Important Survivor Interview

There’s an extremely important interview with a trafficking/prostitution survivor in the Irish Examiner. So many fellow survivors’ experiences mirror what this eloquent woman describes. Here’s an excerpt

“Irish prostitution has been mainly conducted indoors since then, and nothing  about this ugliness has abated because it’s been concealed from the public view.  In fact the opposite has been true. We were abused more thoroughly, not less,  with the only difference being that now there was the secrecy of closed doors to  conceal it.”

and

“Under Irish law, the abusive nature of prostitution has been allowed to  flourish unhindered and it is a living hell for the women struggling to survive  within it. It is primarily for the sake of these women, but also for all of us  who want to live in a gender-equal society, that I am gladdened to see the Irish  Government finally pledge to tackle this issue.

“I only hope that they  go the right way about it, which is to criminalise the purchase of sex, because  nothing will change for prostituted women and girls until the commercialisation  of female bodies is dealt the hammer-blow it so richly deserves.

“To  those who would say legalisation would make prostitution safer: I think the same  thing any former prostitute I’ve ever spoken to thinks, which is that you may as  well legalise rape and battery to try to make them safer. You cannot legislate  away the dehumanising, degrading trauma of prostitution, and if you try to, you  are accepting a separate class of women should exist who have no access to the  human rights everyone else takes for granted.”

Read more.

Related articles

• Who’s a Prostitution Expert? (stellamarrundercovercallgirl.wordpress.com)
• Looking for Unicorns: The Search for the “Happy Hooker” & the “Good Punter/John” (secretlifeofamanhattancallgirl.wordpress.com)
• A Small Window: Survivor Rebecca Mott (survivorsconnect.wordpress.com)