Read more at BBC News…

Belfast’s ‘dirty girls’ exposed

The Lisburn Road area of south Belfast was once notorious for being home to the city’s prostitutes, a new book has revealed.

In a chapter titled ‘Dirty Girls and Bad Houses’, Dr Leanne McCormick has written about a previously neglected part of the Belfast’s social history.

The University of Ulster lecturer spent 10 years delving into the archives to produce the book which examines female sexuality in NI from 1900 to 1960.

It will be launched on Wednesday.

Dr McCormick, who is lecturer in Modern Irish Social History at the university, has accessed new and “underused” historical records to product her book, “Regulating Sexuality – Women in Twentieth Century Northern Ireland’.

Stigma

It explores a wide range of local women’s experiences and examines the social, political and economic forces which contributed to changing attitudes towards female sexuality.

It documents the fortunes of prostitutes, specifically those who entered the Belfast Union workhouse, who the author said were either destitute or obviously struggling economically.

“The dread of having to go ‘up the Lisburn Road’ – where the workhouse was located – hung over the poor and the stigma of pauperism was something to be avoided,” the author said.

The book also looks at the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases and the anxieties generated by the behaviour of girls and young women in general, particularly with the arrival of troops during World War II.

The author said: “The politics and political violence in 20th century Northern Ireland overshadowed its social history in general and women’s history in particular.”

A major Irish escort-related website is now offering working girls the opportunity to compare notes about bad clients. Read more at The Irish Examiner…

Prostitution website to identify dangerous punters
By Stephen Rogers

THE country’s biggest advertiser of online prostitution has put a section on its website allowing sex workers to identify dangerous punters they have encountered.

Escort-ireland.com said the crudely named “ugly mug scheme” will improve the safety of sex workers, and reduce crimes committed against them.

Prostitutes who experience threats or violence are now able to fill in a form on the website detailing their experience.

Through drop-down menus that form allows the alleged victim to explain the type of violence experienced, how they were threatened, where it happened and make a detailed description of the alleged attacker. The location, form of violence and abridged contact details for the attacker will also be put on the website to be viewed by prostitutes advertising on it. The former prostitute who owns the escort-ireland site and calls herself “Patricia Albright” said: “Escorts can log on to our bad clients system 24/7 and browse and search reports. They can search by date, location, the type of offence or the phone number/email address that the bad client used.

“An important feature of our system is that escorts can choose to be warned about dangerous punters by text message. Most escorts do not have Internet access at all times, but an escort is never without her mobile phone.

“We want escorts to get the warning as soon as possible when there is a dangerous client about.

Read more at Yahoo News UK…

‘Technology fuelling sex industry’

Ireland’s underground sex industry is being fuelled by technology as vulnerable young women are forced to work as prostitutes from apartments.

A leading charity said it is harder to reach victims of the sex trade as pimps and criminals hold them captive in flats and houses all over the country.

Over the last two years 341 vulnerable women who have been forced into prostitution have been supported by Ruhama. But volunteers believe that number is just the tip of the iceberg, with hundreds more trapped in covert underground operations.

Read the whole article at The Register…

Irish politicos try to cut off call girls’ mobiles
Seven deadly SIMs
By John Ozimek

The simplest and most effective way to crack down on prostitutes is to take their mobile phones away – so said Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim) during Dáil justice questions last week.

Naughten claimed that one of the conclusions of Operation Quest – a dedicated Garda operation against brothel-keeping – was that “mobile phones are the lifeblood of this country’s brothel-keeping and prostitution industry”.

This claim receives support from cases such as that of the Kildare woman, found guilty in 2007 of managing a city centre brothel with an estimated annual turnover of €4m.

The business appeared to rely on ads placed on websites or in magazines, directing prospective customers to untraceable “prepay” or “ready to go” numbers across all networks.

A search of a related premises turned up 35 mobiles, of which 32 were switched on and being answered by two women employed as “receptionists”, directing customers to the brothel.

According to Detective Sergeant Holohan, who played a key role in this investigation, the prostitution industry was “extremely reliant on mobile phones”. Within two days 14 numbers used by the seized phones were back up and running.

While there is no reason to doubt the police view of how the industry is currently structured, basic economics suggests that merely attacking the medium through which a message is conveyed will have little impact on the underlying business.

In the 1990s, British Telecom cracked down on the practice of distributing cards that advertised sexual services in town centre phone boxes, and blocked the phone numbers listed on the cards. Most of the cards have now disappeared – along with the phone boxes – but according to recent surveys, prostitution remains buoyant.

Naughten’s remarks need to be taken in the context of a much broader drive toward tackling prostitution across Europe. He said: “A crackdown on brothel-keeping and prostitution is taking place in other parts of Europe.

“Red-light districts in the Netherlands are being reduced by one-third because the authorities in that country have decided that their liberal policies are failing.

