A few years ago a good friend of mine talked me out of my customary sloth and into agreeing to run the mini marathon with her. Seems a work colleague of hers was involved with a charity called Ruhama and was keen to raise much needed funds. I’d never heard of them but agreed to participate more for the laugh and the much needed exercise than for the worthiness of the cause. As it happens the cause is worthy in the extreme.
Along with tens of thousands of other women a small group of us donned the tee-shirts and took to the streets to raise what money we could whilst enjoying a really great day out. Later, as we rewarded ourselves with chilled white wine and barbequed food in Lynn’s back garden she chatted about her involvement as a volunteer with Ruhama (Hebrew for renewed life) and the practical, no-nonsense and dignified approach that this non-judgemental organisation takes to supporting women affected by prostitution and human trafficking in Ireland.
Lynn regularly volunteers with the Ruhama outreach service operating in Dublin city centre and the Dochas Centre and providing a safe haven for women working on the streets. A small group of women volunteers travel by dedicated bus offering their clients respect, cups of tea, advice and practical follow-up support. She herself has taken bewildered young Eastern European girls into her own home, providing them with shelter and safety as they tried to break free from the horrible, sinister situation they found themselves in whilst alone, far from home and often unable to speak English.
Although established in 1989 as a joint initiative of the Good Shepherd Sisters and Our Lady of Charity Sisters (and I must admit that as a committed secularist I am deeply suspicious of and resistant to all things religious) the organisation appears to be not in any way proselytising in nature and in fact may well embody all that is good and laudable about a Christian ethos. As such it is a welcome antidote to the repugnant underbelly of organised religion that has been exposed here in recent years.
Taking the stance that prostitution and the social and cultural attitudes which sustain it are deeply rooted in gender inequality and social marginalisation, Ruhama unequivocally affirms that prostitution represents violence against women and a violation of human rights. On a macro level the organisation engages in vital advocacy work directed at legislators and brokers of change and also liaises with the various drug and housing services that their clients will come in contact with as they move towards a safe and stable life.
On an individual level the approach is more nuanced. Ruhama engages in befriending women involved in prostitution and supporting them practically and emotionally as they attempt to move on and reintegrate successfully and happily into mainstream society. Treating women with dignity and working with them in a way that best suits their personal circumstances is a core principle. For example Ruhama volunteers will often accompany their clients through our intimidating and adversarial courts system; offering them legal advice, friendship and solidarity as required.
Education is a cornerstone of their vital work and Ruhama offers classes ranging from basic literacy and English to financial support for those participating in third level education. Holistic therapies afforded to women including art therapy, stress management and relaxation.
In recent years this organisation has had to adapt to the changing nature of prostitution in Ireland, most notably the increase in the number of migrant women, most of them trafficked into prostitution. When my husband, inspired by my stroll around town, ran the marathon for Ruhama in 2005 he raised €2000 and received a lovely letter telling him that he had paid the bill for their vital interpreter services for that year. How wonderful to know that you have made a real, tangible difference to the betterment of people’s lives!
The roll-the-sleeves-up-and-get-stuck-in approach adopted by this organisation has impressed me greatly ever since I first encountered them almost a decade ago. However, they still have the capacity to stop me in my tracks. Just when I thought that they were doing all that is imaginably possible to help women caught in the mire of prostitution, including shaping government policy, they surprise me yet again.
“5th Year boys from Belvedere College visited Ruhama today. Great to see the men of the future interested in combating the sex trade”
Last week I received a tweet from @RuhamaAgency (I urge you all to follow them) outlining a new and incredibly laudable initiative. It read “5th Year boys from Belvedere College visited Ruhama today. Great to see the men of the future interested in combating the sex trade”. This represents yet another forward-thinking and utterly practical policy. In my experience the vast majority of young (and not so young) men are incredibly respectful towards women and have a strong sense of the injustice of discrimination. Helping women find their way out of prostitution in no way represents a battle of the sexes. More fundamentally it is a battle of the right thinking against those who would profit from the misery of others.
So if you’re looking for a cause to fund or even one to rally behind then don’t forget Ruhama. Every cent raised will be efficiantly and effectively used for the betterment of the lives of women who really need our help.
It seems interesting and helpful. A question, though:
“Taking the stance that prostitution and the social and cultural attitudes which sustain it are deeply rooted in gender inequality and social marginalisation, Ruhama unequivocally affirms that prostitution represents violence against women and a violation of human rights…”
How do they explain prostitution by men? Are male prostitutes also suffering gender inequality?
I have doubts that prostitution must inherently violate anyone’s rights. SuperFreakonomics features a “high end” prostitute who earned over $200,000 a year. It seems bizarre to step between her and her clients and insist that actually she is a victim.
Thanks Shane,
I would hope that men in this situation who required help would also be able to find it, either from this agency or another one. Inequality takes many forms.
