%) 94 (0.75%) 754.55%

Other timewasters 71 (1.30%) 82 (0.65%) 15.49%

Police warnings 0 (0.00%) 3 (0.02%)

Public warnings 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%)

Seeking free sex chat/no intent to book 236 (4.31%) 569 (4.53%) 141.10%

Sought vaginal/anal sex without

condom

83 (1.52%) 276 (2.20%) 232.53%

STI (sexually transmitted infection) or

other contagious condition

19 (0.35%) 45 (0.36%) 136.84%

Suspicious behaviour 180 (3.29%) 659 (5.25%) 266.11%

Unauthorised photography/recording 12 (0.22%) 38 (0.30%) 216.67%

Undercover journalist 2 (0.04%) 3(0.02%) 50.00%

Campbell et al. 297



Based on UM quantitative data, we analysed the frequency of crime incident
types in the two-year period before and after Ireland’s new legislation (see Table 3).
The five most frequently reported crime types in the period between 2015 and 2017
were abusive or threatening phone calls/SMS (n ¼ 687), in-person threatening
behaviour (n ¼ 500) in-person verbal abuse (n ¼ 356), assault (slapping, punching,
kicking) (n ¼ 137) and other sexual assault (n ¼ 114). The two most frequently
reported crime incident types in the period between 2017 and 2019 were abusive
or threatening phone calls/SMS (n ¼ 1215) and in-person threatening behaviour
(n ¼ 1131). These were also the two most frequent crimes types found to be
reported by sex workers to UM in Ellison et al.’s.(2019) Northern Irish study
and the two most reported crimes in their survey. In our data, these were followed
by in-person verbal abuse (n ¼ 757), assault (slapping, punching, kicking) (n ¼ 325)
and robbery (n ¼ 241). The largest percentage increases found, when comparing
the two years pre and post the law change, were with the following crime incident
types: assault with a weapon (knife/gun/other) (441.67%), attempted robbery
(366.67%), caused damage to property (275.00%), robbery (254.41%) and
requested illegal acts, e.g. underage sex (218.18%).

Taken together, this data mirrors trends in other international studies that
examine online sex workers’ experience of abuse and violence (Sanders et al.,
2018). The prevalence of abusive or threatening phone calls, in-person threats
and verbal abuse reflect one strand of crime sex workers most commonly reported
in other studies (Campbell et al., 2019). What the data shows is that the over-
whelming majority of UM members are online sex workers, reflecting the structure
of the Irish commercial sex market now.

Whilst the statistical data is key to establishing the trends in the Irish sex indus-
try and establishing evidence about sex workers’ victimisation in Ireland, sex work-
ers’ narrative accounts of their lived experiences of violence provide powerful
insights into how sex workers live on a daily basis with the threat of hostility,
intimidation and violence. Their words provide us with important resources to help
policy makers understand the forms of targeted hostility and intimidation sex
workers can face. As we analysed sex workers reports of crimes and abuse
within UM data, we were struck by the impact, intensity and ferocity of
targeted hostility sex workers encounter, including as part of crimes such as
online and in-person verbal abuse. Importantly, the UM qualitative data high-
lights how crimes can have a sex worker-targeted hate element as the following
reports show:

Man made a booking. Then he asked the price for a three-hour booking. The lady

gave him the price. Then he started offending the lady calling her a sex slave, pros-

titute, bitch. He then began threatening her. He has now called her over 12 times. She

feels he is very dangerous. (Tipperary, 2019)

Another example of this kind of sex worker-targeted hate is visible in a report
made by a female sex worker in Monaghan in 2017. She reported being constantly

298 Irish Journal of Sociology 28(3)



harassed by a man who had left a message for her calling her a ‘dirty fucking

whore’ and saying that ‘all prossies should be murdered’.
As Chakraborti et al. (2014) found in the largest UK study of hate crime, whilst

‘often it is the more violent and extreme acts of targeted hostility which attract

Table 3. Crime incident types reported to UM 2015–2019.

Incident

27 March 2015–26

March 2017

Frequency (%)

27 Mar 2017–26

Mar 2019

Frequency (%)

Percent

increase/

decrease

Abusive or threatening emails/online

msgs

9 (0.16%) 8 (0.06%) �11.11%

Abusive or threatening phone calls/SMS 687 (12.55%) 1215 (9.68%) 76.86%

Anal rape 18 (0.33%) 21 (0.17%) 16.67%

Assault (slapping, punching, kicking) 137 (2.50%) 325 (2.59%) 137.23%

Assault with a weapon (knife/gun/other) 12 (0.22%) 65 (0.52%) 441.67%

Attempted assault 20 (0.37%) 22 (0.18%) 10.00%

Attempted rape/sexual assault 45 (0.82%) 56 (0.45%) 24.44%

Attempted robbery 21 (0.38%) 98 (0.78%) 366.67%

Exploitation/abuse by landlords and

hotel staff

43 (0.79%) 41 (0.33%) �4.65%

Caused damage to property 12 (0.22%) 45 (0.36%) 275.00%

Did not pay or paid with fake money,

etc.

