Ireland’s Sex Workers are Building Community Through Film
Words: Ellen McVeigh
Images via Red Umbrella Éireann
The red umbrella has been an international symbol of the sex worker rights movement for more than 20 years. First used in Italy in 2001 as a way for sex workers to draw attention to the violence and abuse they face, it has now become an iconic symbol of strength, solidarity, and community around the world. From the 16th-19th October, Dublin was home to the second edition of the Red Umbrella Film Festival. This featured films about and by sex workers, ran by Red Umbrella Éireann, a collective of current and former sex workers campaigning for decriminalisation in Ireland.
This year, it was the urgent need for decriminalisation of sex work that took centre stage among film screenings, panel discussions, and workshops. Events across the weekend explored stories on the fight for decriminalisation, from members of the sex work community around the globe, and from allies closer to home. On Sunday, the festival came to a close with the announcement of a new decriminalisation of sex work bill which will soon be brought to the Dáil.
“The first edition of Red Umbrella Film Festival two years ago focused specifically on the representation of sex workers in media in the hope of challenging stigma,” said Robin, an organiser for several years with Red Umbrella Éireann, the collective of current and former sex workers who organised the festival. “This year, given the total failure of the current legislation around sex work in Ireland, the emphasis is more directly on the pressing need for decriminalisation.”
Taking place in venues across Dublin, including Light House Cinema, DV8, and Unite the Union, the second Red Umbrella Film Festival screened films spotlighting sex workers’ lives and resistance across the world. These film screenings were complemented by panel discussions on issues affecting the Irish sex worker community, while workshops and socials allowed sex workers and their allies to come together and create community.
“We wanted to create a space for our own stories”
“We wanted to create a space for our own stories and take a different approach to resisting our oppression, centred on community building and celebrating the vibrant and diverse people in our community,” Red Umbrella Éireann organiser Sarah told District. “We wanted to do something for us, but which would resonate beyond our own community and give us a chance to talk about sex work in the public sphere.”
“We wanted to do something for us, but which would resonate beyond our own community”
In Ireland, sex workers work under the ‘Nordic Model’, an approach to sex work that criminalises clients, third parties, and many ways that sex workers operate including working together for safety (legally defined as ‘brothel-keeping’). Implemented in the North in 2015, and the Republic in 2017, it was claimed that this legislation would reduce trafficking and protect vulnerable people in sex work. In fact, it has created far more dangerous conditions for sex workers across Ireland.
A report from 2020, based on sex workers’ self-reported data from 2015-2019, showed that crimes against sex workers increased following the introduction of the new law. In 2022, research from Amnesty International highlighted multiple factors for people engaging in sex work, including financial reasons, disability, and desire for flexibility over working hours. Despite the fact that the Nordic Model criminalises the buyer rather than the seller, any criminalisation of sex work tends to impact most on those selling sex. In 2018, researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine found that on average, sex workers who faced repressive policing were around three times more likely to face violence from clients. Any fear of themselves or their clients being arrested often pushes sex workers further into dangerous and vulnerable situations, and less likely to report crimes when they do happen.
“Since the 2017 introduction of the Nordic model, we’ve seen how the implementation of this law has harmed our community,” said Sarah. “It’s worth noting that there is no singular lived experience of sex workers in Ireland. Circumstances such as socio-economic background, migration status, homelessness, race, and gender all influence a sex worker’s lived experience.”
“Since the 2017 introduction of the Nordic model, we’ve seen how the implementation of this law has harmed our community,”
The Gardaí do not collect specific data regarding violent crimes against sex workers, with limited data coming largely from the sex worker community safety app UglyMugs.ie. Not only is this a vital service for sex workers, it also provides crucial data about the rates of crime. In the two years following Ireland’s adoption of the Nordic Model, stats from UglyMugs showed a 92% increase in violent crime, while the number of users remained steady. The Amnesty International research from 2022 which was titled “We Live Within a Violent System”, featured interviews with a number of sex workers detailing their experience operating under the Nordic Model. The overwhelming majority of these sex workers have experienced some form of violence through their work, most at the hands of the men who had contacted them as clients.