Also I struggle with that Pretty Woman/Belle du Jour image of prostitution as I believe that it is rare and unreflective of the experiences of the majority. However, those who believe that they don’t require help certainly aren’t obliged to seek it.
I also imagine they are a minority. But the idea that “prostitution represents violence against women” is nonsensical! If both parties agree to it then it’s, by definition, not violent. It’s just another commercial transaction.
The beatings, robberies, enslavement, rapes, etc. that accompany some kinds of prostitution are acts of violence, but consensual paid sex is certainly not, so I’d question that part of their perspective. Hopefully that doesn’t take from the good aspects of their charity work.
I’m sorry Shane, I have to stop you right there. The buying and selling of sex is not just another commercial transaction. I am sure that many people would like to believe that it is, because that is a nice story, and one that doesn’t involve having to use brain cells. Prostitution, despite what many people would like to think, does not take place in a contextless void. The individuals who enter prostitution may not necessarily be trafficked (though many are), or drug-addicted (though many are), or in sexually abusive relationships (though many are), but they all are incredibly vulnerable. Please think about this carefully and consider the reality of why a young woman or a young man would feel compelled to enter into prostitution.
A flatmate of mine once worked with prostitutes in a religious outreach capacity (and I should add that to her credit, it was simply that: outreach, giving them access to medication, food, legal assistance, etc.). Every night she came home depressed: she had seen such horrors, heard such awful stories. These women (they were all women) had had miserable lives, and had come from a long cycle of neglect and sexual abuse. Many were carrying fatal diseases. So, while consensual paid sex in itself is not technically an act of violence (in that they are not being attacked), the person selling sex has more than likely come from a place of emotional or physical violence. The people who would profit from that transaction are kidding themselves if they think it is merely commercial.
Ali, you make an important point about prostitutes being vulnerable.
“So, while consensual paid sex in itself is not technically an act of violence (in that they are not being attacked), the person selling sex has more than likely come from a place of emotional or physical violence. The people who would profit from that transaction are kidding themselves if they think it is merely commercial.”
Well that’s it. Paid consensual sex is not, by definition, a violation of anyone. But in many circumstances the people engaged in it are vulnerable. (Not all, though, as the Freakonomics example shows.)
I would never be with a prostitute, for a wide range of reasons, that reason included!
So, just to be clear, I’m happy to see charities help out people working in a mostly grim business. I just question their bizarre claims about prostitution representing violence against women, etc.
Shane:
Thanks for your reply. But you see, what I’m saying is that I don’t think that the claim that ‘prostitution represents violence against women’ is bizarre at all. Is your problem here with the word women? In that women is too general a term? If so, I’d narrow it down to say prostitution represents violence against the individuals of both genders who are engaged in it (selling the sex, I mean, not buying it). Violence can mean many things, not just a once-off physical or sexual attack. Violence is a cycle; it is neglect and despair and pain – an ongoing thing.
Take the girl in my class at school who, at age fourteen, announced to us all – teacher included – that ‘when I grow up I want to be a prostitute. That way I can get paid for doing what I love!’ It would be easy and to see this announcement as a choice, or a personal manifesto of sorts: see how sexually experienced I am – see how worldly I am – see how much money I’m going to make? But there is nothing ‘recreational’ about prostitution. That little girl did indeed end up going into the sex trade. She came from a very damaged background and later battled with drugs. I don’t know what ended up happening to her.
My point is, I think we all should be looking at the bigger picture here and not obsessing over words like ‘consensual’. The word ‘consensual’ is a technicality – an important technicality, obviously, in the eyes of the law – but by focusing on this technicality we really aren’t helping the women and men in prostitution much at all. We’re not helping their children (and there are many children that you don’t hear about in these stories), who are often condemned to the same cycle of misery as their parents. We’re still focusing on the sellers and we should be focusing more on the people who are buying the sex, and who perpetrate not only this cycle of personal misery, but often a wider and more far-reaching kind of criminality.
Hi Shane
It is estimated that about 20% of prostitutes are male (http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/resources/FAQ.html#prostitution). The men who pay them to have sex are also male. This does make the issue a gender one (bearing in mind the difference between sex and gender).
If you are so convinced that prostitution is merely a job, how you would feel if your girlfriend/wife, sister, cousin or mother told you she was making a career decision to invite thousands of strange men into her vagina? Would you be okay with that?
The case you cite from Super Freakenomics is one woman among the hundreds of thousands of women who are prostitutes. Holding her up as an example of how ‘lucrative’ prostitution is is probably similar to holding Bill Gates up as an example of how lucrative working in IT can be – with the implication that if he can do it, everybody working in the sector can too. We all know that isn’t the case.
