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TODAY THE MYTH that buyers of sex are isolated, disadvantaged and lonely men will be dispelled with the publication of European Commission supported research at the ‘Stop Traffick!’ Conference in Dublin.
The conference is the result of 18 months of academic work with researchers in Ireland, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Finland and Lithuania going online into chat rooms, posting on message boards and entering the murky world of prostitution to examine the habits of buyers.
A total of 763 sex buyers engaged with the study, of which 58 were in Ireland.
The results are conclusive and have already been acknowledged by European Home Affairs Commissioner Cecelia Malmstrom as being an important input into the ongoing debate on curbing demand for sex trafficking.
There are a lot of similarities between the findings in each of the five countries. We all found that buyers are in the main well-off with over two-thirds earning more than €20,000 a year, most were well-educated and, in the case of Ireland, 52 per cent are in a relationship while 45 per cent are over the age of 45.
The study confirmed what we have always suspected that buyers are in the main men, while the sellers of sex are in the vast majority of cases women.
As well as profiling buyers the Immigrant Council of Ireland examined if the men ever came across women they believed were being controlled by pimps, were frightened or were trafficked. The results are startling, with over one in four admitting they had come across women and girls they believed were in such situations. A significantly lesser number considered to report this to the authorities, dispelling the myth that buyers are helpful is tackling human trafficking.
It is particularly disturbing that no buyer has been prosecuted under Ireland’s anti human trafficking legislation designed to reduce demand for victims of trafficking, which clearly does not work.
The main aim of the Stop Traffick! project was to examine ways in which demand for sex trafficking could be reduced and this was an area where our researchers also quizzed buyers.
For 54 per cent of men the biggest fear is being named and shamed in a local newspaper, while fear of prosecution and of contracting a sexually transmitted disease were also highly rated.
This last result is important as it comes when Ireland, Northern Ireland, France, the European Parliament as well regions further away like Canada and New South Wales in Australia are examining laws targeting sex buyers.
We have now heard from the buyers themselves that they would fear such laws, the clearest signal yet that they will work.
The Immigrant Council of Ireland will be forwarding this study to the Government and to the Oireachtas Justice Committee and asking that like the European Commission they will commit to using its findings in forming future laws.
It is now almost eight months since the Justice Committee unanimously backed sex buyer laws after studying 800 written submissions and hearing six months of hearings.
While the recommendations from the Committee did represent a milestone in the debate on prostitution laws – it is worth noting that across Ireland today pimps and traffickers are going about their evil trade as freely as ever.
About 800-1,000 women are for sale online in this country today.
Young teenage girls will have sex with 12 or 15 men in Irish brothels today.
That is the reality of prostitution.
It is a reality the €25 billion European sex trade does not want you to know.
Here our trade unions and employers have rejected the notion that prostitution is a job, it is exploitation not employment.
Those behind it are criminals, something Senior Gardaí testified about over 12 months ago and which the vested interests of the sex ‘trade’ have never responded to.
As one of the 68 organisations which form the Turn Off the Red Light Campaign we are again calling on the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, TD and his Ministers to end the delay in responding to a crime which is now bigger than drug dealing in the European Union.
You can add your voice to the campaign at www.turnofftheredlight.ie/action
Nusha Yonkova is the anti-trafficking coordinator at the Immigrant Council of Ireland. She holds a Masters of Arts Degree in Intercultural Studies from Dublin City University. Since 2007, Nusha coordinates the diverse anti-trafficking work at the Immigrant Council and has significant expertise in producing and coordinating research and policy documents in this area.
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“Paul O’Brien is CEO of Plan International Ireland. He has been working in the INGO sector for over 35 years”
A professional Charitarian with his begging bowl, this does not take from the suffering of the people in Somalia, but these are the facts on famine from Our World in Data
https://ourworldindata.org/famines#long-term-trends-in-global-famine-mortality
@John Kennedy: A detailed article about the dire state in Somalia, written by someone with feet-on-the-ground experience and that is your only take from it? Nice person you must be.
@John Kennedy: How many people dying of famine is acceptable to you?
@John Kennedy: You really ought to try thinking before typing
@Diarmuid Hunt: Obviously no one wants to see people die of famine but the reality is that, due to climate change, there are large numbers of people now living in areas that can’t sustain them, so what’s the answer? As we are talking about hundreds of millions of people do we take in a couple of hundred thousand people (with little or no education or skills suitable to this country) and pay the required taxes to fund this or what would be your response Diarmuid as it’s easy to spout non platitudes?
@John Kennedy: It inspired me to donate to Plan International. He is absolutely right about simply giving money to people in need. That’s what they need to keep going. Not to trek from A to Z trying to access a voucher for something with five added layers of profit for ‘charitable’ companies.
@The next small thing: My response was to his post of our world in data showing the decline of people suffering from famine – I was not providing a solution but pointing out that posting this was of no benefit. You obviously know from your post that the question is a complex one and an answer of ah sure it’s better than the 1860′s isn’t adequate.
@John Kennedy: hope you can back up your potential “slanderous” post
Sad state of affairs the way wealth is distributed in this crap world.
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