Eighty-three women supported by an agency working with prostitutes last year were trafficked to Ireland, the organisation has claimed.

Anti-prostitution campaigners have warned that the North’s decision to criminalise the buyers of sex could mean more pimps choosing to base their prostitution operations south of the border.

Ireland has been named as a "destination, source, and transit country" for people being trafficked for sexual and labour exploitation in a new US State Department report.

Indoor prostitution is just as dangerous as outdoor sex work and women operating behind closed doors suffer longer and more violent sex attacks and are under the control of organised crime gangs.

A record 258 women accessed the services of Ruhama, an outreach support organisation for victims of prostitution and sex trafficking, last year.

Campaigners have welcomed a unanimous call by an Oireachtas committee for the buyers of sex — but not the sellers — to be criminalised.

Members of a religious group in Limerick have begun saying a decade of the Rosary several nights a week outside a suspected brothel in the city to “pray for the women” in prostitution.

A FORMER, well-paid HSE employee, Mia became a prostitute on Dublin’s Burlington Road, selling herself for €40 to feed a drug habit.

Ruhama, the group responsible for helping women who are involved in the sex trade, say demands on its service is greater than ever.

There has been a furious reaction from the Polish community to a Mayo judge’s comment, made in court, that the social welfare system is a “Polish charity”.

More than 130 premises have been raided and eight people arrested in a cross-border operation targeting organised prostitution, criminality and money-laundering.

YOUR article and editorial on Operation Kerb quotes from an anti-prostitution group (Ruhama) and a Dublin councillor about this policy as practiced in Sweden.

THE number of prostitutes attending the Women’s Health Centre increased last year, with 10% suffering sex assault by clients.

The country’s leading charity for women in prostitution saw cases increase by more than 20% last year, new figures showed today.

WITCHCRAFT and other threats have been used by employers to keep control of workers trafficked into Ireland for the sex industry and labour market.

THE country’s biggest advertiser of online prostitution has put a section on its website allowing sex workers to identify dangerous punters they have encountered.

Ireland’s underground sex industry is being fuelled by technology as vulnerable young women are forced to work as prostitutes from apartments, it emerged today.

Hundreds of young women trafficked to Ireland have been forced into the sex industry, it was revealed today.

FOLLOWING an international investigation involving gardaí, 11 people accused of forcing up to 150 young Nigerian girls into prostitution in Europe have gone on trial in the Netherlands.

THE criminal justice system has often been a cruel place for victims.

A Carlow man at the centre of a major internet-based prostitution ring was among 10 people arrested today as police smashed an international human trafficking gang.

MEN who buy sex from women trafficked into Ireland for prostitution are being targeted for the first time in an advertising campaign that warns they could go to jail.

MANY Nigerian women trafficked into Ireland for prostitution refuse to identify their traffickers because of voodoo rituals, an expert has told a conference.

WOMEN are being trafficked into Ireland to meet the demands of their fellow countrymen for sex with girls from their homeland.

WITH a turnover of €4 million, at least 62 men on a daily basis visited the Dublin brothel whose manager was jailed on Wednesday.

The plight of young prostitutes being trafficked to Ireland was highlighted today in a hard-hitting appeal.

Companies fuelling Ireland’s sex industry are being targeted in a hard-hitting campaign.

AN organisation working to help women in prostitution is recruiting the support of major Irish companies in its campaign against lap-dancing clubs.

The application to open a new ‘Stringfellow’s’ lapdancing club on Parnell Street in Dublin has been scheduled to be heard on Monday next.

A group helping the victims of sex trafficking will today join local residents in their campaign to stop a new lapdancing club in Dublin.

THE opening of a new lap-dancing club in Dublin could act as a breeding ground for prostitution and sex trafficking, it was claimed yesterday.

The opening of a new lap-dancing club in Dublin could act as a breeding ground for prostitution and sex trafficking, it was claimed today.

The number of foreign women who are being trafficked by criminal gangs to work in the sex industry is increasing rapidly, it was claimed today.

Prostitutes should have criminal convictions deleted after a few years to allow them get proper jobs, it was claimed today.

GANGS trafficking in sex slaves and other black market workers are posing a growing challenge for the Irish authorities, the minister with responsibility for human rights has warned.

EVEN as exceptions that prove the rule go, the lapdancer’s tale was exceptional. American and moneyed, she had little in common with the other young women discovered providing the entertainment at a series of clubs raided in a special garda operation last year.

Fifteen foreign women were brought into Ireland last year for sexual exploitation, according to figures released tonight.

OWNERS of lapdancing clubs face hefty fines following a nationwide investigation into the employment of suspected illegal immigrants.

The Ruhama Women's Project, which has called in the past for lap-dancing to be banned, says the Government must act now following today's raids and arrests at clubs across the country.

An Irish charity which works with prostitutes has called for lap-dancing clubs to be banned in Ireland.