New technology has helped the spread of prostitution into rural areas with pimps and traffickers now in a position to monitor women working in some of Ireland’s smallest communities, Ruhama said today.
The agency, which helps women involved in prostitution, said mobile phones and the internet were increasingly being used to advertise the "thriving" sale of sex and that it could be bought from as many as 1,000 women at any given time in Ireland.
“Women are moved quickly and sometimes frequently and the criminals involved remain at arms length hiding behind a computer screen,” Ruhama said in its annual report.
It said the sex industry had become “more high tech” with information on women’s “movements, numbers of buyers, the amount of cash changing hands immediately available to pimps and traffickers even if they are not on site”.
Ruhama said it worked with 204 women involved in prostitution last year, a 4 per cent increase on 2009.
The majority of new cases it was alerted to involved women working as escorts or in brothels but there was also a 9 per cent increase in the number of women working the streets and seeking help.
Ruhama said it helped 140 women from 31 countries with matters such as accommodation, health, addiction and negotiating the criminal justice system in 2010.
It said that 61 per cent of those trafficked into Ireland for sex came from Nigeria with clients also coming from countries such as Romania, Cameroon, Albania, Moldova and Ghana.
Ruhama chief executive Sarah Benson said prostitution and trafficking in Ireland was now of a “truly global nature”.
“The women Ruhama works with come from very diverse backgrounds and experiences they also often have a great deal in common,” she said. “Most are vulnerable migrant women or marginalised Irish nationals, experience economic difficulties especially debt, some have addiction or childhood abuse issues.”
Ruhama also helped a number of women who provided testimony in trials against pimps and traffickers, including the case of Thomas Joseph (TJ) Carroll, who was convicted and is now serving seven years in a Welsh jail for a string of offences relating to brothels he kept in both the Republic and the North.
Their trial heard that Carroll recruited women who were economically vulnerable from South America, Portugal and Nigeria. Six of the women were trafficked and forced into prostitution.
Ms Benson said Irish vice laws should be reformed and that the criminal burden should be placed on those paying for sex and not those selling.
“The focus has rightly turned in recent times, from the women and girls, and the small number of men and boys who are in prostitution towards those who are profiting,” she said.
“This includes of course the buyers. The sex trade is a multi-million euro industry in Ireland fuelled by their demand. A positive step in overcoming this growth in the sex trade would be to stem demand by criminalising the buyers through legislative change.”