60 (1.10%) 83 (0.66%) 38.33%

Drugging (administered a drug/poison

on you)

0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%)

Forced oral sex 24 (0.44%) 29 (0.23%) 20.83%

Groping/kissing without consent 97 (1.77%) 124 (0.99%) 27.84%

Harassment/stalking 79 (1.44%) 103 (0.82%) 30.38%

Held against will 33 (0.60%) 21 (0.17%) �36.36%
Impersonating a police officer 25 (0.46%) 33 (0.26%) 32.00%

In-person threatening behaviour 500 (9.13%) 1131 (9.01%) 126.20%

In-person verbal abuse 356 (6.50%) 757 (6.03%) 112.64%

Masturbate in front of you without

consent

16 (0.29%) 19 (0.15%) 18.75%

Offering illegal acts, e.g. drugs 9 (0.16%) 18 (0.14%) 100.00%

Other deception or fraud 8 (0.15%) 9 (0.07%) 12.50%

Other sexual assault 114 (2.08%) 205 (1.63%) 79.82%

Pimping, trafficking or other

exploitation

32 (0.58%) 33 (0.26%) 3.13%

Removal of condom without consent 70 (1.28%) 163 (1.30%) 132.86%

Requested illegal acts, e.g. underage sex 11 (0.20%) 35 (0.28%) 218.18%

Robbery 68 (1.24%) 241 (1.92%) 254.41%

Strangulation/suffocation 14 (0.26%) 19 (0.15%) 35.71%

Vaginal rape 39 (0.71%) 40 (0.32%) 2.56%

Campbell et al. 299



political and academic attention’ whilst ‘the experiences and cumulative harms of
the more “ordinary”, everyday forms of abuse, bullying, and harassment go unac-
knowledged’ (p. 15). In their study, verbal abuse emerged as the form of hate crime
most likely to have been experienced by their respondents, followed by harassment
and property crime (e.g. burglary, theft or damage to victims’ houses or cars). The
increase in reports for these crime categories in the UM data alongside assaults
with a weapon, robbery and damage to property plus the increases in all, but three
of the crime types overall are concerning and require further investigation.

UM records the gender of the sex worker making the report (or the gender of the
victim if the report is being made by a third party) (see Figure 2). The gender iden-
tities used in the scheme are female, male or trans. Trans encompasses both trans-
vestite and transgender. The majority of trans workers in Ireland are trans women
(Ellison et al., 2019). Predominantly, victims of crime reporting to UM identify as
female (n ¼ 3924) or trans (n ¼ 505). Male victims were represented (n ¼ 80). Crime
reports received from trans sex workers have increased sharply in recent years from
(n ¼ 61) in the period between 2016 and 2017, with a 236.07% increase to (n ¼ 205)
during the period between 2017 and 2018. Reporting remained high during the
period between 2018 and 2019 (n ¼ 196). This increase in crimes reported by trans-
gender sex workers is concerning and requires further exploration.

We can look to European research to interpret trends in the UM data.
Transgender Europe (Fedorko and Beredo, 2017) has identified a disproportionate
number of transgender and gender diverse migrant sex workers as victims of crime.
As well as identifying anti trans and sex worker bias and hatred as the main causes
for high levels of violence against trans sex workers, they point to:

Current trends contributing to the marginalisation and exclusion of trans and sex

worker communities, such as the criminalisation of migration and sex work, the use of

punitive approaches to ‘tackling’ poverty, homelessness, and drug use, increasingly

554

10 43

865

19 61

1205

35
205

1300

16

196

Female Male Trans
0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

27 Mar 2015 - 26 March 2016 27 Mar 2016 - 26 March 2017

27 Mar 2017 - 26 March 2018 27 Mar 2018 - 26 March 2019

Figure 2. Gender of victims of crime incidents reported to UM 2015–2019.

300 Irish Journal of Sociology 28(3)



precarious living and working conditions, and growing racial, gender, and economic

disparities. (Fedorko and Berredo, 2017: 4)

Of particular interest here in light of the current article’s focus is a recent study

of the relationship between the wider transgender community and An Garda

S�ıochána (the Irish police force). Haynes and Schweppe (2018) reported low
levels of trust of, and satisfaction with, the Garda�ı amongst the trans population
compared to the general population. Their report specifically recommended fur-

ther research into trans sex workers’ experiences of crime.
UM tags some reports to indicate the perpetrator-made specific types of threats

(see Table 4). This is done by UM administration based on text occurring in a free

text field entitled: ‘Description of Incident’. Here, the UM member has the oppor-

tunity to provide details of some specific threats that the perpetrator made. The

three most common types of threats reported are threats by the perpetrator to

contact the police, threats of eviction and threats of reputational damage. Our

analysis of the data indicates that sex workers’ reports of perpetrators’ threats to

report them to police have risen most significantly (98.31%) since 2017. This may

indicate that a growing number of perpetrators believe that threatening sex work-

ers with police action is an effective form of intimidation. Here, we interpret these

threats as hate incidents because they fit within our working definition of hate

crime as acts that target perceived vulnerability. These involve an awareness on the

part of the perpetrator that the victims’ sex working status can be used against

them and create problems for them, for example, if they are outed publicly or to a

specific party, be that police, landlords, employers, universities, family or friends.
It was common for UM reports to contain descriptions of threats to inform

various parties that the victim was sex working. Thereby, exploiting a perceived

vulnerability that sex workers would not want to be identified or ‘outed’ to those

parties. Most frequently, perpetrators’ threats involved exposure to the police,

media and parties who had control over or were linked to their home and/or

work accommodation; for example, landlords, or hotel staff. Often sex workers

received threats of outing to one or more of these parties. Sanders et al. (2018)

found that amongst the key disadvantages of online sex work which sex workers

identified were worries that neighbours, friends, family or police would find out

about their sex work. Hence such threats can create a great deal of anxiety and fear.

Table 4. Types of threat reported to UM 2015–2019.

