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"My name is Jenny and I'm from Montpelier Hill". Residents Take Direct Action to Stop Kerb Crawlers dublin |
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feature
 Saturday September 04, 2004 16:06 by Indymedia Kevin - Indymedia Éire
 Download the interview in MP3 format - duration 12:39 An interview with one of the residents on the pickets in Dublin's north-west inner city.
For the last three months, the residents of the Montpelier Hill district in Dublin's north-west inner city have been organising sit-out pickets at two locations in their neighbourhood. The first is at the entrance to Montpelier Drive, which is a small secluded red-brick estate of around 50 houses. The other picket is at St Bricin's Park, near the end of Montpelier Hill and Arbour Hill prison. This action by the residents was prompted by the increase in men soliciting prostitutes in the area. Local residents say that kerb crawlers were approaching their children and offering money for sex, encouraging them to get in their cars. The level of prostitution and related activity has increased in the last few years with the opening of the Collins Barracks Museum on Benburb Street. The women working on the streets moved away from the now well-lit area (further developed in recent months with the LUAS) onto Montpelier Hill, which is a quiet residential area, and poorly lit at night. Jenny, one of the residents on the Montpelier Gardens sit-out, explains why they were there. "We're fighting this about eight years and nothing was happening. So we decided to take action ourselves, because one of our neighbours was attacked and mugged at half three in the afternoon. So then we decided if the Garda are not going to take any action then we're going to have to do it ourselves. People are of the opinion that we're just here since Lynette McKeown went missing. We've been out here before that, a long time before that happened. If it happened once its going to happen again." Article Continues at 'Feature Continued' link Below Discussion on Legalisation of Prostitution from Melbourne Indymedia Jenny feels that the area has been neglected by the mainstream political parties in power. "If you were to go to Drumcondra and have it happening there, or Castleknock, or anywhere where there's someone big and mighty, they would not be allowed on the street. On the election day, Bertie Ahern met us when we went up to vote, and said "We'll have to do something about it." We have heard nothing from Fianna Fáil from that day to today." Jenny says that the residents had to come out onto the street to let their grievances be known instead of sitting at meetings. "Prostitution is illegal, if they [Dublin City Council] legalise it then at least the prostitutes can go somewhere safe and not be bothering people. We've nothing against the prostitutes. We just don’t want kerb crawlers around our door. We're only waiting for the time when some child or teenager gets abducted by a crawler, because the area is so isolated." "Anything is predictable in a situation like this. We were shocked to hear about Lynette McKeown, she was only a young girl. The teenagers in the area seem to have grown up with the situation, but they could never go out much at night unless they were in a group because they were petrified. That's how bad it got in the past eight years. Now we have to tell our children about it. They all know what prostitution is. We're demonstrating here and they see the posters, so you have to tell them what it is. Plus you're bringing your children to school in the morning and there's condoms lying around everywhere on ground. How can you tell a four or five year-old what they're for? If it was any other area it wouldn’t be allowed." Most regular readers of this site will be familiar with some aspects of the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act from 1994. The Act also increased Garda powers to raid and close brothels. Sections 23 and 24 of the Act gave the State increased power to raid brothels and convict both the workers and operators of the premises. The result of the increased pressure on brothels operating in the city meant that more women went back to working on the streets. Dublin City Council and the Government need to act responsibly when it comes to prostitution. It is obvious that a zero-tolerance policy with crackdowns on the sex industry does not work. If brothels were legal and monitored, then the situation in Montpelier Hill would be avoidable. If prostitutes were registered and were working in supervised conditions, then the need for the women to work on the street, and hence come into conflict with local residents, would be greatly lessened. Monitored brothels would help to prevent the spread of HIV, and also work towards preventing the abduction and murder of women from quiet streets at night. One example where this type of system is in operation, which Dublin City Council could examine, is in Singapore. Singapore is a city-state with rules and regulations bordering on fascism; the media is heavily scrutinised and censored, even chewing gum is banned from sale. The Government has made prostitution - specifically brothels - legal. Operating a brothel and soliciting in public are technically illegal, but officially tolerated in designated red-light areas. Working women have to carry a credit-card sized "yellow card" which carries the holder's photograph and thumb print, proves that they are registered and have recently undergone their bi-weekly health check. Pimping, soliciting and streetwalking are not permitted in Singapore - and this is rigorously enforced by the police. Anyone involved in non-regulated prostitution is liable for heavy fines and/or jail terms. Perhaps this may be a solution to the problems of "world's oldest profession". For the moment, the current inaction by the State leaves both residents and prostitutes at risk. Further reading: Public Order Act 1994
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Comments (27 of 27)
Jump To Comment: 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1IMHO, sex for sale, it's not a man/woman thing, it's a capitalist exploitation thing. "Pimps" can be women too ("madames"), controlling the "girls". It's a crime organisation controlled by men and women for profit, using widely accepted tenents of the "free" market (IE if you own everything, then the market is not really "free").
Here's what typically happens (I've witnessed this): "A girl" stands on the corner and eventually makes contact. Then disappears into the back of a van/knocking shop to do the business.
Next time you see her in 30 mins or so she's on the mobile sending text. A guy in a tracksuit comes up the street. She takes the money that she just made and gives it to the tracksuit for a dime bag. Score. The very next time you see her, she's off her head n heroin. That's if she's lucky. That's if her "pimp" doesn't take the money out of her pocket first (that usually happens to the younger ones). I suppose being obliterated makes the job easier.
