WUNRN
IRELAND - TRAFFICKING - DEMAND -
PROSECUTE PIMPS & BUYERS
August
31, 2011 - Ireland - Police forces around the world admit that, if they are
lucky, they manage to intercept just 10% of the narcotics drug smugglers move
across national borders.
If the same ratio,
or even one much less worrying, applies to human trafficking, then Ireland’s
official figures are just a very small indication of what is going on in our
towns and cities.
The relevance of those figures is challenged too by the fact that Irish courts
have never convicted anyone of human trafficking, yet anyone who cares to look
or listen can see that there are far more questions than answers surrounding
this issue. Irish authorities have, however, contributed to trafficking
convictions in other jurisdictions.
Foreign nationals are brought here against their will for all sorts of reasons.
Some to work in restaurants, others to work more or less as indentured servants
in factories, farms or homes. Others, especially children, are smuggled here to
beg for gang masters straight from the pages of a Dickens’ novel.
And, as anyone who knows how to use a smartphone could easily confirm,
thousands of women — and scores of girls hardly more than children — come to
Ireland every year to work in what has become known as the sex industry.
Advocates of legalising prostitution may try to suggest that this is all part
of a career development path for these women but the reality is far more
sordid.
The only thing at issue is the degree of compunction and intimidation involved.
Some are forced to come here by organised crime gangs who run massage parlours,
brothels or "escort" services. Still others come to try to escape
poverty, still more come in the hope of building a new life.
They all have one in thing in common though — unless there was a thriving
market for their sexual services, it would not be worth their while taking the
risk involved in getting here.
They are brought here by their pimps — slave masters is an older, less
non-judgmental word for it — to satisfy and exploit the ever-growing demand for
paid-for-sex in this country.
Not so very long ago all of this society was appalled when the abuses inflicted
on children abandoned to the mercies of our industrial schools were uncovered.
In those tragic episodes, many of us hid our shame behind the plea of ignorance.
It may just be that in time the plight of young Romanian, Nigerian and other
women held more or less as captive playthings in apartments right across this
country will be the subject of reports as chilling as Murphy, Cloyne or Ferns.
There is something we can do about it though.
Sweden, a society so very often cited as an example of progressive social
policy, has made using prostitutes a crime. This will not bring human
trafficking to an end but it might curtail the gratuitous, after-the-pub forays
that mean so many women live mediaeval lives of servitude in this country. This
would happen because most of those sad men who use prostitutes put a greater
value on their own good name than they do on the woman’s dignity or her right
not to be treated as a piece of meat.