The bulk of the sex trade in Ireland is run by organised crime gangs. Based on evidence that the Sexual Exploitation Research and Policy (SERP) Institute has gathered over the last decade, fewer than 10 per cent of those who sell sex in Ireland are “independent”, operating freely of their own accord and keeping all of the money they make. The majority are controlled to varying degrees and their involvement in prostitution is “organised” by pimps and traffickers – those making the real money. Violence, fear and threats of destitution or serious harm to both the women themselves and their loved ones are the main tools of this control.

It is therefore no surprise that when women are questioned in brothels by gardaí, as they were during the recent Operation Global Chain, they respond with the usual “script”: “I am fine, I am working for myself, I am independent.” This script is provided to women by their organisers to avoid any further probing questions from law enforcement – and it is all too familiar, not only to police, but also to the frontline services that support women in the sex trade.

These operations rarely identify many victims of sexual exploitation in the moment – but they do lay the groundwork for victim identification in the future. The Garda National Protective Services Bureau itself notes that few people will tell gardaí that they have been trafficked during brothel “welfare checks” but that the bureau often experiences a “lag effect”, where victims will contact specialist gardaí at a later date, perhaps in a rare moment away from the watchful eye of their “organisers”, when they confirm that they are indeed being exploited and........

© The Irish Times