Calls for legislation as vulnerable tenants being asked for sex instead of rent
Housing crises has made this exploitation the "perfect environment"
The National Women's Council (NWC) has called for strong legislation to criminalise sex for rent after a new report showed the housing market in Ireland to be a "perfect environment" for the exploitation of vulnerable tenants.
Women in extreme housing difficulty are being forced to make a choice between sexual exploitation and homelessness, according to the report from the NWCl.
Published today, the report recommends that landlords engaging in sex-for-rent exploitation should be criminalised, including the proposing of such an arrangement even when it is not accepted by the tenant. It also recommends extending protections for renters.
Feargha Ní Bhroin, NWC’s Violence Against Women Officer and author of the report, said:
“Sex for rent exploitation is gendered. It seems to be overwhelmingly women who are impacted, and it is mostly men in privileged positions relative to the women – (they have housing and the victims do not) – who are carrying it out.
“At its root is the intersection of the housing crisis with a general context of gender-based violence. It primarily affects women who are renting a room in a house, as opposed to own-door accommodation so they enter a situation of living with their predator, and these renters do not have the protections granted to other tenants.
“The two-tier rental system where some renters are protected by law, but others are not, must end.”
An eye-opening report by RTÉ Investigates last year revealed that some landlords were offering tenants free or reduced rates accomodation in exchange for sex.
In march of this year, Sinn Féin's spokesperson on housing Eoin Ó Broin introduced a private members bill to make such an instance an offence along with advertisements of the same nature.
Feargha Ní Bhroin concluded:
“We make several recommendations in this report. Government must take immediate steps to end the exploitation of women in this situation by outlawing sex for rent exploitation and extending tenancy protections to all renters.
“However, it is an unfortunate truth that in a heavily constrained rental market like the one we are currently experiencing, abuse of renters will continue. Sex for rent exploitation is unlikely to be successfully eliminated until the housing crisis is ended.”