Ruhama assist 196 women in 2009
23 Aug 2010
In its Annual Statistics Report for 2009, published today (23/08/2010), Ruhama confirmed that it had assisted 196 women affected by prostitution throughout the year. This included a significant number of women who had been trafficked into this country for the purposes of sexual exploitation and also shows a 22% increase on 2008 figures (161 women assisted in 2008). Sarah Benson, CEO of Ruhama said today, "A significant proportion of the women Ruhama worked with through casework in 2009 are victims of sex trafficking and their experience is one of literal enslavement and sexual exploitation by individuals who profit from the misery of women and children. In two cases the women were children at the time of being trafficked. In total we assisted 66 women who had been trafficked during the year, 26 of which were new cases". Read more here
At our Womens Conference in March 2010, Congress adopted a policy in support of recognising that the trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation is a modern form of slavery and urges the Irish Government to learn from those countries which have established good practise for dealing with sex trafficking, in particular Sweden and Norway. These countries have criminalised the purchase of sex and decriminalised the selling of sex. Through this approach, Norway and Sweden have reduced the demand for prostitution and incidences of trafficking of human beings for the purposes of sexual exploitation, proving that tackling demand is central to tackling sex trafficking. Congress is a supporter of the National Campaign to tackle the demand for paid sex in Ireland, initiated by the National Women Council of Ireland, Barnardos, Ruhama, FLAC, Immigrant Council of Ireland, Akidwa, DRCC, Women's Aid, APT(action to prevent trafficking) and other leading civil society campaigners in Ireland.