View Full Version : Good News - Disgusting TORL adverts taken off air!
Broadcast Ban on Human Rights Ads ‘deeply disappointing’
Statement by the Immigrant Council of Ireland
A ban on a radio advertising campaign highlighting human rights abuses in the Irish sex trade is deeply disappointing, according to the Immigrant Council of Ireland.
A campaign involving three advertisements on Newstalk Radio has been halted by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland. The content was to highlight the human trafficking and other human rights abuses associated with the running of brothels in Ireland.
Denise Charlton, CEO, of the Immigrant Council of Ireland said:
“We are deeply disappointed that one of the avenues which we have been using to highlight the abuse of women in communities across Ireland has been closed down to us.
As one of over 50 groups which form the ‘Turn off the Red Light’ campaign we are committed to using every opportunity to inform people as well as political representatives on the threats, abuse and violence which lies at the centre of the sex trade.
We are disappointed that the BAI has ruled the ads were towards a political end, apparently rejecting the fact that representatives of all political parties as well as Independent TDs and Senators have been supporting our efforts. Together we are working towards closing a legal loop-hole which allows payment for sex in Ireland.
The decision stands in stark contrast to the open view the Commission has taken to similar campaigns on TV and radio highlighting human rights abuses in other parts of the world. Highlighting the abuse of rights here is surely just as valid.
The radio ads remain on the the website of the Turn off The Red Light Campaign. We have been greatly encouraged by the interest all media outlets have taken in our efforts and will use every possible platform to inform the public on this important issue into the future.”
ENDS
http://youtu.be/9_AsQaO3Shc
http://youtu.be/BfX6dfoRCyc
http://youtu.be/7mGeZ0Yl5Ow
http://www.thejournal.ie/immigrant-council-deeply-disappointed-with-bai-ruling-over-sex-trade-ads-475126-Jun2012/
Transcripts of the Adverts:
If you pay for sex, here's what you're buying into. Many women, and girls, are being brought to Ireland to work as prostitutes against their will. No matter how you try to convince yourself, the sex is never consensual. She is being forced. Prostitutes suffer extreme physical, sexual and psychological harm. The only solution is to penalise people who buy sex, and decriminalise those who are forced to sell themselves.
Paying for sex, what's the real cost? Alcohol and drug abuse, sexually transmitted infections that go hand in hand with unprotected sex with strangers, and psychological scars. Having been brought to Ireland and prostituted against their will the victims lose what little sense of self remains one punter at a time. The only way to help is to penalise the punters and decriminalise the women. End sex trafficking now. Visit TurnOffTheRedLight.ie to see what you can do.
When you pay for sex, you need to know the cost. You are enabling and encouraging criminals in the sex industry to trap, traffick and exploit the world's most vulnerable children to sell for sex in Ireland. The only way to help these children is to criminalise the buyers of sex. End sex trafficking now. Visit TurnOffTheRedLight.ie to see what you can do.
It seems the adverts were taken down in response to a complaint from this gentleman - https://twitter.com/#!/Pidge
He commented on the Journal article as follows:
I was the complainant in this case. My complaint was not based on disagreement with the TORL cause (although I am uncertain about it), but on the principle that broadcast advertising should not be used to advance political causes in this country. It would create a situation where groups (well-intentioned or otherwise) would be able to buy time to promote their cause on TV and radio.
This gives an advantage to groups which are well-funded over groups which are not. I would not like, for example, to see IBEC paying for advertising advocating lowering the minimum wage, while less-well off groups would not be able to respond. The proper place for political debate is in the show itself, not in the advertising. This is the only way that all sides can have their voices heard.
The ad in question (here: http://soundcloud.com/user8775316/turn-off-the-red-light-ad ) is very clearly aimed at a political objective, something which is not only against the Broadcasting Act, but – in my view – wrong. Were the campaign aiming to raise awareness, I would have no objection to the ad, but it is clearly aimed at a lobbying for a legislative change.
