Prostitution infiltrating rural areas, says agency

Published: Monday, August 22, 2011

TECHNOLOGY HAS aided the spread of prostitution into rural Ireland with pimps and traffickers now able to monitor women working in small communities, women's agency Ruhama has said.

The agency, which helps victims of trafficking and women involved in prostitution, said mobile phones and the internet were increasingly being used to advertise and arrange meetings in the sex industry. Ruhama estimated that as many as 1,000 women were selling sex at any given time in Ireland. As well as established markets in Dublin, Cork and Limerick, the agency said it had come into contact with organised prostitution in areas such as Edgeworthstown, Co Longford, Tubbercurry, Co Sligo, and Ballina, Co Mayo.

"Women are moved quickly and sometimes frequently and the criminals involved remain at arm's length hiding behind a computer screen," the agency said in its annual report.

Information on women's "movements, numbers of buyers, the amount of cash changing hands" was now immediately available to pimps and traffickers even if they were not on site.

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