“New legislation that is being introduced in the UK will lead to a clampdown in that country. Unless we are prepared to tighten this country’s laws, there could be a growth in this industry here… it will be a more lax regime.”

An interesting look at prostitution in Ireland, which is booming despite a slowing economy. Read the whole column at The Irish Examiner…

Online prostitution soars amid lack of resources and will
By Stephen Rogers

IRISH prostitution, once confined to women selling their bodies on the streets to feed an addiction or stave off poverty is now a multi-million-euro industry involving up to 1,000 women selling sex over the internet on a regular basis.

Gardaí cannot police prostitution properly — firstly due to inadequate resources, secondly due to insubstantial legislation and thirdly due to a lack of political will. Therefore the women, claiming to be ‘escorts’ not prostitutes, operate with impunity and are able to charge upwards of e300 for an hour of sex with dozens of willing clients.

Those men find the women because the internet gives them mobile phone details, vital statistics of the women, scantily clad pictures of their ‘wares’, rates and graphic lists of services offered all at the touch of a button.

The websites operate legally because they are hosted outside this state. Their owners, which include former Irish prostitutes, charge the women and their pimps several hundred euro for internet space. They claim to be business people even though they know they are hiding from the decency laws which govern this state.

That is one of the many glaring loopholes in the legislation whereby the internet can be used as a platform basing them outside the jurisdiction.

What is becoming increasingly clear is that the women providing the service are far from the only people making the money from their efforts.

The sale of illegal sex through illegal ‘escort agencies’ is expanding at a rate of knots. At present, there are upwards of 100 brothels operating, either temporarily or permanently, in cities and large towns across Ireland. They are operating their services on websites which anyone can access, yet the authorities here do essentially nothing.

There have been several raids in the past few months, but the number of properties gardaí have closed down is merely a fraction of those which are still operating.

That is despite the fact that operating a brothel is one of the main prostitution offences listed in Irish law. The main law governing prostitution is the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1993, which along with related laws, makes the following provisions:

* Soliciting — Under section 7 of the Act, it is an offence to solicit another person in a street or public place for the purposes of prostitution. That offence applies to everyone, whether male or female, prostitute or client, or third party (such as a pimp) and includes kerb crawling.

* Loitering — Under section 8, a member of An Garda Síochána may direct a person in a street or public place to leave the vicinity if he or she has reasonable cause to suspect that the person is loitering in order to solicit or importune another person for the purposes of prostitution.

* Living on earnings of prostitution — Under section 10, any person who knowingly lives in whole or in part on the earnings of the prostitution of another person and aids and abets that prostitution is guilty of an offence.

* Directing prostitution — Under section 9, any person who controls or directs the activities of a prostitute in respect of prostitution, organises prostitution or compels or coerces a person to be a prostitute commits an offence.

* Brothel keeping — It is an offence under section 11 to keep, manage or assist in the management of a brothel.

* Advertising of brothels and prostitution — Section 23 of the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act 1994 prohibits the advertising of brothels and prostitution.

The working girls getting some publicity in Ireland.  Western People reports…

Prostitution ring in Castlebar targeting late-night clubbers
By: Keith Bourke

GARDAI in Castlebar are to launch an investigation after reports of an Eastern European prostitution ring operating in the county town.

A number of girls, some only in their teens, are offering the seedy service after the nightclubs empty out in the town. Male clubbers are taking them up on their offer every weekend, with a local public car park one of their favourite haunts.

The girls who are foreign nationals and understood to be from the same family, are also operating in Galway, where Gardai had to move them on during race week.

The gang of around four young women, aged in their teens and early-twenties, loiter around the town’s nightclub after-hours, selling bunches of roses, but are also offering late-night revellers sexual services for •20 to •50.

A local source said that the sordid acts have been going on for more than a year now.

“They’re getting a lot more brazen about it too. Before they were a bit more coy and the man would have to make the first move, but now they’re just approaching fellas and propositioning them.

“Their trick is when the guy has his trousers around his ankles they’ll also be rifling through his pockets. You see drunk men going off with them every weekend.”

Gardai in Castlebar said that they were unaware that the practice was taking place but will be launching an investigation in the light of these revelations.

“We haven’t received any complaints or allegations about this but it will be something we will definitely be looking at now. We’ll be keeping an eye on them next weekend,” said a garda spokesman.

Kevin Guthrie, Mayor of Castle-bar, said he was shocked that the practice was going on.

“I’m stunned that something like this is happening in the town. If something like this is going on, the Gardai should put a stop to it immediately.”

Mayo has seen a dramatic rise in prostitution in recent years with brothels operating in Castle-bar, Westport and Ballina. This week an escort website featured four women from England, the Netherlands and South America offering their services in Castle-bar and Wesport.