Although these are not the reasons the BAI took the adverts down, my key objections to them are:
1.) They promote a shocking and extremely inaccurate image of paid sex being all about trafficking, unprotected sex and children. This is a big lie designed to cause shock and outrage and win them more support and funding.
2.) They brand all paid for sex as non consensual. This lie has especially harmful consequences for sex workers. By promoting the concept that all persons who sell sex are forced to do so, they are taking away from the rights of sex workers to have control, to set limits, to say no, to not be treated like victims with no choices or human rights.
3.) The whole "The only solution..." to trafficking and child prostitution is to criminalise adults purchasing sex from other consenting adults is another complete lie. We already have laws against trafficking and child prostitution, including laws again a person buying sex from a trafficked or underage person. They want to bring in a new law to criminalise consenting adults buying sex from other consenting adults, but instead of telling the truth they bombard the public with these rotten lies.
4) TORL and Ruhama repeatedly say they are fighting for the criminalisation of persons who buy sex and the decriminalisation of those who sell sex. This is another vile lie. They have never specified what they mean to decriminalise here, but selling sex is not a crime currently and you cannot decriminalise what is not illegal currently. Many sex workers believe the laws that force them to work alone in order to work legally put sex workers' safety at risk. But do not imagine Ruhama and TORL could mean they want to see the end of these laws, as they have already stated on many occasions they believe sex workers not being forced to work alone would "only help the pimps".
Another thing that gets me, not in the radio ads, but in the ICI statement on the radio ads is this "legal loophole" thing they keep saying. They make out it is only a "legal loophole" that means clients can buy sex legally at present. Ireland has not made a decision to criminalise the purchase of sex, that is what they are looking for, and to do so would be a completely new legal approach, not the closing up of a loophole!
Thank you Pidge for seeing that these radio ads were wrong and taking the time to make a complaint about them.
Jack in the Box
05-06-12, 18:18
That is great news that this cancerous campaign was halted. A big thank you to Pidge. Not all sex workers are victims. People need to be constantly told that. Downsize, cut the funding or abolish the Immigrant Council of Ireland. Apart from everything else they are only a drain on the taxpayer.
LaBelleThatcher
05-06-12, 19:32
OMG!!!
I missed something I wanted on ebay that went for £1.10 and accidentally recycled my kitchen bin today...so I was expecting some sort of payback from the fairies...BUT NOT THIS MUCH :D :D :D
:clapping::clapping::clapping:
LaBelleThatcher
05-06-12, 19:37
Thank you Pidge for seeing that these radio ads were wrong and taking the time to make a complaint about them.
I agree with his rationale as well, it makes sense for loads of other reasons.
I agree with his rationale as well, it makes sense for loads of other reasons.
It shows us all what we can do too. I for one would never have thought to complain about that advert, but Pidge has shown us ads like this can be complained about and taken off air successfully, because they are wrong, for more reasons that I'd have thought about. With all the money Ruhama and co. have to spend on PR etc, it can seem like they are so above the ordinary person there is not much that can be done, but he is a great example of an ordinary person who did make a difference.
LaBelleThatcher
05-06-12, 20:10
It shows us all what we can do too. I for one would never have thought to complain about that advert, but Pidge has shown us ads like this can be complained about and taken off air successfully, because they are wrong, for more reasons that I'd have thought about. With all the money Ruhama and co. have to spend on PR etc, it can seem like they are so above the ordinary person there is not much that can be done, but he is a great example of an ordinary person who did make a difference.
That was my first reaction too...Ruhama and TORL are *NOT* a law unto themselves, though I think they almost had us convinced there!
I am genuinely almost speechless with...relief...that someone has finally made that point.
So, the question is, what is the rationale behind all this funding for Ruhama? Certainly not for helping as many 'victims' of sex work related incidences as they have made out. Is there any need for a Swedish model now?
LaBelleThatcher
05-06-12, 23:45
As far as I can tell Samlad, they were, somewhat misguidedly, allocated 4 years of funding in 2008 in respect of the 2008 trafficking legislation...which, of course, runs out this year.