Incident

27 March 2015–26

March 2017

Frequency (%)

27 March 2017–26

March 2019

Frequency (%)

Percent

increase/decrease

Threat of police 118 (41.11%) 234 (48.85%) 98.31%

Threat of eviction 59 (20.56%) 79 (16.49%) 33.90%

Threats of reputational damage 110 (38.33%) 166 (34.66%) 50.91%

Campbell et al. 301



Informing the police and claiming to be police officers

Frequently, sex workers cited perpetrators’ threats to report them to the Garda�ı.
This demonstrates offenders’ awareness that sex workers are fearful of the Garda�ı
and their use of that fear and perceived vulnerability as a form of coercion. Some
used the threat as part of attempts to extort free services or money. This is dem-
onstrated in the following reports: ‘A trans sex worker reported that a man is
threatening her that if she will not agree to unprotected sex he will send the
police to her apartment’ (Clare 2018). ‘Man has called the lady 20 times now.
He is saying that he will call the guards if the lady doesn’t leave the apartment
that she lives in’ (Dublin, 2019). Further:

A female sex worker reported that a man made a booking and when he got to her

hotel room he demanded money or he would report her to the hotel staff and garda.

The lady says he was very aggressive and she was very scared. (Dublin, 2018)

Some reports from migrant workers highlighted how some of those targeting
sex workers utilised the perceived immigration status of the worker as part of their
threat in relation to police: A female sex worker reported that a violent and
aggressive man came to visit her. He threatened to call the police on her if she
was not with him for free. He said to her that in Ireland she was illegal and that he
can call the police on her (Sligo, 2019).

Ellison et al. (2019) argued that amongst sex workers in NI, threats of reporting
the worker to the police or of causing reputational damage, which were commonly
reported to UM, ‘are done entirely on the basis of perceived vulnerability and that
the sex worker is powerless to fight back’ (p. 153). They observe that in NI, ‘Even
in a situation whereby it is the client not the sex worker breaking the law, the client
has the power to enact considerable harm against the sex worker’ (p. 154).

Their study flagged up a range of issues for sex workers in NI which caused
anxiety about identification to the police, in a context where they were not com-
mitting a crime selling sexual services but clients are by purchasing services. These
included to avoid the client causing problems by reporting them to police, fear of
being recorded as a sex worker by police, being prosecuting for brothel keeping, of
losing accommodation and fear of action regarding immigration status for some
migrant workers.

Some sex workers’ reports to UM (n ¼ 58) mentioned perpetrators’ imperson-
ating a police officer between 2015 and 2019. Qualitative data illustrate how the
police officer guise could be used often including perpetrators’ attempts to extort
free services or force sex workers to provide services they did not want to provide.
For example:

A trans woman sex worker reported that a man came to see her and her friend and then

began threatening them, saying he was police, and if they didn’t do what he wanted he

would hurt them, and also that he could denounce them to their landlord. (Dublin, 2015)

302 Irish Journal of Sociology 28(3)



Despite the fact that impersonating a police officer is a crime and that it is not a

crime to sell sexual services, while sex workers report such incidents to UM, they

remain reluctant to report these incidents to the police.

Accommodation

Threats to expose sex workers to those who had influence over their home and/or

work accommodation manifested in a number of ways:

Two female sex workers were working from a hotel room and took a booking with

two men, the booking went ok until after services were provided. The men started to

make a big fight breaking things in the hotel room and said if the women didn’t give

the money back they will go to reception and get them kicked out. Victims did not

report to the police but consented to data share. UM had received two previous

similar reports which matched the numbers used by these men. (Galway, 2017)

We find similar evidence here:

A female sex worker reported phone abuse from a man who found out where she was

staying then said the hotel was ‘aware you are prostitute and are waiting on Garda to

arrive’. He later said ‘I will continue until all you whores are caught, you dirty, filthy,

tramp’. (Meath, 2018)

One worker described graffiti outside his apartment; the male sex worker

reported harassment and stalking, including that he found written in black

marker on the post office boxes in his apartment ‘Apartment *** prostitution

and selling drugs’ (Dublin, 2019).
Ellison et al. (2019) in their evaluation research in NI reported that the fear of

potentially being evicted following a police investigation was identified by a

number of sex workers in their research, and this was one of several factors

preventing reporting of crime to the Police Service Northern Ireland (PSNI).

Specific reference to hate crime and experiences of other forms of hate

crime and intersectional experiences of hate

Specific direct reference to hate crime in sex workers’ reports was rare but did

occur. For example, a female sex worker reported that she received what she

described as ‘hate crime texts’ from a man. She gave examples like: ‘What are

you doing in Cork slut?’ (Cork, 2016). We find further evidence of this framing in

the following report:

A female sex worker reported that her two female sex worker friends were attacked

and robbed. She said her friends had all their money taken and were hit in their faces

and had to be taken to the hospital. She says her and her friends are now afraid to

Campbell et al. 303



work in the South of Ireland and that the men who do this are criminal people who

hate escorts. (Dublin, 2017)

Working within a definition of hate crime, which understands hate crime as
crime motivated by hostility or prejudice, we noted that sex workers’ reports of
crimes of various kinds which contained evidence of hate manifested in hostile and
derogatory attitudes towards sex workers and were expressed verbally or text-
based. The following quotations provide examples of the most commonplace
forms of abuse: ‘A female sex worker reported phone abuse and harassment
from a man saying in the last message he ended by calling her ‘another pimped
out prostitute’ (Limerick, 2018). Below, we provide a more explicit example:

A female sex worker reported that she had been violently attacked. . . She said that

whilst the man was hitting her, he was saying ‘you fucking whore, you’ll get it, where’s

the money you stole from me?’ Despite it being the case that he’d never paid her any

money. Reporting the next day, she said she was still crying and shaking. (Dublin, 2015)

As public understanding of formally recognised forms of hate crime is limited,
and with sex worker hate crime not formally recognised in Ireland, and no public
discourse or understanding of the conceptualisation of targeted hostility towards
sex workers as hate crime, it is not surprising that sex workers were not self-
identifying sex worker hate crime.

