Gardai yesterday appealed for help from possible witnesses to the abduction of a young woman from the Baggot Street area of Dublin and her rape in a Co Wicklow forest early yesterday.
The 19-year-old woman was recovering yesterday from her ordeal. She is said to be shocked but not seriously injured.
It is understood the woman, who has been working as a prostitute in the Grand Canal area, willingly joined a man in a car who approached her in Baggot Street at 2.45 a.m. yesterday.
The man then drove to a laneway, Greenore Court, off Macken Street.
Two men were waiting in the laneway and got into the car. The young woman was overpowered, handcuffed and had a bag placed over her head. They then drove her almost 30 miles to Devil's Glen, outside Ashford, Co Wicklow.
There she was forced to carry out sexual acts on the men and raped. She was then handcuffed to a tree. She was told not to make any noise until the men left.
At about 5.45 a.m. her cries for help were heard by local people, who called gardai. She was released and taken to hospital.
Gardai say they wish to talk to anyone who might have seen the initial abduction, or three men in a car between Dublin city centre and Ashford in the early hours of yesterday.
Ms Olive Braiden, director of the Rape Crisis Centre, said such an attack was an indication of the vulnerability of women in general and prostitutes in particular.
"It has happened in the past, to women walking alone. It is of concern for all women, but prostitutes in particular are at risk," she said.
She said there should be a greater Garda presence on the streets to ensure the safety of prostitutes and an education campaign directed at men.
The Fine Gael spokesman on justice, Mr Alan Shatter TD, also called for more policing of the streets at night.
He said the Minister for Justice must ensure the presence of gardai to provide the essential protection to which people were entitled.
Assaults on prostitutes are commonplace, but gardai say this was a particularly brutal incident.
In June 1998, another 19-year-old prostitute, Sinead Kelly, was stabbed to death near Baggot Street Bridge. She was killed because of a debt she owed to drugdealers. No one has been charged with her murder.
Gardai have also yet to solve the murder of another prostitute, Belinda Pereira (26), who was bludgeoned to death in a flat at Liffey Street in the city centre on New Year's Eve, 1996.
Two years ago there was a series of very serious assaults on prostitutes working in the Grand Canal and Baggot Street area. Three women were raped, beaten and stabbed by a Dublin man, Robert Melia, who was subsequently arrested and is now serving a nine-year sentence. Melia had previous convictions for rape and sexual assault.
In December 1994, another young woman working as a prostitute along the Grand Canal was abducted and taken to Powerscourt in the Wicklow Mountains where she was raped by two men. A week after Sinead Kelly was murdered, another prostitute working on the Grand Canal was viciously attacked and suffered severe face and head injuries when she was attacked by two men.
Gardai estimate there are between 400 and 600 women working as prostitutes in the Grand Canal and Benburb Street areas of Dublin each evening. Many are heroin addicts driven to street prostitution to finance their addictions.