It is in this context, that a new bill to decriminalise sex work was launched on the evening of Sunday 19th, at the close of the festival. The bill has been co-created by Red Umbrella Éireann, Street Workers Collective, and the Sex Workers Alliance Ireland (SWAI), alongside Ruth Coppinger TD, who announced her intention to bring it through the Dáil. This bill, which draws on lived experience and evidence, aims to fully decriminalise sex work, and introduce regulations that centre the safety of sex workers. It would remove ‘Nordic Model’ sanctions for sex workers working together, or hiring people to help them with things such as transport or security.
Speaking at the final panel event of the Red Umbrella Film Festival, Ruth Coppinger highlighted the failures of the 2017 legislation. “Crucially, violence against sex workers, either by clients or by members of the Gardaí, remains widespread”, Coppinger said. “The bill has at its heart a desire to remove any means by which sex workers can be stigmatised, repressed or harassed by the state, or in any way criminalised.”
The bill draws not only from the experience of sex workers in Ireland, but also on successful decriminalisation bills from across the globe. Throughout the film festival, films and panel discussions explored what we can learn from sex worker resistance around the world. The film Womxn:Working highlighted the fight for sex work decriminalisation in South Africa, while Mala Reputación explores sex workers in Uruguay organising for their labour rights. Panels included activists such as Annah from Aotearoa New Zealand Sex Workers Collective speaking about their successful campaign for decriminalisation in 2003, and activists from ROSA Socialist Feminist Movement talked about how the fight for sex work decriminalisation intersects with other struggles such as abortion rights and trans healthcare.
”The struggle for the decriminalisation of sex work does not exist in isolation, it is interconnected to struggles of migration, abortion, housing, trans rights,” said Robin, speaking about how Red Umbrella Éireann curated these panels. “As a movement, we need to reach beyond ourselves and strengthen these ties. We want to build coalitions, create networks of mutual care, so that we can lend our power to others fighting the same oppression and violence.”
“We want to build coalitions, create networks of mutual care, so that we can lend our power to others fighting the same oppression and violence.”
While the ‘Nordic Model’ remains in law in Ireland, the need for sex workers to build these networks of solidarity and care is more urgent than ever. The ‘brothel-keeping’ aspect of the law means that sex workers are forced to work in isolation and at further risk of exploitation. Within the current legislation it is illegal to rent to a sex worker, or for sex workers to have roommates, leaving sex workers uniquely vulnerable to the homelessness crisis. Unable or afraid to engage with the police, sex workers continue to rely on community safety methods such as the app UglyMugs.ie to share information about violent or dangerous clients.
“Ugly Mugs has been a vital safety tool for sex workers working across the island for over a decade and is one of the only effective resources available to us to protect ourselves against violence,” said Robin. “It is worth mentioning, perhaps, that the safety of sex workers should not only fall on sex workers’ shoulders. Allies are very welcome in the struggle for decrim and our safety, and networks like Ugly Mugs are beautiful examples of how allies can contribute to our fight.”
Art has a rare ability to bring people together, and teach us about the lived experiences of people who are different to us. In film, sex worker voices are often unheard, and their experience reduced to unhelpful stereotypes. In real life, this representation is often not much better, with sex worker voices drowned out conversations fuelled by stigma, and encouraged by criminalising laws. The Red Umbrella Film Festival is a unique opportunity to hear from sex workers about their own lived experience, and the issues facing their community. In the upcoming campaign for decriminalisation, the things we can learn from sex worker activism might liberate us all.
“Decriminalising sex work is a beginning, not an end,” says Sarah from Red Umbrella Éireann. ”It is a beginning towards a better and safer future, for all of us.
