Women are victims, not perpetrators - Prostitution laws

NOT before time, a campaign has been launched to criminalise the men who use prostitutes for sex in Ireland.

Up to now, in a typically Irish solution for an international problem, this country has prosecuted the women who provide sex. Turning logic on its head, it is as if the men who prey on them, often violently and always abusively, for their own gratification are somehow the innocent victims of the women who engage in the oldest profession of all.

Having worked for over two decades with women affected by prostitution and other forms of sexual exploitation, the Dublin-based organisation, Ruhama, deserves to be applauded for organising this campaign aimed at bringing Ireland into line with how prostitutes are protected in most other civilised countries. There can be little doubt that where matters of sexual mores are concerned, so-called sex workers continue to be viewed in this country as the perpetrators, rather than the victims, of what is now a highly organised Irish arm of what has grown into a sordid global business run by criminals. Organised gangs and pimps live off the money earned by an estimated 1,500 prostitutes here, most of them trafficked from eastern Europe and Africa.

That women were long regarded as the culprits behind this trade was largely because society bore the trappings of a male- and church-dominated history riddled with hypocrisy. It is hoped that legislation being framed by Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald will bring about a sea change in attitudes towards prostitutes.

According to an opinion poll released by Ruhama at the launch of its ‘Don’t Buy It’ campaign, the vast majority of Irish men have never been with a prostitute and probably never will be. It also finds the Irish public are acutely aware of the cruel nature of a business run by ruthless criminals who are the main financial beneficiaries. The time has come for the Dáil to emulate the politicians in the North where tougher legislation has already been enacted effectively de-criminalising the person engaged in prostitution whereas the purchase of sex has been criminalised.

Significantly, Tom Meagher, whose wife Jill was raped and murdered in Melbourne, Australia, two years ago, was at the Ruhama conference. He believes it will require a critical mass of non-violent men to challenge male attitudes towards women. In his view, society tends to compartmentalise women but he emphasised this should not diminish the horror felt by the public over the rape of two other victims of his wife’s murderer because were prostitutes. Ireland’s abysmal record on the general question of discrimination against women, recently criticised by the UN, can be traced to a 1979 convention outlawing such discrimination. Though other nation states began ratifying the document in 1980, widely regarded as the most authoritative UN human rights instrument to protect women from abuse and discrimination, another five years passed before Ireland signed it in 1985.

Let’s hope tough new Irish laws on prostitution will be enacted in this government’s lifetime. The message is clear — don’t buy it.

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