Some sex workers reported other forms of hate crime. It was not unusual for
these reports to reflect sex workers’ intersectional experiences of hate that entwine
with multiple forms of hate. Homophobia appears in several male sex workers’
reports:

A male escort reported that a man called him pretending to be a client. When the

supposed client called back saying he had arrived at the escort’s street, the escort

could see it was a group of teenagers. The escort says they then started sending

messages with hate against escorts and the LGBTQ community. (Dublin, 2016)

In the following report, anti-migrant, homophobic and whorephobic hate are
present:

A male sex worker reported a man has posted several open threats against sex work-

ers, especially if they are Brazilian and LGBTIþ, saying that he will personally hunt
them down, and report them to the Garda and immigration, so they are arrested and

go back to Brazil as criminals. One thing he’d said was ‘Me, together with the Garda

and the immigration, will go after each one of you to send you back to Brazil, from

where you never should have left’. (Dublin, 2017)

Reports including xenophobic, racist hate, targeted at migrant workers were not
uncommon:

304 Irish Journal of Sociology 28(3)



‘A female sex worker reported abusive calls and messages from a man saying
things like ‘fuckin bitch go back to your country’ (Dublin, 2019). Other examples
include: ‘A male sex worker reported a man called saying offensive and threatening
things, like all escorts should leave this country, all escorts should die and more’
(Dublin, 2017). And finally:

A female sex worker reported being sexually assaulted by a man who told her she was

a bitch and threatened her that she didn’t know who he was and that she is not a

woman and she should go back from where she came from. She said he was a totally

racist person. [Dublin, 2018]

Amnesty (2016) found that changes to sex work policy in Norway, which
included the introduction of the criminalisation of sex purchase, had led to a
hardening in attitudes to sex workers. Amnesty reported that negative attitudes
to sex workers were more common and that migrant workers reported discrimi-
nation from the public, which interwove racism and anti-migrant sentiment. We
observe that the hate language reported to Amnesty by migrant sex workers was
very similar to that contained in UM reports. Joyce et al. (2017) analysed the
invisibility of anti-Irish Traveller and anti-Roma hate in Ireland. With limited
documentation of such hate, some sex workers described experiences of such
hate crime; in these cases, in relation to abusive texting: a female sex worker
reported that a man texted her ‘Fuck u ye gypo’ (Monaghan, 2016).

Our preliminary analysis of UM qualitative report data shows that not only sex
workers are the targets of sex worker-targeted whorephobia but also can be the
victims of other forms of hate crime too. Sex workers from other structurally
marginalised groups and communities who experience prejudice and hate crime,
such as black and ethnic minority communities (including migrant and Traveller
and Roma communities) and the LGBT community, are targets of a range of hate
crimes, and those forms of hate can intersect within the work-based victimisation
they face as sex workers.

Sharing information with and reporting to the police

The number of sex workers reporting a crime incident into UM and who indicate
that they have also reported it to the police (or plan to do so) is extremely low (see
Figure 3). From our sample, the sum total of sex worker reports made to the
scheme and to the police was 40. In the period 2015–2016 11 (1.81%), in 2016–
2017 4 (0.42%), in 2017–2018 15 (1.04%) and in 2018–2019 10 (0.66%). UM
reports that when temporary rises in crime reporting occur, then, UM can usually
attribute this to specific work done to support sex workers to report to police. For
example, in recent years, SWAI have tried to encourage and facilitate reporting to
the police in response to some particular incidents, usually repeat offender violent
robberies, which directly result in several workers making police reports with
SWAI support.

Campbell et al. 305



The majority of crime incidents reported to UM by sex workers appear not to be

reported to the police. This is particularly low when compared to the documented

level of reporting to the police for reports from sex workers reporting into the NUM

scheme in the UK. Connelly et al. (2018) analysed 2056 reports submitted to NUM

between 2011 and 2016 and found that in nine out of ten cases (90%), the sex worker

had given anonymous consent to share report data with the police, whereas in only

two out of ten cases (20%) gave their full consent (permission to report formally)

compared to no more than 1.81% in any of the years examined for UM. Whilst

reporting to the police has been consistently low, UM data indicate that reporting

levels have not improved since Ireland introduced the 2017 Act.
As with NUM, UM members are more willing to give UM permission to

share data anonymously with the police. The number of sex workers reporting

a crime incident to UM who indicate that they give permission for UM to share

anonymously details of the offender with police is high (see Figure 4). In the

period 2016–2017 770 (81.48%), in the period 2017–2018 1172 (81.11%) and in

the period 2018–2019 1222 (80.82%). This variable is not available for the period

2015–2016 because UM only began collecting this data in late-2015.

