Focus on Ruhama

[Patricia]

At simple face value, Ruhama are whiter than white.

But in this world you have to look beyond the image of themselves that organisations like Ruhama create and see what is really behind the PR facade.

I'd challenge anyone to really look into Ruhama and then come back here and defend them.

I can fully understand that most people would look at Ruhama on the face of it and imagine they do good work, but scratch the surface and it's a whole different story.

[MrFussy]

Mr. Fussy, you've written 108 reviews in the space of less than 2 years........the good boys and girls of Ruhama would probably have you castrated if they could get their hands on you.

I know I and other punters are a subject of their efforts.

At simple face value, Ruhama are whiter than white.

But in this world you have to look beyond the image of themselves that organisations like Ruhama create and see what is really behind the PR facade.

I'd challenge anyone to really look into Ruhama and then come back here and defend them.

I can fully understand that most people would look at Ruhama on the face of it and imagine they do good work, but scratch the surface and it's a whole different story.

Let's not get into looking beyond the facade or scratching the surface. I imagine EI would not advocate that either. Ruhama has a different and opposite agenda to EI, at least cutting out trafficking is a common goal. They have their objectives and you have yours, all I am saying is that these views will always be polar opposites. EI make a lot of money from this site, I spend a lot of money on activities advertised on this site, neither of us are whiter that white...so I dare say we should not denegrate the Ruhama organisation...

[nicegirlsarenice]

E-I isn't degenerating into anything. Ruhama are a load of bullshit and that's the end of it.

E-I's objectives are mainly the same objectives Ruhama says it has to the media.

[Doozer]

I think the point that is being made here is that Ruhama are not being true to themselves. They are basically saying that all escorts are forced into doing this job. Which they are not, I think most of us can agree with that. Obviously if anyone is forced into prostitution they should be arrested and brought to trial and let justice be done. But they want to name and shame those who have used these services is a bit ridiculous. The mud slinging goes back and forth each from each side hides the true value form each group. In theroy what Ruhama does is good and benificial but in reality it does seem to be a pr stunt gone wrong making them out to be like Mother Teresa to all the neglected woman forced into prostitution by and I quote 'We see prostitution and the social and cultural attitudes which sustain it as being deeply rooted in gender inequality and social marginalisation. ' , meaning at the hands of immoral men

[carlos marvado]

I think the point that is being made here is that Ruhama are not being true to themselves. They are basically saying that all escorts are forced into doing this job. Which they are not, I think most of us can agree with that. Obviously if anyone is forced into prostitution they should be arrested and brought to trial and let justice be done. But they want to name and shame those who have used these services is a bit ridiculous. The mud slinging goes back and forth each from each side hides the true value form each group. In theroy what Ruhama does is good and benificial but in reality it does seem to be a pr stunt gone wrong making them out to be like Mother Teresa to all the neglected woman forced into prostitution by and I quote 'We see prostitution and the social and cultural attitudes which sustain it as being deeply rooted in gender inequality and social marginalisation. ' , meaning at the hands of immoral men

Well said Brother Doozer.

There are a few points about Ruhama that I find hypocritical and objectionable and which I would find insulting even if I were a woman.

Firstly, if you take the statistics that Ruhama produce regarding trafficked women/children or the number of such women/children that it has helped, there is a marked contrast between it's figures and those of the Gardai. Now there could be a number of reasons for this discrepancy: A) Differing definitions of what constitutes trafficking. Personally I would regard sex trafficking as being forcing or coercing a person to come here against their will for the purposes of prostitution or sexual exploitation, or bringing a person here or getting them to come here under false pretenses and once here, forcing them against their will to work in prostitution. I suspect that the Gardai may be using some definition along these lines, whereas Ruhama are using a much broader definition, which includes any person assisted in coming to Ireland by another person or other persons, even if this assistance only involves provision of information. (Remember the Right to Life Amendment and the Right To Travel and the Right to Information sections that we voted on years ago). B) Foreign prostitutes and escorts may be saying one thing to the Gardai and another to Ruhama, but one could argue, that they are more likely to tell the Gardai that they are being trafficked, whether this is actually true or false, in order to be treated more leniently. C) Ruhama cannot accept that any person would come here of their own free will to work as an escort and automatically record all foreign escorts as trafficked. This massaging of the figures enables Ruhama to paint a very one sided picture of reality which they can use to justify the "good" work that they do and keep the state departments/government agencies and their other sponsors on side. If this is the case, Ruhama would not be the first NGO to produce embellished statistics to justify their existence.

