No little girl dreams of becoming a prostitute

At least four children have lost their mothers due to the murders of women working in prostitution in Ipswich. Other families have spoken of their grief at losing their daughters first to drugs, then to the murky world of prostitution, and finally to violent death. Yet some people will continue to cling to the potent mythology of the "happy hooker" and go on speaking of "sex workers" and "freely chosen careers".

Police have urged women not to go out at night, and for women working in prostitution not to look for clients at this time of even greater danger than usual. Perhaps I missed it, but I have yet to hear anyone urging the men who use these women to stay at home. What kind of man goes out to pick up for paid sex the kind of vulnerable and damaged women who have died in recent days in Ipswich? What sort of pleasure can there be in using a woman who is only on the streets because she is shaky and sick and in need of a fix? Or because she needs money to buy Christmas presents for her children?

There have been calls in recent days, once again, to legalise prostitution, or to provide so-called tolerance zones, as they would provide some measure of security for women. It might provide protection against murder, though even that is doubtful, but it would also institutionalise the kind of ongoing abuse that characterises prostitution.

The Netherlands is famous for having legalised prostitution in 2000, thus allowing those formerly known as pimps to rebrand themselves as managers and facilitators. Yet earlier this month, the London Independent newspaper reported that authorities in Amsterdam were planning to close 100 of the 350 "windows" in the red light district.

When prostitution was legalised, it was supposed to break the link with organised crime. Yet these licences are now being revoked because police investigations found that the brothels were involved in illegal activities, including trafficking of women for purposes of sexual exploitation, and other illegal financial activities.

People think that legalisation makes prostitution simple and clean. Yet because the sale of women's bodies is very lucrative, it will always attract a criminal element. When prostitution is normalised, demand increases.

Inevitably, women begin to be trafficked to keep up with demand, including customers' demands for "fresh" bodies and women from different ethnic backgrounds. Some 3,500 women are trafficked into the Netherlands annually, mostly from eastern Europe and Asia.

As for health screening, the women are screened so as to be "clean" for the buyer. No screening is done of clients, and since condoms do not provide absolute protection against many common sexually transmitted infections (STIs), regular infection is a fact of life for these women.

Nor does legalisation end illegal brothels. In every area where prostitution is legalised, there has been an increase in women working in the illegal sector. There are always women desperate for money. Like it or not, many women do not want to register as prostitutes, because they are ashamed of their work. How many women would like their children or parents to know what they do for a living?

Someone who works with women in prostitution, in order to help them find ways out of it, told me that they first try to identify a woman's strengths and talents. One of the questions they ask her is what she dreamed of doing when she was a little girl? Not one has ever answered that her dream was to work as a prostitute. Women enter this world because of lack of other choices, and usually at a time of crisis. Nor is drug addiction always a reason for entry. Sometimes drug addiction is a consequence of being involved in prostitution, a vain attempt to numb the pain of being part of such a dehumanising activity.

Conditions even in the legal sector in the Netherlands are very difficult.

"Managers" take a 50 to 60 per cent cut of the women's earnings, meaning that they have to service many more men to survive. Verbal abuse, exposure to STIs and requests for unprotected sex are a routine part of any woman's life who works in prostitution. Here in Ireland, we have had murders, too, notably Belinda Pereira and Sinead Kelly. Many acts of violence and abuse go unreported, because women are afraid to draw the attention of police.

The advocacy organisation, Ruhama, which works with women in prostitution, has recently expressed concern that the proposed Irish legislation to deal with trafficking has too narrow a focus. The forthcoming Sexual Offences (Trafficking in Persons) Bill makes no reference to protection of people who have been trafficked, and concentrates instead on prosecution of those involved in trafficking.

Ruhama would like to see a more rights-focused Bill, which would render a person who has been trafficked immune from prosecution on offences committed as a result. Many women are afraid to go to police for fear of being summarily deported. Ruhama suggests that those who have been trafficked should have the benefit of a six-month reflection period, a window of time in which to come to terms with what has happened.

Rather than discussing legalisation of an inherently exploitative practice, we should be looking at how to prevent trafficking, and offering women real routes out of prostitution.

We also need to stop condoning it on the assumption that it is impossible to change male attitudes. Human beings evolved beyond condoning slavery, and they can also evolve beyond quasi-acceptance of prostitution. Dublin once allegedly had the biggest red light district in Europe, the notorious Monto, where young women were lured into prostitution by ruthless madams. It took the quiet but steely determination of Frank Duff and his Legion of Mary followers to put an end to it in the 1920s.

Folklorist Terry Fagan, who has written a book about the Monto, draws comparisons between the poverty of rural women flooding into Dublin after the Famine, and the poverty of women trafficked into Ireland today. Prostitution was sordid and exploitative then, and it is sordid and exploitative now. Legalisation merely glosses over that reality, and allows us to ignore the reality of prostituted women's lives until one or more of them dies a violent, lonely death.