Conclusions: Protections, social justice and decriminalisation

Our analysis of UM data highlights the types of victimisation sex workers in

Ireland are experiencing. It highlighted the wide spectrum of victimisation sex

workers experience, including serious sexual and violent crime as well as online

and in-person abuse, harassment and hate crime. Our data seem to call into ques-

tion the argument that because sex workers are no longer criminalised through

soliciting laws but their clients are, they will be empowered to come forward and

607

945

1445 1512

11 4 15 10

27 Mar 2015 - 26 
March 2016

27 Mar 2016 - 26 
March 2017

27 Mar 2017 - 26 
March 2018

27 Mar 2018 - 26 
March 2019

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

Crime Reports Reported To Police

Figure 3. Crime incidents reported to police 2015–2019.

306 Irish Journal of Sociology 28(3)



report crimes to the police. The data reveals instead that sex workers’ experiences

in Ireland resonate with what has happened in other countries where purchasing

laws were introduced. It appears that most crimes reported to UM are not also

reported to the police. Sex work remains stigmatised. Sex workers wish to remain

invisible to the authorities particularly the police. It ignores the reality that other

laws and policies that remain in place around activities such as brothel keeping,

renting premises for prostitution, advertising sexual services and immigration pol-

icies place sex workers in positions of greater precarity and vulnerability to violent

and other crimes.
We support and call for further research with the wider sex work community

and with specific cohorts of sex workers to explore the varied and intersectional

experiences of victimisation amongst sex workers in Ireland. Participatory models

of research have been identified as ethical ways of working with sex work com-

munities to identify community needs and experiences (O’Neill, 2010). This should

involve existing sex worker-led and peer-based organisations already involved in

monitoring and supporting sex worker victims of crime in Ireland such as SWAI

and UM. Such research could assist with evaluating and informing the develop-

ment of law, policy and support interventions. Platt et al. (2018: 45) stress the

importance of ‘participatory research to document the context specific ways in

which criminalisation or decriminalisation interacts with other structural factors

and policies related to stigma, poverty, migration, housing and sex worker collec-

tive organising, to inform locally relevant interventions alongside legal reform’.
In highlighting that in Ireland some of the problems identified in other juris-

dictions with the Nordic model, particularly its effects on violence and discrimi-

nation against sex workers are manifested, this article offers further support for

decriminalisation. We also argue for the full decriminalisation of sex work in light

of the weight of international research evidence which demonstrates

945

1445 1512

770

1172 1222

27 Mar 2016 - 26 March 2017 27 Mar 2017 - 26 March 2018 27 Mar 2018 - 26 March 2019
0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

Crime Reports Allow Data Share to Police

Figure 4. Crime incidents where victim allows anonymous offender data share to police
2016–2019.

Campbell et al. 307



decriminalisation provides the best framework for safety and reducing sex worker
victimisation. Where it has been enacted in New Zealand, it has enabled a more
radical and ‘a dramatic shift in the approach to policing sex work’ (Armstrong,
2017: 1), with much greater trust amongst sex workers in the police and a sense of
responsibility amongst the police for sex worker safety, enabling police to take a
‘proactive interest in sex worker safety’ (p. 14). It has provided sex workers with
legitimacy through the ‘realisation of employment, legal, health and safety rights’
(Abel and Fitzgerald, 2010: 256). Such recognition and enforcement of labour
rights and work-based protections are all vital elements in reducing work-related
crime victimisation.

In March 2020, the Department of Justice and Equality is legislatively
required to review the 2017 Act, and this includes the impact of the law on
the safety and well-being of people in sex work. We hope that this will produce
additional independent academic research on sex workers’ victimisation. The
increase in crimes reported to UM across many crime groups since the introduc-
tion of 2017 Act is concerning. The persistent and very low levels of reporting of
all crimes against sex workers reported to UM which are, in turn, reported to the
police is a red flag. It suggests that in Ireland, many sex workers feel unable and
afraid to report to the police, and their rights to protection and justice are
curtailed. We urge proactive initiatives to improve access to justice for sex work-
ers and to improve sex worker rights to security of the person, non-
discrimination and equal protection of the law, including when sex workers
are victims of crime. Platt et al. (2018: 45) concluded that all forms of sex
work criminalisation ‘deprioritise sex workers’ safety, health and rights and
hinder access to due process of law’ and recommended decriminalisation of sex
work. At the same time, they argued that legal reform needs to be accompanied
by policies to reduce ‘structural inequalities, stigma and exclusion – including
introducing anti-discrimination and hate crime laws that protect sex workers and
sexual, gender, racial and ethnic minorities’ (Platt et al., 2018: 45).

Law and policy needs to be refocused on making sex workers’ lives safer and
improving the relationship sex workers have with the police. This is a social justice
issue. Changes to policing policy and practice which improve responses to crimes
against sex workers and prioritise safety are needed. There may be some practical
learning from policing initiatives which have refocused on sex worker safety and
have demonstrated success in increasing reporting to the police and enabling access
to justice: for example, the approach of treating crimes against sex workers as hate
crime adopted in Merseyside (Campbell, 2018); introducing Police Sex Work
Liaison officers located in units not involved in enforcement activity linked to
sex work but with a remit of encouraging reporting and building confidence in
the police, as enacted with some positive progress in PSNI (Ellison et al., 2019) and
some UK forces (Brown et al., 2019). Such policing initiatives need to be developed
through processes which include sex worker-led groups who are well placed to
advice about policy and practice changes which enable sex workers to feel safe
to report crimes committed against them and identify how sex workers can be best

308 Irish Journal of Sociology 28(3)



made aware of their rights as victims in the criminal justice system. Such a refocus

of law and policy we would suggest is needed in Ireland to ensure that sex worker

safety is not collateral damage in the future development of sex work policy in

Ireland.