Sadly, too, most women who are prostitutes are not well paid. The money goes to the men who operate the brothels where they work. It’s not merely an economic transaction between two consenting adults, as you would like to believe. This ‘paid sex between consenting adults’ that you allude to – where does it exist? I’m genuinely interested because I have never come across it.
I would also say that any society or relationship where one person feels it is acceptable to rent the body of another is a particularly diseased one.
If 20% of prostitutes are male, how on earth does prostitution represent violence against women? This is bizarre: a man pays another man for sex and a totally unrelated woman is victimised!?
“If you are so convinced that prostitution is merely a job, how you would feel if your girlfriend/wife, sister, cousin or mother told you she was making a career decision to invite thousands of strange men into her vagina?”
I always hear this argument, Hazel, but I don’t think it is a good one for two reasons.
First, supposing a woman close to me chose to have lots of recreational sex with men, “inviting thousands of strange men into her vagina”. I might not think it particularly wise, but I would maintain that this is her decision. Neither she nor those males are comitting acts of violence with consensual sex.
Prostitution is that, plus the exchange of money. This absolutely is just another job, if usually a miserable one. That “career decision” is hers (or his) to make.
“This ‘paid sex between consenting adults’ that you allude to – where does it exist? I’m genuinely interested because I have never come across it.”
I don’t understand. Are you saying that prostitutes do not consent to sex? If so, this is rape, which is already illegal. Are all prostitutes slaves?
Shane, Hazel is pointing out that it is men who are doing the ‘buying’ in both cases (male and female prostitutes) so it is gender-based in that context.
Really, if you think that prostitution is just like any other job, you should probably do a bit more research. It is not ‘simply’ a ‘transaction’.
There is clearly a power imbalance when a person is paying another to have sex with them, and it is not the prostitute who wields the power – even if, in capitalist terms, we believe those who make the money have the power.
And a woman sleeping with lots of men is not the same as a prostitute being paid to sleep with men. How can you even think it is??
a woman sleeping with lots of men is not the same as a prostitute being paid to sleep with men. How can you even think it is??
I don’t understand the trouble you have with this idea. Women who sleep with a lot of men may do so for any of a number of different reasons. It doesn’t strike me that doing it for money is any less valid a reason than any other.
Hi Sarah, I didn’t say it was less valid, I said it was different. To me, they are completely different things and the motivation behind them is different.
As Sarah says.
Ali, out of curiosity, do you think prostitution must be illegal? Do you favour the Swedish system of punishing the clients, or the old-fashioned system of arresting prostitutes themselves?
Side point: I’ve noticed that many religious conservatives and some feminists are united in viewing sex as something special which can never be commercialised. Sexually objectifying someone is considered a terrible evil, even while other kinds of objectification are cheerfully enjoyed. We can pay boxers to beat one another close to death. We can pay strangers for a massage to stimulate every part of the body except the sexual organs. But when sexual arousal is involved, it strangely becomes outrageous, and willing participants are presumed victims. I’ve never seen anyone explain that difference, perhaps one for another blog post.
Shane, I don’t know what I think about what the legal position of prostitution should or should not be. I do not like to see people writing or talking about prostitution glibly, as if it were something one wakes up and decides to do, or as if a trip to visit a prostitute is a man’s God-given right, something that can then be recounted as an hilarious anecdote. The subject in general gets my blood boiling so that I am rendered incapable of discussing it in an articulate manner, for the most part, and I often find that the conversation descends into the kind of gender battle that Eleanor was keen to avoid in her original post. I do not see this as a gender battle. I see it as a battle for human dignity, in the same way that I see most feminist issues as being about basic respect for human beings, as opposed to any kind of tiresome (and false) war of woman versus man.
But I do not think it matters much what you or I, sitting here typing from the comfort of our laptops, think about prostitution. I think it matters what those involved in the outreach programmes or crisis counselling (and of course those involved or formerly involved in prostitution themselves) think about it, since they are the experts: the ones out walking the streets and providing assistance to those who need it. That’s why I admire Ruhama, Chrysalis, and the Rape Crisis centres so much. I imagine that theirs is tiring, depressing work that needs to be constantly justified and defended, and that’s why I do try to support those agencies when I can.
What I will say is that continued education and discussion is needed on the topic. I was delighted to hear about the 5th year boys visiting Ruhama – fair play to their teacher or to whoever organised that. I was also very impressed with the prominent Irishmen – such as Theo Dorgan – who had the courage to get behind this campaign: http://www.turnofftheredlight.ie/.
As for your side note, I’m not sure I fully follow its logic, but perhaps, as you said, it’s for another blog post, another day.
I second the recommendation for Chrysalis. It seems to me that rather than helping sex workers, Ruhama are getting a lot of money in government grants etc and spending most of it on promoting their own views on prostitution. I’d like to see that money go to an organisation who put sex workers above their own religious agenda.
