Commercial sex in the UK and Republic of Ireland: Current knowledge and future challenges

在投资回报率和英国的商业性的比较研究有影响的性商业的性质的评估，但也有巨大的影响，它是如何监管，围绕性健康，暴力和虐待产生的问题;法律和行业的监管更普遍。该项目将是第一个将联合王国和ROI的学者、性工作者、非政府组织、性健康专业人员、警察、政府和行业代表以真正合作的方式聚集在一起的项目，它不偏袒任何一个特定的声音。在某些方面，该网络将建立在利益相关者团体和英国学术研究人员之间已经建立的联系之上，并通过英国SWRH和ISWRN建立ROI。但拟议中的网络的主旨是超越这一点，建立南北（北爱尔兰和ROI）和东西（爱尔兰和英国）轴线上的合作关系。该网络将从事学术研究，重点关注强调社会正义的政策议程，并将性工作者作为主要利益相关者（McGarry & FitzGerald，2018）。该网络探讨了英国各地区商业性交易的各种情况，并研究了最近效仿北欧地区实施性交易禁令的ROI的情况。目前，在英国，北方爱尔兰是唯一颁布类似禁令的地区。在英国和投资回报率，虽然可以说在后一种情况下更是如此，一个关键问题是研究证据被选择性地挑选以适应特定议程的方式（埃里森等人，2019）。目前，在爱尔兰，有关性交易的知识主要来自主要主张废除性交易的团体的活动，这些团体拥有充足的资源和资金，并以特定的方式引导辩论的参数（例如，在爱尔兰共和国非常有影响力的“红灯亮起”）。当然，其中一些团体可能会提出有效的观点（例如，围绕吸毒成瘾问题），但这些观点需要在研究文献中得到证明和依据，而研究文献目前可能还没有发生。事实上，关键的利益相关者群体之一--性工作者本身--在这些辩论中通常被谈论“关于”而不是“要”，并且仍然被边缘化，处于发展的边缘（奥尼尔和莱恩，2018年）。因此，通过建立网络，性工作者将能够与其他主要利益攸关方群体平等地参与，成为影响影响其生活的政策的力量。利益攸关方团体可以通过多种方式从这种伙伴关系中受益，例如，考虑警方和性服务行业的参与者（例如互联网公司）如何更密切地合作，以查明未成年人或可能被贩运进行性剥削的人。同样，我们从与北爱尔兰卫生部的讨论中了解到，虽然他们将性工作者确定为性健康检查和咨询的主要目标群体，他们目前不知道如何联系相对隐蔽、卫生专业人员历来难以接触到的在线伴游。考虑到全球新冠肺炎疫情，对商业性行为的研究在目前也尤为重要。19大流行病引发了关于性工作者获得卫生服务的重要问题，以及围绕感染潜在传播的流行病学问题，但英国脱欧可能会从根本上重组英国性行业的性质，并可能导致犯罪和贩运问题，因为欧盟（ROI）和英国（NI）之间可能存在多孔陆地边界。这些问题值得决策者立即注意，并将作为“金线”贯穿网络提议的各次专题会议和讲习班。

The comparative study of commercial sex in the ROI and UK has implications for assessments of the nature of sexual commerce but also huge implications for how it is policed, issues arising around sexual health, violence and abuse; law and the regulation of the industry more generally. This project will be the first of its kind to bring together UK and ROI academics, sex workers, NGOs, sexual health professionals, the police, government and industry representatives in a way that is genuinely collaborative, and which does not privilege any one particular voice. In some ways the network will build on links already established between stakeholder groups and academic researchers in the UK and ROI through the UK SWRH and the ISWRN. But the main thrust of the proposed network is to move beyond this and establish collaborative relationships on a North-South (NI and ROI) and an East-West (Ireland and Britain) axis. The network will engage in academic research with a strong focus on a policy agenda that emphasises social justice and will include sex workers as key stakeholders (McGarry & FitzGerald, 2018). The network explores the myriad terrain of commercial sex across the regions of the UK and also examines the situation in the ROI that has recently introduced a sex purchase ban following the example of the Nordic regions. Currently, in the UK, Northern Ireland is the only region to have enacted a similar ban. In both the UK and ROI, though arguably more so in the latter case, a key problem has been the ways that research evidence has been selectively cherry-picked to fit with a particular agenda (Ellison et al, 2019). Currently in Ireland knowledge around sexual commerce stems mainly from the activities of mainly abolitionist groups that are well resourced and funded and who have steered the parameters of the debate in particular ways (e.g. Turn of the Red Light in the ROI which has been very influential). Of course, some of these groups may well make valid points (around drug addiction issues, for example) but these points need to be evidenced and based in the research literature which is arguably not happening at the moment. In fact, one of the key stakeholder groups - sex workers themselves - are generally talked "about" rather than "to" in these debates and have remained marginalised and on the periphery of developments (O'Neill and Laing, 2018). So, it will be through the establishment of the network that sex workers will be in a position to engage on an equal footing with other key stakeholder groups as a force to influence policies that affect their lives. There are many ways in which stakeholder groups can benefit from this partnership, with for example a consideration of the ways that the police and those involved in the sexual services industry (Internet companies for example) can work more closely to identify those who are underage or who may have been trafficked for sexual exploitation. Likewise, we are aware from our discussions with the Department of Health in NI that while they identify sex workers as a key target group for sexual health screening and advice, they are currently at a loss as to how to contact online escorts who are relatively hidden and which health professionals have historically had difficulties accessing.The study of commercial sex is also particularly germane at the moment given the global Covid-19 pandemic which raises important questions about sex worker access to health services and also epidemiological questions around the potential spread of infection, but also Brexit which may fundamentally restructure the nature of the sex industry in the UK, and potentially lead to issues around criminality and trafficking given the likely existence of a porous land border between the EU (ROI) and the UK (NI). These are issues that warrant immediate attention from policy makers and will run as a "golden thread" throughout the thematic sessions and workshops proposed in the network.