Authors’ Note

Lucy Smith is Coordinator of UglyMugs.ie and Rosie Campbell was Chair of National Ugly

Mugs at the time of writing.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-

ship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication

of this article.

ORCID iD

Rosie Campbell https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9008-3924

Notes

1. The term ‘ugly mugs’ originated in Australia, where local sex workers reluctant to report

to the police shared details of concerning individuals targeting sex workers with each

other. Practitioners from the UK and Ireland adopted this practice within outreach and

support services since the 1980s. National schemes were established in the UK (National

Ugly Mugs) and Ireland (UglyMugs.ie). UM was established in 2009 as an online ugly

mug scheme, with the aim of improving the safety of sex workers and reducing crime, by

bringing workers together to share information about potential dangers. UM has been

collecting data about crimes against sex workers for over a decade and is the primary

third-party reporting scheme for sex workers in Ireland.
2. UM membership numbers are all Ireland figures as UM only asks its members to select a

country as their location when registering or updating their profile and Ireland or another

country are the selections. It is therefore not possible to split UM members into ROI and

NI groups.

References

Abel G and Fitzgerald L (2010) Decriminalisation and stigma. In: Abel G, Fitzgerald L,

Healy C and Taylor A (eds) Taking the Crime Out of Sex Work: New Zealand sex

workers fight for decriminalisation. Bristol: The Policy Press. pp.239–259.

Amnesty International (2016) The Human Cost of Crushing the Market. London, UK:

Amnesty International.

Campbell et al. 309

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9008-3924
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9008-3924


Armstrong L (2017) From law enforcement to protection? Interactions between sex workers

and police in a decriminalized street-based sex industry. The British Journal of

Criminology 57(3): 570–588.
Beegan R and Moran J (2017) Prostitution and sex work: Situating Ireland’s New law on

prostitution in the radical and liberal feminist paradigms. Irish Journal of Applied Social

Studies 17(1): 58–75.
Benoit C, Jansson MS, Smith M, et al. (2018) Prostitution stigma and its effect on the

working conditions, personal lives, and health of sex workers. The Journal of Sex

Research 55(4–5): 457–447.
Boff A (2012) Silence on Violence: Improving the Safety of Women – The Policing of Off

Street Sex Work and Sex Trafficking in London. London: Greater London Authority.
Brewis J and Linstead S (2000) ‘The Worst Thing is the Screwing’ (2): Context and career in

sex work. Gender, Work & Organization 7(3): 168–180.
Brown K, Redman S and Grace S (2019) Policing vulnerability: Learning from the sex work

liaison officer role in West Yorkshire Police. N8prp.org.uk. Available at: https://n8prp.org.

uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/LEARNING-FROM-SEX-WORK-LIAISON-OFFICER-

ROLE-IN-WEST-YORKSHIRE-POLICE-final.pdf (accessed 31 December 2019).
Campbell R (2018) Beyond hate: Policing sex work, protection and hate crime. In: Sanders

T and Laing M (eds) Policing the Sex Industry: Protection, Paternalism and Politics.

Abingdon: Routledge, pp.53–72.
Campbell R (2014) Not getting away with it: Linking sex work and hate crime in

Merseyside. In: Chakraborti N and Garland J (eds) Responding to Hate Crime: The

Case for Connecting Policy and Research. Bristol: The Policy Press, pp.55–70.
Campbell R, Sanders T, Pitcher J, et al. (2019) Risking safety and rights: Online sex

work, crimes and ‘blended safety repertories’. British Journal of Sociology

70(4):1539–1560.
Chakraborti N and Garland J (2012) Reconceptualizing hate crime victimization through

the lens of vulnerability and ‘difference. Theoretical Criminology 16(4): 499–514.
Chakraborti N, Garland J and Hardy S (2014) The Leicester Hate Crime Project: Findings

and conclusions. Available at: https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/criminology/hate/

documents/fc-full-report (accessed 31 December 2019).
Church S, Henderson M, Barnard M, et al. (2001) Violence by clients towards female

prostitutes in different work settings: Questionnaire survey. British Medical Journal

322: 524–525.
Connelly L, Kamer�ade D and Sanders T (2018) Violent and non-violent crimes against sex

workers: The influence of the sex market on reporting practices in the United Kingdom.

Journal of Interpersonal Violence. Epub ahead of print 21 June 2018. Available at: https://

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0886260518780782.
Deering KN, Amin A, Shoveller J, et al. (2014) A systematic review of the correlates of

violence against sex workers. American Journal of Public Health 104(5): e42–e54.
Department of Justice and Equality (2014) Minister Fitzgerald publishes heads of new

Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill 2014. Available at: www.justice.ie/en/JELR/

Pages/PR14000349 (accessed 10 July 2019).
Ellison G, N�ı Dh�onaill C and Early E (2019) A review of the payment for sexual services in NI.

Queens University, Belfast School of Law and Department of Justice Northern Ireland, UK.
Ellison G and Smith L (2017) Hate crime legislation and violence against sex workers in

Ireland: Lessons in policy and practice. In: Haynes A, Schweppe J and Taylor S (eds)

310 Irish Journal of Sociology 28(3)

https://n8prp.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/LEARNING-FROM-SEX-WORK-LIAISON-OFFICER-ROLE-IN-WEST-YORKSHIRE-POLICE-final.pdf
https://n8prp.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/LEARNING-FROM-SEX-WORK-LIAISON-OFFICER-ROLE-IN-WEST-YORKSHIRE-POLICE-final.pdf
https://n8prp.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/LEARNING-FROM-SEX-WORK-LIAISON-OFFICER-ROLE-IN-WEST-YORKSHIRE-POLICE-final.pdf
https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/criminology/hate/documents/fc-full-report
https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/criminology/hate/documents/fc-full-report
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0886260518780782
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0886260518780782
http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/PR14000349
http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/PR14000349


Critical Perspectives on Hate Crime Contributions from the Island of Ireland. London.

