Originally Posted by
Brock
There are stigma and discrimination regarding the brothel/agency issue and it usually stems from a variety of things. mostly criminal offenses surrounding the issue.
If its consenting and volunteering on the womens part to be involved with a agency/brothel syndicate, then there will still be huge objections to it, especially in Ireland, when Ruhama has most of (if not all) the monopoly on how society as a whole should see the issue of "sex for hire" aka prostitution to Ruhama.
They will make all the agencies/brothel networks appear like vicious exploiters of women and on the RTE prime time program they done exactly that, especially from a public society perspective.
Ruhama makes pimps out to be seen as money hungry exploiters, who built their vast wealth off the exploitation of vulnerable women.
Ruhama will consistently make the point that vulnerable foreign women from poor countries should not be used for sex for sale in Ireland, that those women need other options to stop them from being exploited by organised criminal gangs involved in the sex trade. Even sex workers on E-I imply that those women are being exploited when a 50% cut is taken from them and they are moved around the country indiscriminately.
Now if real genuine independent sex workers see that as exploitation, then imagine how the wider public and politicans will see it. Its not good and thats why the RTE prime time program is major ammunition for Ruhama and co.
They push the that idea those vulnerable and naive women should not be on the menu for married and third level educated men to use their bodies for a price. That all those women involved with agencies/brothels are coerced, forced and threatened and that criminal gangs trafficked them to exploit them to make huge profits from them. Thats the agenda thats being pushed and its a very strong argument especially when facts can be obscured and skewed like exactly what the anti-sexwork crowd do.
Many people know, even the government knows that some women voluntarily chose to become apart of those agency/brothel syndicates, and know that they were going to become prostitutes to be moved around borders and given a cut of whatever money they make through selling sex.
Unfortunately though Ruhama has loads of politicans, trade unions and other groups believing that all women in the sex trade are coerced, forced and trafficked to be exploited by criminal gangs and the punters are making those gangs huge profits from trafficking women to be exploited. Also the view that Ruhama advances is that even if they were not trafficked, then all women who sell sex are still forced and are victims and that all "sex for hire" is bad, thats the ideology of the swedish model, and its a perfect match with Ruhama.
Ruhama uses the review system from E-I to express their point, its major ammunition for them, lots of reviews from clients were of women that operated with agency/brothel networks, some of which are well known international criminal gangs that were convicted for human trafficking and loads of other offenses in their origin countries and foreign countries with the help of the Gardai.
People may not be aware of that on E-I, but you can bet your ass the Gardai and Ruhama are aware of it, hence thats why they included clients reviews of brothels in their submission.
Then people wonder why there is stigma attached to agency/brothel networks. The Gardai are not as stupid as some people like to think, they watch out for brothel/agency networks on E-I, thats why they had operation quest.
Under that operation they recently raided over 100 premises (mainly apartments, flats and houses) in the Republic of Ireland seen to be brothels operated by agency syndicates. Some people may give the argument that there was no trafficked women found, on the contrary the PSNI and Gardai and also Ruhama know and advocate the idea that there is a possibility that some of those women would be afraid to say that they were forced into it, because in their own countries there is corruption and the gangs that brought them to a country to be sold for sex, would make all kinds of threats and lies to them. All that would be cited from international research and used by Ruhama and co.
Thats why there are huge objections of websites taking adverts from those agency/brothel networks. Thats not to say that all agency/brothel networks are bad, but some are and those some are well known criminal international human trafficking gangs convicted of offenses in other countries due to other countries police forces collaboration with the Gardai.
Its hard to get a real estimate though of the human trafficking cases, especially since Ruhama is biased and the majority of their statistics are of asylum seekers saying they were trafficked, then trying to get residency. With no real proof or convictions. In fact those african asylum seekers are overrepresented in Ruhamas statistics, if anything it shows that Ruhama for a large part were not dealing with real genuine cases of human trafficking, where it can be proved. Its hard to get real estimates, they are complex issues surrounding the whole thing.
Some women know that they would be going to a country to sell sex, sometimes others are tricked, unfortunately sometimes they can be brutally exploited in those countries, its a complex issue.
Ruhama are also consistently advancing the idea that prostitution is an illegal industry, that advertising is illegal etc. That the opinions of escorting websites don't count because they are seen to be criminals, and that prostitition has blown out of control since technology became more advanced and that a loophole in the law needs to be changed, i.e. criminalising clients according to Ruhama and co.
Calling for legalised brothels is only feeding Ruhamas agenda it seems, it would be perhaps better to mention that Sweden has a lower estimates of human trafficking than Ireland, and that consenting adults should not be criminalised and that no one should listen to Ruhama, because they have connections with the magdalene laundries.
The government might be pressured into making it an offense to solicit and importune a sex worker from a brothel, they might amend the brothel keeping laws to shut up Ruhama and TORL. On the contrary, purchase of sexual services from a sex worker may still be legal, but just not ones from a brothel.
Its only speculation though since they don't seem to want the swedish model due to a whole range of unconstitutional, human rights and enforcement issues surrounding it.
