Debate contribution: Justice Bill: Consideration Stage
Debate contribution by Ms Kate Nicholl on .
- MLA
- Ms Kate Nicholl
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 8 June 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Executive Committee Business
- Heading
- Justice Bill: Consideration Stage
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5601118
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I thank the Member for giving way. When I was phrasing this, I was careful to avoid getting into this narrative. It is tempting to do that, and it may do well in clicks on social media, but that is not the point. The point is that, when we bring legislation to the House — I wonder if the Member agrees with me — we need to scrutinise it and to look at it from all angles. I have said multiple times that this is a worthy amendment that is trying to tackle the infrastructure that facilitates trafficking. However, there are a small group of women —. You can speculate and make your own moral judgements on it; go ahead. But I have met these women and worked with some of them, and they have told me that it is their choice. My concern is about how those women were going to be protected under this law. That is our job: to look, without judgement, at how the legislation impacts on all of them. Does the Member agree that, when we discuss this, we must not sensationalise it, get into whether one agrees with prostitution — it is a fact that it happens; we need to make sure that we have all the support in place — or spin it so that it becomes something salacious? It is purely about how the legislation impacts on groups of people, especially a tiny group of people.
244 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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