It would have been extremelly difficult to withdraw that funding before it ran out.
However, while organisations like Ruhama were not looking the world they once preyed upon has been changing. The boom is over, things are bad and set to get worse. Available resources *must* be allocated to essential services.
Lobbying the government independent of the wishes, or involvement, of any claims to a user group is hardly an "essential service".
There is literally no money to go on funding superfluous organisations like Ruhama and redundant Immigration organisations to waste resources on junketing each other and making demands for compliance with their current ideological fads.
The level of deceit routinely employed towards this end is just as obvious to the relevant decision makers as it is to us.
The really outrageous thing about those adds, in my opinion is, how someone can recite one flat unsubstantiated assertion after another predicated on the belief that no one will oppose this view. Smug, condescending and completely childish at its bottom level.
So much for informed debate...
Kudos to Pidge.
Allow me to interject a little bit of cynicism here for a moment. Let's just say, as media savvy as Ruhama are, could this be something they instigated to have the ads removed? Let's be honest, last week's fiasco of a rescue operation has put the spotlight on them in an unfavourable fashion. They would, if they were smart, be on the hop to implement some serious damage control.
Last weeks operation highlight exactly the opposite of what they and been banging on about for the last 4 years. It proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the concept of the trafficked sex worker, at least in Ireland is a myth, and even Joe and Jane Public, with busy lives to lead, can see this for the crock of shit it really is.
Ruhama, shot themselves in the foot with this one, I predict them fading quietly into the wood work if they were smart. There are too many necessary services that may have been delayed to fund their witchhunt against women trying to make a living in trying economic times. This will backfire on them in an unpleasant way.
Allow me to interject a little bit of cynicism here for a moment. Let's just say, as media savvy as Ruhama are, could this be something they instigated to have the ads removed? Let's be honest, last week's fiasco of a rescue operation has put the spotlight on them in an unfavourable fashion. They would, if they were smart, be on the hop to implement some serious damage control.
Last weeks operation highlight exactly the opposite of what they and been banging on about for the last 4 years. It proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the concept of the trafficked sex worker, at least in Ireland is a myth, and even Joe and Jane Public, with busy lives to lead, can see this for the crock of shit it really is.
Ruhama, shot themselves in the foot with this one, I predict them fading quietly into the wood work if they were smart. There are too many necessary services that may have been delayed to fund their witchhunt against women trying to make a living in trying economic times. This will backfire on them in an unpleasant way.
Agreed with all of the above. I haven't yet seen Ruhama post anything in response to the outcome of the checks (not raids, as the media portray it), but perhaps I've missed it? If Ruhama are genuine, they would surely embrace the results of this operation and breathe a huge sigh of relief, given that the trafficking levels don't reflect the hype that the public were led to believe.
What does puzzle me is why isn't the Sunday World as quick to publish the outcome of this all over the front pages of their paper? They were quick-fire enough to publish a picture of an escort in the window of a building outside the Garda Station!
Agreed with all of the above. I haven't yet seen Ruhama post anything in response to the outcome of the checks (not raids, as the media portray it), but perhaps I've missed it? If Ruhama are genuine, they would surely embrace the results of this operation and breathe a huge sigh of relief, given that the trafficking levels don't reflect the hype that the public were led to believe.
What does puzzle me is why isn't the Sunday World as quick to publish the outcome of this all over the front pages of their paper? They were quick-fire enough to publish a picture of an escort in the window of a building outside the Garda Station!
The other thing we need to keep an eye out for, is a reorganisation of Ruhama into a different incarnation so to speak. They need to keep the funds rolling in, so I would be surprised if in about 3 months time some along the lines of some pseudo-sex work organisation pops up. Targeting the ladies here. The people can be sneaky that way.
Sunday world, print proper journalism, perish the thought.
