THERE ARE an estimated 1,000 women in Ireland who are beingsexually exploited for money, most of them migrants, a Dublinconference heard yesterday.
The conference, organised by the Dignity project, was told thatthe Swedish system of criminalising the purchasing of sex waseffective in combating the problem. The cities of Stockholm andBarcelona both have populations of 1.5 million, yet the Swedishcapital has approximately 200 people working in prostitution whileBarcelona has 20,000, the conference on sex trafficking andprostitution in Ireland was told.
Buying sex has been a crime in Sweden since legislation waspassed there in 1999. This is not yet the case in Spain - or inIreland. The conference was the culmination of two years of work andresearch funded by the EU. The work was led by the ImmigrationCouncil of Ireland and the Dublin Employment Pact, with partners inScotland, Spain and Lithuania.
For the last two years, they have been looking at initiatives inother countries that protect victims of sex trafficking. Theseincluded looking at the provision of emergency accommodation forvictims.
"In our two-year examination of systems to curb sex trafficking,one of the most effective initiatives we looked at was legislationintroduced in Sweden that criminalise the purchasing of sex,"Dignity's project co-ordinator, Grainne Healy, told delegates. "Thislegislation has brought about a reduction in demand for prostitutionand trafficking."
In a panel discussion chaired by MEP Proinsias De Rossa, DeniseCharlton of the Immigrant Council of Ireland also stressed the needfor co-operation between various agencies, stressing that although"there are really committed people from agencies working to addresssex trafficking in Ireland, the infrastructure isn't working. Thereare thousands of women for sale on the internet on any given day inIreland. It's such a difficult crime to prosecute."
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