Could you possibly illustrate this with a less cliched picture? Articles about prostitution are always illustrated with pictures of women in short skirts and high heels and men in cars, and that’s not necessarily a particularly accurate depiction of how the vast majority of prostitution takes place.
The focus on exit can also be problematic: a friend of mine worked for a sex-worker outreach project in Edinburgh for years, and they had a lot of women who contacted them who simply wouldn’t work with other agencies and outreach organisations because they weren’t happy with the emphasis on leaving prostitution and didn’t see the belief that prostitution was violence against women as very helpful to them.
Thanks Mary,
I admit I did go for the lazy cliched depiction. I will try to find a better photo.
Also the emphasis on exiting is probably mine rather than theirs. On their website Ruhama states that
“Our service is comprehensive to meet the broad range of experiences of women affected by prostitution. We provide a service to women who are currently involved in on-street and off-street prostitution, women who are exiting prostitution, women who are victims of sex trafficking and women who have a history of prostitution.”
Therefore they are not exclusively concerned with women looking to exit prostitution. The very illuminating example you cite from Edinburgh probably has resonance here too.
the organisation is not in any way proselytising in nature and in fact embodies all that is good and laudable about a truly Christian ethos.
Such as refusing to give out condoms to women working the streets. Very Christian indeed.
I wasn’t aware that this was a policy Sarah. It is not mentioned in policy documents that I have seen and it is certainly not one that I would support.
I am currently organising a V-Day production of The Vagina Monologues at The Sugar Club next month and our local charity is Ruhama.
http://events.vday.org/2011/community/Dublin_(TVM)
Personally, I would rather give my money to the Chrysalis project than to Ruhama. Chrysalis provides all the services that Ruhama provides (plus condoms!) and does so from a non-judgmental perspective that respects the individuality and autonomy of sex workers.
It also needs the money more, since it does not have the financial backing of religious congregations, or office space at All Hallows.
Sarah,
Thanks for highlighting the valuable work undertaken by http://www.chrysalisdrugproject.org/
The more resorce made available and attention paid to these issues the better.
I didn’t say it was less valid, I said it was different. To me, they are completely different things and the motivation behind them is different.
Obviously the motivation behind having sex for money is different from the motivation behind having sex for other reasons. That’s a tautology. What I’m saying is that you and Hazel seem to assume that where the decision to have sex with a lot of men is motivated by money, that in itself somehow renders the decision suspect, as if it cannot be made with the same level of rationality and free will that a decision not motivated by money would be. That seems counter-intuitive to me. Many women I’ve known have made sexual decisions that have positively baffled me – if they were making money off those decisions, I’d find them a lot easier to understand.
Of course this isn’t to deny that money does act as a coercive (rather than merely incentivising) element in some cases. But I don’t see, as a matter of logic, how one can accept that women sometimes make a free and rational choice to have sex with a lot of men for free, while refusing to accept that women might make a free and rational choice to have sex with a lot of men for money.
Shane,
When money exchanges hands it changes the whole state of play between the man and woman. The woman has been bought and paid for and its not about her fantasy or enjoyment any more but about his. She is no longer in control of the situation.
I take real issue with this “She is no longer in control of the situation.” idea. Sex workers have rights. Don’t try to take our rights away by saying we have no control after money has exchanged hands! WE DO. We have our rights always. We have the right to say NO at any point if the client acts in a way we are not happy with. Who are you to tell everyone that sex workers have no control once money is exchanged?
He isn’t buying a woman, he’s buying a sexual service that she is providing. The fact that he is paying does not mean she is obliged to provide any service he wants.
Leona, of course sex workers have rights. But your own website links to several articles about violence and rapes against sex workers. I’m not saying that sex workers should give over control of the situation. what i should have said was that very often they are no longer in control.
Bow, domestic violence occurs in marriage sometimes. Should we call for marriage to be criminalised on this basis?
Yes, sex workers do suffer intimidation, violence and other forms of abuse at times. But, as my website states, “Sex work is not inherently violent. Most clients are good clients.”
I want sex workers rights to be recognised in Ireland.
I do not want a religious organisation calling for laws to be brought in that will drive sex work further underground and make it more dangerous for me. I also object to their continually painting a false picture of sex work in Ireland to suit their own agenda.
Any woman who is alone with a dangerous man is at risk from that man. It is the man himself and not the exchange of money that creates the risk.
Sex workers are normal women. Men that attack sex workers are exactly the same men that attack other normal women.
What is happening however is that sex workers are being marginalised in our society.
The law forces sex workers to work alone and discourages them from reporting crime. This is wrong.
Government funding is going to Ruhama to promote a religious agenda on prostitution that it overwhelmingly unhelpful to sex workers. This is wrong.
Leona – I find your views interesting even if they are different to my own. Are you a sex worker at the minute and have you been doing this work for long?