Im surprised Ruhama in these times are still getting funding
Surely the 'welfare check' has shown with its three arrests that the stats of trafficking have been grosley over estimated and with everyone in trouble , eg Hse and other heath services including child care for those in the system who could be lost in the cracks. Government spending by way of funding Ruhama could be better spent,
I have always put it down to the Church trying to eradicate sex work as a means of trying to keep Ireland a Catholic country. Perhaps they think that seeing escorts and prostitutes is distracting them from their religion? The thing is, the more people are pushed, the harder they tend to push back, much like the laws of force in physics.
I have always put it down to the Church trying to eradicate sex work as a means of trying to keep Ireland a Catholic country. Perhaps they think that seeing escorts and prostitutes is distracting them from their religion? The thing is, the more people are pushed, the harder they tend to push back, much like the laws of force in physics.
Maybe they should ban the media, universities, free thinking as well while they are at it
Im sure these are the reasons why the church is failing , not people getting laid....actually let me rephrase that not both parties consenting and being of an age where they are able to give consent to get laid
Maybe they should ban the media, universities, free thinking as well while they are at it
Im sure these are the reasons why the church is failing , not people getting laid....actually let me rephrase that not both parties consenting and being of an age where they are able to give consent to get laid
Speaking of getting laid, I heard on the radio yesterday that the current age of consent for sex in Ireland is 17, but the Government are considering lowering that to 16? In the UK, it is already 16 (if you're a school teacher, this becomes 18). What do we think of that?
Speaking of getting laid, I heard on the radio yesterday that the current age of consent for sex in Ireland is 17, but the Government are considering lowering that to 16? In the UK, it is already 16 (if you're a school teacher, this becomes 18). What do we think of that?
no real problem with.that .(till my daughter turns 16 then ill be.lobbying.for an increase to 40)
I think the real issue that needs.to be addressed is the romeo and juliette law
LaBelleThatcher
06-06-12, 12:13
I think Ruhama are coming apart at the seams for real. Recently someone has regularly been tweeting adolescent style bitching into the small hours from the Ruhama account (from a blackberry, Sarah Benson uses a blackberry).
They had evaluated the situation and they were so certain nobody from the sex industry would dare to give them the lie because of the real danger exposure would bring. They have been cold bloodedly fostering that fear of exposure for 23 years to protect their position as the sole arbiters of the sex industry at the political table.
I was an eyewitness I watched the deliberate calculation with which it was done.
They are beginning to learn that Josef Goebbels was only partly right...a lie can indeed become the truth if you tell it often enough, but only if nobody stands up and challenges it.
I think Ruhama are coming apart at the seams for real. Recently someone has regularly been tweeting adolescent style bitching into the small hours from the Ruhama account (from a blackberry, Sarah Benson uses a blackberry).
They had evaluated the situation and they were so certain nobody from the sex industry would dare to give them the lie because of the real danger exposure would bring. They have been cold bloodedly fostering that fear of exposure for 23 years to protect their position as the sole arbiters of the sex industry at the political table.
I was an eyewitness I watched the deliberate calculation with which it was done.
They are beginning to learn that Josef Goebbels was only partly right...a lie can indeed become the truth if you tell it often enough, but only if nobody stands up and challenges it.
Doesnt Ruhama profit from the sex industry?
If there were no sex industry they would have no wages?
Isnt it against the law to profit from sex workers?
LaBelleThatcher
06-06-12, 12:26
I have always put it down to the Church trying to eradicate sex work as a means of trying to keep Ireland a Catholic country. Perhaps they think that seeing escorts and prostitutes is distracting them from their religion? The thing is, the more people are pushed, the harder they tend to push back, much like the laws of force in physics.
Here is a quote from a UK NGO site I saw yesterday. Explaining the origins of Satanism as a prelude to explaining what "ritual abuse" is. It is historically inaccurate, but telling:
Personnel in the church got their jobs through bribery and corruption and made lots of money at a time when the majority of the population were extremelly poor. The bishops and hierarchy of the church were very influential in the politics of the country and in local politics.
Let me edit it a little
Personnel in the NGO sector got their jobs through bribery and corruption and made lots of money at a time when the majority of the population were extremely poor. The hierarchy of the NGO sector were very influential in the politics of the country and in local politics.
