Criminalizing the Payment for Sex in Northern Ireland: Sketching the Contours of a Moral Panic: Table 1

This paper examines recent legislative developments in Northern Ireland around Lord Morrow’s <it>Human Trafficking & Exploitation (Further Provisions and Support for Victims) Bill</it> that was passed unanimously in the Northern Ireland Assembly and which uniquely in the United Kingdom now makes it a criminal offence to pay for sexual services. I suggest that issues around sex trafficking, sexual slavery and prostitution in Northern Ireland bear all the hallmarks of Stan Cohen’s famous articulation of a moral panic (<cross-ref type="bib" refid="CIT0018">Cohen 1972</cross-ref>) but also argue that his original formulation needs to be recast slightly to take account of the horizontal structuring of moral panics in contemporary society.