Migration is mostly a positive experience, and those of us working for and with immigrants are well aware of this. Therefore, it is worth working towards its acceptance as a permanent reality in Ireland and to build on its many positive effects.
However, people working in the area of migration will also be familiar with some ugly aspects such as dependency in the context of domestic abuse, forced labour, human trafficking and lately the increasing rate of prostitution.
Ireland, like other EU countries, experienced unprecedented expansion of prostitution in the 1990s. This transformation is well documented in the report Globalisation, Sex Trafficking and Prostitution: The Exper-iences of Migrant Women in Ireland, which the Immigrant Council of Ireland published in 2009. The report examines the Irish sex market, which boasts an estimated value of at least €180m a year.
Most alarming for those of us dealing with migration in Ireland is the fact that an estimated 83-97 per cent of women involved in prostitution are migrant women. It comes at a little surprise that women ending up in this situation are of poor background, from dislocated families, are former victims of child sex abuse, and less educated. This largely replicates the profile of women in prostitution in the past, only now with the added dimension of migration to their story.
The scale of the indoor sex market is impressive, with an estimated 1,000 women available for sale through the internet on any given day. Women are available to be bought in rented apartments, hotel rooms and private addresses. They can even be ordered via online forms outlining the client’s ethnical and physical preferences.
It is unconceivable that out of these thousands of migrant women, the authorities have identified fewer than 20 victims of sex trafficking in the last three-and-a-half years. Non-governmental frontline service providers are in agreement that it is difficult to distinguish between victims of trafficking and other victims of sexual exploitation through prostitution – equally vulnerable but less linked to organised crime, and therefore stripped from any entitlement to services and support.
Overall, the transformation of the sex market in Ireland found the country unprepared. While outdoor prostitution and organised brothels are prohibited, indoor prostitution is not addressed, as it was likely negligible at the time of the last legislative act in 1993. This piece of law applied to the present reality has allowed the expansion of the sex market and has resulted in the criminalisation of women selling sex. They are usually charged with lack of alternative sources of income or held accountable for a range of immigration-related offences. At the same time, buyers of sex indoors enjoy complete impunity. They simply walk away if gardai appear at the doorstep. And yet they are the only ones with a choice in this exploitative situation.
Today, this approach to prostitution seriously fails the objectives of the law from 1993. This is why a group of civil society organisations called Turn Off the Red Light (TORL) is lobbying for legal amendments that will see penalties for buyers of sex introduced.
At the same time, the TORL wants guidelines that enable protection and assistance for women in prostitution. Rather than running scared of the law enforcement, women should feel protected and free to ask for help, if needed.
Those who should fear the authorities are the buyers of sex. They hold the money and the choice of how to spend it, therefore they should be held accountable, not these desperate women.
We want Ireland to follow other European countries that have adopted this approach and prevented the exploitation of women and girls in the sex industry.
Denise Charlton is the CEO of the Immigrant Council of Ireland, one of the 48 TORL partners. She was previously the director of Women’s Aid, and has served as the Irish Expert on the European Observatory on Violence Against Women. For more visit www.turnofftheredlight.ie.