I do not think I have ever been so forcefully struck by the extent to which the NGO sector has taken over the role of the church, nor the extent to which the church has reinvented itself as, apparently (until you scratch the surface), secular aspects of the NGO sector.
But do not ever fall into the trap of believing this is about faith (however warped) because it is not, it is just about power and control.
LaBelleThatcher
06-06-12, 12:37
Doesnt Ruhama profit from the sex industry?
If there were no sex industry they would have no wages?
Isnt it against the law to profit from sex workers?
Any prohibitionist organisation is aiming to make a great deal of money out of striving to abolish the sex industry. "Not for Profit" is just code for "We pay ourselves such huge salaries nothing is left" and a useful tax break.
That culture in itself is being steadily exposed and coming down in flames. (As far as I can tell Ruhama is mostly funded through Pobal and it seems as though their, frequently bizarre, funding allocations are "the last to go" possibly just because it is so hard to know where to start!)
I think now would be a great time to start demanding Ruhama be subject to a full audit...and there is no reason why anyone cannot write to their own TD under their own name to demand a full audit of an organisation that seems primarily concerned with lobbying "Women's Issues" which is not even what they are funded for at a time when essential services are being cut back, and there would be no harm in throwing in the names of a few immigrant organisations in a similar condition as well.
Half Man and Half Dildo
06-06-12, 21:12
.....I would not like, for example, to see IBEC paying for advertising advocating lowering the minimum wage, while less-well off groups would not be able to respond.....
With the above quote in mind I think it is also important to remember that last year before the debate in the Seanad got underway a delegation from Ruhama\TORL met with the senators beforehand, if this is not one-sided political lobbying I don't know what is. I would have loved to see their faces when senator Mary White stood her ground and gave them the kick in the arse that they are so deserving of.
The Irish people need to be made aware of things like this. Imagine the uproar that would ensue if bankers and bondholders were to meet senators alone before a debate on the banking crisis took place.
LaBelleThatcher
07-06-12, 08:31
I found an interesting precedent today:
http://www.catholicbishops.ie/2008/12/04/veritas-bitterly-disappointed-that-christmas-radio-dvert-blocked-by-bci/
You may ask yourself what is the relevance, simple, Ruhama, Veritas (http://www.veritasbooksonline.com/news/who-we-are-what-we-do.html) AND http://www.towardshealing.ie all share the same PR Media adviser :- Walter Young of Young Communications.
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/walter-young/7/574/750
Also, part time media adviser to the former and current president.
Will someone please tell me what a humble support service for poor little purrostitutes is doing hiring a top notch media adviser with a virulent catholic bias?
LaBelleThatcher
15-06-12, 22:06
You have been reading my diary Brock...
But you forgot to mention one thing...they keep leaving out any facts...
Now I, more than anyone, appreciate that all the mean girls speak in unison:
"Ah but you will be in our power in the end...pretty pretty...muhuhuha"
But I am not so sure...
We have been around for thousands of years...mostly because...that educated and calculating thing?
Not as new fangled as you think ;)
Little history lesson...
You guys are actually very lucky that we are so nice to you...see, down through the millenia, you haven't been very nice to us.
:(
Didn't matter who we were, or how smart, or how talented, you didn't let us have a whole lot of options:
We could get married at an average age between 12 and 14, and be babymaking slaves for life, which was usually mercifully short as we were like as not going to shuffle off the mortal coil, often in childbirth, before we were 35. On the plus side that limited the amount of babies you had to provide for.
We could sign ourselves over to the prevailing religion, usually involving draconian restrictions, and at least one or two unspeakable rituals. On the plus side it did give us a small chance of accessing an awful lot of dosh and power if we were really smart and not too fussy about ethics...and, of course, we usually got to live longer.
We could become whores, which guaranteed us, almost immediately, as much dosh and power as a man, with the potential for far more dosh and power if we were really smart and not too fussy about ethics (why lie? Nobody ever got rich by being a saint unless there was a LOT of fraud involved) - and we got to live about the same length of time as a guy.