Palgrave MacMillan, pp.179–208.
FitzGerald S and McGarry K (2016) Problematizing prostitution in law and policy in the

Republic of Ireland: A case for reframing. Social and Legal Studies 25(3): 289–309.
FitzGerald S and McGarry K (2018) Realising Justice for Sex Workers: An Agenda for

Change. London: Rowman and Littlefield.
Fedorko B and Berredo L (2017) The Vicious Cycle of Violence: Trans and Gender Diverse

People, Migration, and Sex Work. Malm€o Municipality, Sweden: Transgender Europe.
Hall N (2005) Hate Crime. Cullompton, Devon: Willan Publishing.
Haynes A and Schweppe J (2018) Gendered Policing and Policing Gender: The Trans

Community and An Garda S�ıochána. Dublin: Transgender Equality Network Ireland.
Haynes J and Schweppe J (2017) The disappearing of hate crime in the Irish Criminal Justice

Process. In: Haynes A, Schweppe J and Taylor S (eds) Critical Perspectives on Hate

Crime Contributions from the Island of Ireland. London. Palgrave MacMillan, pp.17–44.
Hsieh HF and Shannon SE (2005) Three approaches to qualitative content analysis.

Qualitative Health Research 15(9): 1277–1288.
ICRSE International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe (2014) Community

Report on Structural Violence: Social and institutional oppression experienced by sex

workers in Europe. ICRSE: UK.
Joyce S, Kennedy M and Haynes A (2017) Anti-Traveller and anti-Roma hate crime in

Ireland. In: Haynes A, Schweppe J and Taylor S (eds) Critical Perspectives on Hate

Crime Contributions from the Island of Ireland. London. Palgrave MacMillan, pp.325–354.
Kinnell H (2008) Violence and Sex Work in Britain. Cullompton: Willan Publishing.
Landsberg A, et al. (2017) Criminalizing sex work clients and rushed negotiations among sex

workers who use drugs in a Canadian setting. Journal of Urban Health 94(4): 563–571.
Le Bail H, Giamatta C and Rassouw N (2019) What do sex workers think about the French

prostitution act? A Study on the Impact of the Law from 13 April 2016 Against the

‘Prostitution System’ in France, Report Doctors of the World, April. Available at:

www.medecinsdumonde.org/en/actualites/publications/2018/04/12/study-impact-law-13-

april-2016-against-prostitution-system-france (accessed 12 July 2019).
Lister B (2018) The impact of criminalisation on indoor sex workers in England and Wales

and the need for legislative change. In: FitzGerald SA and McGarry K (eds) Realising

Justice for Sex Workers An Agenda for Change. London: Rowman and Littlefield,

pp.21–40.
Lowman J (2000) Violence and outlaw status of street prostitution in Canada. Violence

Against Women 6(9): 987–1011.
Mai N (2009) Migrants in the UK Sex Industry: Full Research Report. Economic and Social

Research Council. ESRC End of Award Report.
McGarry K and FitzGerald SA (2018) Introduction. In: FitzGerald SA and McGarry K

(eds) Realising Justice for Sex Workers An Agenda for Change. London: Rowman and

Littlefield, pp.xv–xxv.
Moore A (2018) Group representing sex workers criticises new report, Irish

Independent, 13 November. Available at: www.independent.ie/breaking-news/irish-

news/group-representing-sex-workers-criticises-new-report-37523055.html (accessed

10 July 2019).
Moorman JD and Harrison K (2016) Gender, race, and risk: Intersectional risk manage-

ment in the sale of sex online. Journal of Sex Research 53(7): 816–824.

Campbell et al. 311

http://www.medecinsdumonde.org/en/actualites/publications/2018/04/12/study-impact-law-13-april-2016-against-prostitution-system-france
http://www.medecinsdumonde.org/en/actualites/publications/2018/04/12/study-impact-law-13-april-2016-against-prostitution-system-france
http://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/irish-news/group-representing-sex-workers-criticises-new-report-37523055.html
http://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/irish-news/group-representing-sex-workers-criticises-new-report-37523055.html


O’Connor AM (1996) Women working in prostitution: Towards a healthier future, Report.

For EUROPAP and Eastern Health Board, Women’s Education Research and Resource

Centre University College, Dublin, May.
O’Doherty T (2011) Victimization in off-street sex industry work. Violence Against Women

19: 944–963.
O’Neill M (2010) Cultural criminology and sex work: Resisting regulation through radical

democracy and participatory action research (PAR). Journal of Law and Society 37(1):

210–232.
O’Neill M (1997) Prostitute women now. In: Scambler G and Scambler A (eds) Rethinking

Prostitution. London: Routledge, pp.3–28.
Oppenheim M (2019) Jailing of migrant sex workers in Ireland decried as ‘completely

unjust’ Irish Independent 17 June. Available at: www.independent.co.uk/news/world/

europe/ireland-migrant-sex-workers-jailed-prison-newbridge-police-romania-naas-

a8962291.html (accessed 10 July 2019).

