November 11, 2008
Ireland - Ads Target Men Who Use Trafficked Women
By Caroline O’Doherty
MEN who buy sex from women trafficked into Ireland
for prostitution are being targeted for the first time in an advertising
campaign that warns they could go to jail.
The ads, devised by Ruhama, a voluntary group that
works with women trapped in the sex industry or escaping from it, will run on
RTÉ television and Setanta Sports for a month starting this week.
Ruhama director Kathleen Fahy said the appeal was
being made directly to the clients of the sex trade because new legislation
makes it an offence to solicit sex from a trafficked woman for the first
time, but also because the trade would not exist without its customers.
“The focus is on the users and exploiters of trafficked
women. Without them, the trade in human flesh would not be profitable,” she
said. “It seems clear that they have bought into the myths that sex is just
another commodity for sale and is a mutually beneficial exchange and nobody
is hurt in the process, but many are hurt.”
The ads feature an actress playing a young eastern
European woman who responds to an advertisement for restaurant staff in
Ireland, but arrives here to have her ID and travel documents stolen by her
“employer” who puts her to work in a brothel.
The scenario is a familiar one to Ruhama who are
coming into contact with trafficked women at the rate of one a fortnight.
Ms Fahy said, however, she believed the true scale of
the problem to be far higher as Ruhama usually only discovered the women when
they had broken free.
“We need a far more pro-active approach so that more
women can be detected and rescued earlier. Ideally we would have a dedicated
unit within the gardaí who could focus specifically on this very specialised
area,” she said.
Under the Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) Act that
came into effect in June, anyone found guilty of soliciting sex from a
trafficked woman can be imprisoned for up to five years. Ms Fahy said she
hoped prosecutions would follow soon.
“We have a number of cases of women who we believe
were definitely trafficked and I think they could provide very good intelligence
to the gardaí. We hope that we will be able to secure convictions,” said Ms
Fahy.
Mary O’Rourke TD, patron of Ruhama, urged the public
to make use of the legislation to report any suspicions they might have to
the gardaí, and she stressed the vulnerability of the victims involved.
“If you come from a poor background in a poor country
with no hope and you see an ad or somebody approaches you about a job in
Ireland, you’ll think Ireland is a good place to better yourself. These young
women come in hope, but they are ensnared very early on in a whole other
world where their bodies are for sale with no attention paid to their needs
or rights.”
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