Now, in recent years that has started to change...for one thing the prevailing religions don't have a whole lot of gods involved (Feminism, psychotherapy, the English Defence League, Big Brother etc), and women have grasped a whole lot more opportunities...but don't kid yourself about that, that is mainly because:
We have developed industrial technocracies that require one feck of a lot more than child minding, animal husbandry and vegetable gardening to keep the home fires burning every time they go to war...and besides, they tend to "do" warfare direct to your door these days, so the guys don't get to take off on a spree for years at a time.
Women finally found reliable ways to take control of their own childbearing with, or without male co-operation
Apart from that, surprisingly little has changed.
This is just another battle in the eternal war between whores and nuns...in the end, the side that is bound to win is the side who really have god, and the guys on their side.
Persecuting the guys?
Not a move I would expect to recover from...trust me...
:)
LaBelleThatcher
16-06-12, 14:20
I woke up this morning, less full of vodka smoothies and dramatic effect, but with a notion buzzing around my head that will not go away.
This "Turn Off the Red Light" campaign...it is not about "victims of trafficking", or "purrostituted women", or a "gender equal society" (as far as I can see, life is as "gender equal" as you make it :rolleyes:) or any of those things, it is about a group of bullies ganging up to impose semi permanent control on a group of innocent, harmless people who are getting on with life and minding their own business.
Look closely at their programs and "those in their service" (*shudders* my Grandmother was "in service" for a while, she failed to find it empowering and changed career to wind up as a company director) - except, of course, you can't, because they can hide everything in the name of stigma (and unfortunately must be allowed to - except from a confidential Government value for money audit - which is well overdue ). The truth is that they could be making *all* their figures up and there is no way, without that full VFM audit, anyone would ever be any the wiser...there is no way to backcheck any of it.
For all anybody can check, the pitifully little funds allocated to "the women's expenses" (€40,000 out of just under €700,000 in the last filed accounts.) could have been doled out to personal friends - how would anyone ever really know? Of course it is more likely that they have provided a handful of (perhaps otherwise very worthy) ladies from outside the EU, who may have felt "at risk of purrostitution" with a fully facilitated (and probably much needed) backdoor to residency.
Even so, I would be willing to bet they have never "helped" anyone towards any form of self employment, despite the fact that studies by the probation service (who have provided one of their funding streams) show that those of us with an "interrupted CV" of any kind have far more chance of succeeding in self employment than PAYE, and the common sense that any sex worker is already attuned to self employment and might find other PAYE employment extremely hard to adapt to.
Self employed people are too free and might escape.
It is just the laundries, the contraception debate (I knew a lovely sex worker who could still remember having to get the bus to Belfast for condoms every week), the divorce debate, and the abortion debate all over again.
...and all of those things were always just conduits and excuses for a pathological compulsion to control.
But here is the thing...if I had to choose one most common factor among sex workers I think it would be that, for any of a number of reasons, the majority of people who choose sex work do so, at least in part, because they find imposed control hard to cope with and cannot adjust well to subordinate positions.
So that it is *MORE* abusive and destructive to aspire to impose control on a sex worker than on most other people, bad enough here, but in the less privileged and more desperate areas of the sex industry there is no real limit to how bad that damage could be.
According to an Irish Times poll:
Should the laws against prostitution be abolished?
58% YES
42% NO
http://scripts.ireland.com/polls/head2head/index.cfm?fuseaction=yesnopoll&pollid=8193&subsiteid=352
LaBelleThatcher
17-06-12, 16:55
This is awesome stuff Masculine...
Especially the comments...there is even more stuff I never thought of myself in there.
Seriously, I can think of a lot of reasons to regulate sex work, and the more I look, the more I find - but I cannot think of one single sane, realistic reason to go on criminalising any aspect of it that is not already criminalised outside the sex industry anyway, such as:
Coercion
Trafficking
Abuse of minors
Theft
Fraud
Money Laundering