Ruhama calls for ‘conversation’ on prostitution

A “national conversation” on how best to support women in prostitution and tackle sex trafficking is needed, the chairwoman of the main charity working in the sector has said.

Valerie Judge, who was speaking yesterday at the publication of Ruhama's annual report, said society needed to send out a message that it was "not okay to purchase a woman for sex".

The report says the charity experienced an 18 per cent increase in the number of women presenting for support last year, compared with 2012. Some 305 women sought Ruhama’s support last year, of whom 96 were supported for the first time.

The women came from 36 different countries, the highest proportion from Africa. The majority of those who engaged in casework, however, came from Ireland.

Violence

Ruhama

was founded in 1989 by the Our Lady of Charity and Good Shepherd Sisters, originally as an outreach service in a van at night, offering women hot drinks and the opportunity to talk about their situation. Its guiding premise remains that prostitution is a form of gender-based violence.

Sarah Benson, chief executive of Ruhama, said that of the 219 women who presented for casework support last year, some 83 had been trafficked here.

She said the industry was operated by “a large number of gangs and dozens and dozens of opportunistic individuals”.

The majority of women in the industry were not there by choice, she said, while women who were not connected to gangs or pimps were often forced to leave the area in which they worked or were coerced into working for such gangs and individuals.

“We need to disrupt these gangs. We need to hold them to account,” said Ms Benson.

Criminalisation

She, and other speakers, including Senator

Ivana Bacik

, called for legislation to criminalise the purchase of sex, as advocated by the Turn Off The Red Light campaign in which Ruhama is involved.

Such legislation would reduce the demand for women and men engaged in prostitution and so make Ireland less attractive to traffickers, they said.

Ms Benson said that since such legislation was passed in Northern Ireland last month – despite opposition from the North's Minister for Justice David Forde – similar legislation was needed here urgently to ensure an "all-Ireland approach".

Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald is considering such legislation. It was recommended in June by the Oireachtas Justice Committee.