The Equality Model: What it is and why it works

A key part of the Equality Model was established in Ireland through Part IV of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017, shifting the burden of criminality in this coercive and exploitative trade to the buyer. This law confirmed the Irish states’ commitment to reducing levels of sexual violence and exploitation of women and girls and vindicating their rights to be safe and secure. The Equality Model has been also adopted in other countries including Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Canada, France and Northern Ireland. The Equality Model was approved as the best model to address prostitution by the European Parliament and The Council of Europe in 2014.

Support women

Support equality

Support freedom from exploitation

Why does it work?

Supporting women
Most people enter prostitution due to poverty and other circumstances that limit their choices in life. A key pillar of the Equality Model is providing supports to individuals at risk of exploitation or seeking to exit prostitution. This includes support with accommodation, healthcare, childcare, education and training, pathways to employment, legal representation, counselling and financial assistance. With these supports, individual women will be less vulnerable to the coercion and grooming of commercial sexual exploitation and will have more choices in their life.

Ensuring justice
The Equality Model shifts the burden of criminality to the exploiter. Women are no longer criminalised and can access health, social welfare and policing services when they need support, or when they need to report violence or exploitation.

Ending demand
By naming prostitution as violence against women, highlighting its stark gender and racial injustice and making it an offence to buy sex, we discourage people from exploiting prostituted women.

The prospect of being prosecuted, revealed as a sex buyer and exploiter of vulnerable women and girls to families and community can act as a powerful deterrent. This can reduce demand for prostituted women, shrinking the sex trade and reduce trafficking for sexual exploitation, the most prevalent type of exploitation in Ireland.

Myths on Prostitution and the Equality Model

“The Equality Model increases violence against women in prostitution”

Unfortunately, violence is an inseparable part of the sex trade and only by reducing and ultimately ending the sex trade can we reduce the violence that takes place there. The Equality Model has been in place in Sweden for over 20 years and there is no evidence to suggest that it has led to greater violence.

“The Equality Model drives prostitution underground and makes it more dangerous”

Most sex buyers are ordinary men who need to be able to find and access women in prostitution. It is not possible for the sex trade to operate underground. Unfortunately, the sex trade is dangerous with violence perpetrated by buyers, pimps, and traffickers. The Equality Model supports women to be able to access the police and justice without fear of being criminalised themselves.

“The Equality Model does not support women in prostitution’s choice and bodily autonomy”

Consent is based on mutually-wanted sex which cannot exist in prostitution. Prostitution is based on a power imbalance between the sex buyer and the person selling sex. The sex buyer holds the power and so they make the decisions about the encounter. Those in prostitution are forced by circumstance or financial dependency to say yes to this unwanted sex. The Equality Model provides supports to women so they have more choices in life, and do not have to engage in paid sex out of financial need, coercion or exploitation.