Spike in Cork prostitution 'is being facilitated by availability of AirBnBs'

Cost-of-living crisis is driving more women into sex work says sexual exploitation expert, as garda source says brothels operate 'on every major street' in Cork City centre

Women working in the sex trade told the 'Irish Examiner' they have used AirBnBs and other short-term rental apartments to sell sex. File picture

Ready availability of AirBnBs and other short-term lets is facilitating a spike in prostitution across Cork City, according to gardaí.

Pop-up brothels are now being reported “on every major street in the city centre”, one garda told the Irish Examiner.

“Use of AirBnB has facilitated an increase in sexual services. They have so much choice now. Before, people could only really look at hotels,” a Cork garda said.

"A lot of letters come into the garda stations from anonymous residents giving information about addresses near them being used for prostitution.”

The garda source has seen a major increase in prostitution over the last 12 months to two years. The garda source added: 

I don’t remember getting phone calls or letters about brothels four or five years ago, but now it’s an ongoing thing. 

AirBnB said it has had no complaints or contact from gardaí in Cork about properties on its platform being used for prostitution.

The company would take any such complaint very seriously and co-operate fully with law enforcement, a spokesperson said.

Sexual Exploitation Research Programme lead researcher Ruth Breslin says many women in the sex trade have been 'directly coerced or they’ve been pushed in by poverty'. Picture: Julien Behal

AirBnB can be used as a catch-all phrase for all short-term rentals, the company added.

Women working in the sex trade told the Irish Examiner they have used AirBnBs and other short-term rental apartments to sell sex.

Ruth Breslin of UCD’s Sexual Exploitation Research Programme said that AirBnB and short-term lets can facilitate the way the sex trade works.

Women frequently move or are moved around the country to different towns and cities in response to sex buyers desire for “new faces”, said Ms Breslin.

“It’s a very mobile trade. It’s a very demand-led market. New girls, or what they call ‘new faces’, are very important to buyers.”

The cost-of-living crisis is likely driving more women into sex work, she added.

“We’re in a cost-of-living crisis, and especially for migrant women, they might have worked in the more informal or grey economy, in their countries of origin and many of those small, informal businesses collapsed during covid.

“These women are probably facing quite severe poverty at home and have family relying on them.

“That’s so much of what we see in the profile of women in the trade. They are migrant women and they’re there because they’ve been directly coerced or they’ve been pushed in by poverty.”

The main sex-selling website in Ireland showed 68 profiles — almost entirely women — advertising sex in Cork on one date in late December. There were 749 sex work profiles advertised nationally, with 343 in Dublin, 43 in Limerick, 11 in Tipperary, and 10 in Waterford.

Garda figures show that, nationally, there were 106 sex trade-related charges or summons, which related to 97 incidents in 2023 up to December 13.

In Cork city and county, there were 37 sex trade-related charges or summons related to 37 incidents this year up to December 13.

Danielle McLaughlin, policy and communications coordinator with Ruhama, a charity that offers support to women impacted by prostitution, said human traffickers are using short-term locations as pop-ups.

“They’re moving around every few weeks just to evade detection,” she said.

“It's an ongoing and long-term concern. It's exploiting the tourism industry. And it's very hard to control.” 

According to Ruhama’s latest annual report, published in October, the organization saw a 35% increase in demand for services by victims of human trafficking and sexual exploitation in 2022 compared to the previous year, despite the hidden nature of the sex trade.

Ruhama engaged with 497 individuals in 2022, 147 of whom were victims of human trafficking. This represents a 68% increase in new referrals of victims from 2021.