Platt L, Grenfell P, Meiksin R, et al. (2018) Associations between sex work laws and sex

workers’ health: A systematic review and meta-analysis of quantitative and qualitative

studies. PLos Med 15(12): e1002680.
Perry B (2001) In the Name of Hate: Understanding Hate Crimes. London: Routledge.
Pitcher J (2015) Sex work and modes of self-employment in the informal economy: Diverse

business practices and constraints to effective working. Social Policy and Society 14(1):

113–123.
Pheterson G (1993) The whore stigma: Female dishonour and male unworthiness. Social

Text 37: 39–64.
Pollak S (2019) UN official urges Ireland to introduce hate crime legislation. Irish Times.

Available at: www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/un-official-urges-ireland-to-introduce-h

ate-crime-legislation-1.4102386 (accessed 31 December 2019).
Ryan P and Huschke S (2017) Conducting sex work research in a politically contentious

climate: Lessons from Ireland. In: King A, Santos AC and Crowhurst I (eds) Sexualities

Research: Critical Interjections, Diverse Methodologies, and Practical Applications.

New York: Routledge, pp.182–195.
Ryan P (2019) Male Sex Work In The Digital Age. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Sanders T (2005) Sex Work. A Risky Business. Cullompton: Willan.
Sanders T and Campbell R (2007) Designing out vulnerability, building in respect: Violence,

safety and sex work policy. British Journal of Sociology 58(1): 1–18.
Sanders T (2016) Inevitably violent? Dynamics of space, governance, and stigma in under-

standing violence against sex workers. Special Issue: Problematizing Prostitution: Critical

Research and Scholarship 71: 93–114.
Sanders TLM, Connelly L and Jarvis-King L (2016) On our own terms: Internet-based sex

workers in the UK. Sociological Research Online 21(4): 133–146.
Sanders T, Scoular J, Campbell C, et al. (2018) Internet Sex Work: Beyond the Gaze.

London: Palgrave MacMillan.
Scoular J, Sanders T, Campbell R, et al. (2019) Beyond the Gaze and well beyond

Wolfenden: The practices and rationalities of policing sex work in the digital age.

Journal of Law and Society 46(2): 211–239.
Shannon K, Kerr T, Strathdee SA, et al. (2009) Prevalence and structural correlates of

gender based violence among a prospective cohort of female sex workers. British

Medical Journal 339: 442–445.

312 Irish Journal of Sociology 28(3)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ireland-migrant-sex-workers-jailed-prison-newbridge-police-romania-naas-a8962291.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ireland-migrant-sex-workers-jailed-prison-newbridge-police-romania-naas-a8962291.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ireland-migrant-sex-workers-jailed-prison-newbridge-police-romania-naas-a8962291.html
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/un-official-urges-ireland-to-introduce-hate-crime-legislation-1.4102386
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/un-official-urges-ireland-to-introduce-hate-crime-legislation-1.4102386


Sheenan B and Dwyer C (2017) Third sector responses to LGB hate crime: Community and
Garda engagement. In: Haynes A, Schweppe J and Taylor S (eds) Critical Perspectives on
Hate Crime Contributions from the Island of Ireland. London. Palgrave MacMillan,
pp.169–178.

Sherman SG, Footer K, Illangasekare K, et al. (2015) “What makes you think you have
special privileges because you are a police officer?” A qualitative exploration of police’s
role in the risk environment of female sex workers. AIDS Care: Psychological and Socio-
Medical Aspects of AIDS/HIV 27(4): 473–480.

Smith N, Laing M and Pilcher K (2015) Being, thinking and doing ‘queer’ in debates about
commercial sex. In: Laing M Pilcher K and Smith N (eds) Queer Sex Work. Abingdon:
Routledge. pp.1–10.

Sweeney LA and Fitzgerald SA (2017) A case for a health promotion framework: The
psychosocial experiences of female, migrant sex workers in Ireland. International
Journal of Migration, Health and Social Care 13(4): 419–431.

Sweeney LA, Sixsmith J and Molcho M (2019) Giving voice to women in the sex industry: A
voice centred relational model based relational model based qualitative survey. Journal of
Social Care 2(1): 1–19.

SWAN (2009) Arrest the violence human rights abuses against sex workers in Central and
Eastern Europe and Central Asia: A Community Based Research Project. Report by Sex
Workers Rights Advocacy Network, November. Available at: http://swannet.org/files/
swannet/File/Documents/Arrest_the_Violence_SWAN_Report_Nov2009_eng.pdf
(accessed 9 July 2019).

Vuolaj€arvi N (2018) Governing in the name of caring – The Nordic model of prostitution
and its punitive consequences for migrants who sell sex. Sexuality Research and Social
Policy 16(2) 151–165.

Ward E and Wylie G (2014) Reflexivities of discomfort: Researching the sex trade and sex
trafficking in Ireland. European Journal of Women’s Studies 21(3): 251–226.

Ward E and Wylie G (2016) Feminism, Prostitution and the State: The Politics of Neo-
Abolitionism. London: Routledge.

Weitzer R (2012) Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business. New York:
New York University Press.

Whitaker T, Ryan P and Cox G (2011) Stigmatization among drug-using sex workers
accessing support services in Dublin. Qualitative Health Research 21(8): 1086–1100.

Whittaker D and Hart G (1996) Research note: Managing risks: The social organisation of
indoor sex work. Sociology of Health and Illness 18(3): 399–414.

Campbell et al. 313

http://2009
http://swannet.org/files/swannet/File/Documents/Arrest_the_Violence_SWAN_Report_Nov2009_eng.pdf
http://swannet.org/files/swannet/File/Documents/Arrest_the_Violence_SWAN_Report_Nov2009_eng.pdf