Sex trafficking crackdown may put women at risk
Dr Eilis Ward, who lectures at NUI Galway, said: “Abolishing prostitution as a way to minimise sex trafficking is not fully proven yet. It needs to be considered very carefully because it might have the opposite effect in the long term.”
Dr Ward and Dr Gillian Wylie recently published a study into sex trafficking in this country.
Addressing a meeting of voluntary workers in Limerick, Dr Ward said a significant crackdown in prostitution in Sweden had resulted in women being made more vulnerable.
She said the trafficking of women into this country for prostitution is a growing problem and had seen significant increases over the past two or three years.
She said many of the foreign prostitutes in their study had been tricked into coming to Ireland thinking they were coming to work in the catering, hotel and other industries.
In one case, a pimp pretended to develop a relationship with a girl in their own country and brought her here on the pretext that they were settling here to make a new life for themselves. On arrival in this country he forced her into prostitution.
Of the 76 women they talked to who had been trafficked here for the sex industry between 2000 and 2006 most came from the former Soviet Union and others travelled from Asia and Africa.
She said sex trafficking in Ireland replicated global patterns as the sex industry expands with more women being trafficked across international borders.
The true figures of women being trafficked would never be known because of the nature of the crime.
She said: “The search for definite numbers would be a waste of time once we know the phenomenon exists and that we need a response.”
Of the 76 they interviewed for their survey, 21 worked in Dublin and a further 21 worked in other cities and towns.
It was not clear where 34 of the women worked as prostitutes when in the country.
The women were mostly in the 20 to 30 age group.
While 17 were either repatriated or deported, a total of 36 of the women disappeared without trace.
In the past four months 15 foreign women have been found by gardaí working as prostitutes in Limerick. Many have been deported.