Secondly, given that Ruhama fail to acknowledge that a person could freely chose this type of work and must be exploited/trafficked, they are insulting escorts. They claim to be a Christian/Catholic NGO and my understanding of the Good Book, is that the God that they believe in, is supposed to have given us free will. Ruhama deny that escorts have free will (maybe because they view most of them as women being exploited by men) and view all as having been forced into this work. Indeed a lot of escorts probably are forced into this work by financial necessity, debts or poverty, but in a lot of other cases, it may be the attraction of making large sums of money quickly in order to rise above their current situation and set themselves up in life. Ruhama portray all escorts as victims, controlled and unable to make their own life choices for themselves, and when they do encounter a strong, independent and articulate escort, they invariably look for another reason, such as an abusive childhood or relationship and/or low self esteem, to explain away why they are working as escorts. Ruhama act like some of the most extreme man-hating lesbian feminists out there, but what they forget, is that if they insist that women should have free will in terms of choices and over their own bodies, then they are complete hypocrites if they themselves try to limit a woman's free will or her sovereignty over her own body.

Thirdly, in my original post, I highlighted the involvement of both the religious congregations behind Ruhama in the running of Magdalene laundries, industrial schools and reformatories. In the case of Magdalene laundries, these were self financing, whereas the others were funded or part funded by the state on the basis of the number of "inmates" there. Apart from the many abuses which have been recorded in these institutions, the sheer material neglect of those being "cared" for and the forced labour in the workshops/factories or on the farms of these institutions, meant that in many, if not all cases the congregations running them were being financed by these arrangements and making a profit from them. In other words, many a nun, priest or brother led a nice comfortable existence on the backs of the suffering and forced labour of women and children. So for any religious congregation involved in these money making rackets to set itself up as a champion for the underprivileged, the abused, the trafficked or the exploited takes some degree of breath taking hypocrisy.

[Doozer]

If Ruhuma used the 'standerdised' version of what trafficing is they would loose money as their is , as the garda leave us believe only a small number of traffiked women arriving on our shores. This would mean Ruhuma would loose any government funding. Best way to combat this is to omove the goalposts and expand what being traffiked actually is. Any woman who is involved in prostitution must have been forced into this lifestyle as no one would willingly be involved in this way of life.

[Doozer]

Ruhuma on Capital D promoting new film traffic fast forward to 12 mins
RT

[MrFussy]

E-I isn't degenerating into anything. Ruhama are a load of bullshit and that's the end of it.

E-I's objectives are mainly the same objectives Ruhama says it has to the media.

I think if you read my comments you will find I've lready stated that there is a common goal.
My reply, expressing my disappointment with this post, is that none of us can afford to take the moral high ground, or call into question the actions of others relating to the subject of prostitution, particularly with the financial vested interest, structures etc. in place to shield owners, benefactors and contributors on this site..

[Lincoln]

I think if you read my comments you will find I've lready stated that there is a common goal.
My reply, expressing my disappointment with this post, is that none of us can afford to take the moral high ground, or call into question the actions of others relating to the subject of prostitution, particularly with the financial vested interest, structures etc. in place to shield owners, benefactors and contributors on this site..

Actually Mr. Fussy it was a bit non-sequitur of you to introduce your proposition that "EI is not whiter than white and therefore should not comment on the intentions of Ruhama". If you wished to take issue at all then you should have refuted some of the specific assertions made about Ruhama in the originial post eg. its origins in religious orders associated with the Magdalene Laundries, its hi-jacking by the larger Catholic Church organisation to further a blanket agenda of demonising sexuality, y'know proper actual argument as opposed to mere fallacy.

I don't know much about the work of Ruhama. In the most general terms I have no problem with a support network to assist girls and women coerced or suborned into prostitution however I have, over the last couple of years, had the scales removed from my eyes regarding Catholic dogma and scripture in general and I am deeply suspicious of the over-all intent of Ruhama as an organisation.

[nicegirlsarenice]

Actually Mr. Fussy it was a bit non-sequitur of you to introduce your proposition that "EI is not whiter than white and therefore should not comment on the intentions of Ruhama". If you wished to take issue at all then you should have refuted some of the specific assertions made about Ruhama in the originial post eg. its origins in religious orders associated with the Magdalene Laundries, its hi-jacking by the larger Catholic Church organisation to further a blanket agenda of demonising sexuality, y'know proper actual argument as opposed to mere fallacy.

Of course. Despite showing a great taste in escorts Mr. Fussy has been largely discredited as a serious poster on E-I for a long time anyway. He even claimed to have been some sort of hotshot "lawyer" or legal eagle or something, and yet seemed to make basic errors when talking about such things, that even people here were able to point out.... Who knows how he was able to afford it originally.... there are all sorts of ways that people end up with a large amount of money only to blow it all later pretending to live the high life for a while.

Even though this thread was bumped with good intentions this time, I still don't think it should be bumped like that out of the blue. Brock, please note that it's advised not to bump old threads here without a very compelling reason.