Also, please note, the girls on that street are beaten publically for refusing sex with a punter. (Better not have an "off" day on that job).
My point is, one of the features of prostitution, on the streets of Dublin, is it's drugs-related.
Guards? It's a bit of a live/letlive situation. The girls are well known (first name basis with cops). They're chatting on a regular basis. Sometimes they take 'em down. Usually not. The prostitutes from Montpelier can now be found further up Arbour Hill near Stoneybatter, if anyone is looking for them. The police are usually found in the chipper, if you're looking, or back in the station eating chips.
"Barcelona city alone is home to over fifty recognised brothels, and countless more massage parlours, strip clubs, sex clubs catering for all types of clientale regardless of gender or sexual orientation."
What's your favourite iosaf ?
Any good tips for us ?
Enough of the vapid theorising .....
Last night the minister of the Catalan Interior the Socialist Montserrat Turo, led a surpirse mission to visit a legalised brothel in provincial Catalonia.
She wished to see "amb seus ulls" (with her own eyes) the working conditions of the women who are employed "legally" in that place and was accompanied by members of the Catalan police.
Barcelona city alone is home to over fifty recognised brothels, and countless more massage parlours, strip clubs, sex clubs catering for all types of clientale regardless of gender or sexual orientation.
In addition the centre of the City has been converted in as much time as "Europeanisation" has led to "barca-cool" bars, cafés and clubs. And now immigrants from muslim countries awaiting regularisation (and mosques) live side by side with Sub Saharan street prostitutes who are victims of criminally organised gangs and one particularly tacky strip sex show club called rather ironically "Baghdad".
The Minister is preparing a new policy initiative which shall seek to balance the health needs of women who chose this career option, with the needs of women who _did not chose_ this career with the wider preceived risk to the wider health of the community.
It might be of interest to Irish policy makers, and as it unfolds I'll update more.
In the meantime Sra. Turo has said of her first visit to a brothel (and one that is held to be a post Amsterdam model solution) - "the motor of prostitution is demand and it's among us to understand, find a solution".
[... but not to end]
She has announced that the Mossos d' Esquadra (Catalan Police) have just started to monitor client traffic (kerbcrawlers) and the Vice Squad will be using this intelligence to properly evaluate percieved threats to communities.
Meaning-
A community may say that they are at risk of increased child molestation because kerbcrawlers use their streets. Yet we know most victims of child molestation *already knew* (and trusted) their abuser. So it is un-neccesarily hysteric to link the two.
= Most children abused in Ireland were abused by people found in their local church every Sunday not those found crawling their kerbs on a Saturday night.
http://www.vilaweb.com/elpunt/noticies/noticia-896505.html
This is most interesting. Now that our Government are in swing and aiming for Social Awareness, people ought to put forward legalisation of brothels in Ireland.
Again I recommend the article in this weeks Economist magazine about the Sex business. The time has come to use initiative in Ireland and why not piggy back on the research of other countries.
I note with a degree of wonder the bleeting of the Vintners association about the smoking ban; it appears that takings are down; and product prices are up.
Perhaps the time has come for pub owners to have some vision. Many pubs host crowds at ground level or empty spaces these days and vacant space upstairs......maybe some options need to be tapped.
I say no to kerb crawlers. I say yes to respect of all people concerned. I do not like passing women working on the street late at night when it is cold and dangerous for them. They supply a need. We need to take note.
If sex is legalised, maybe there would be less rape, crime, etc. If a person is a sex addict then let them pay accordingly without any inherent seediness. Public Health ought to be involved also.
Quotation selected from News Internationalist
Petra Kelly 1947-1992 German Green Politician
'We need policies of eco-justice, and we need to realise the spiritual dimensions of our life, of our interconnected planet Earth, of each other!'
The Dutch have decriminalised prostitution and it works! Just like their solution to canabis use. It is far better to take it out of criminal control and have it medically supervised. The old law and order solutions have not worked for hundreds of years and we need new thinking around old issues including the worlds oldest profession and decriminalisation of drugs etc.
Naming and Shaming is vigilantism and serves no funcion.
Discussion of the Irish Sex industry are based in petty bourgois attitudes.
Self Employment as an option is unworkable as it condemns women to stay working as prostitutes with reduced health entitlements.
The Car (and its use and perception as socio economic indicator) is a very important factor in the phenomona of kerb crawling.
And beyond that there has been no serious debate. has there?
Prostitution debate = (debating rights and drugs it is a health issue)
i think the lot of you make some good points towards legalisation but i think there still might be a bit of a class issue involved i don't think someone from an economicly secure backround would be as pre dispossed to takeing up the proffesion regardless of legal status as someone from the lower end of the economic ladder. as good as your arguments are i wouldent want my daughter going into it you could probably say see still could but with legal restictions it at least makes it harder to the best of may knoladge theres no law against the kerb crawlers not supriseing when you concider the people who make the laws are the same same class that can afford the services
As far as I am concerned, I agree with the Voice of Reason, it is the kerb crawlers/prowlers/hunters who must stand accountable for their actions - yet they do not. Shame does not work in the this country as we can see with those who appear shameless from the corruption of the 1980's.
I heard someone talk about 'piggy backing' in terms of writing and it makes absolute sense regarding researching the issue of legalised prostituton. Hence, while checking out email sites tonight, I looked at the Economist.
This weeks edition has a good article on the Sex Industry - we in Ireland could cut out on the bureaucratic research and move ahead to cater for an industry that exists. To ignore kerb crawlers and uncontrolled prostitution etc. is harmful to people, in particular our children i.e. boys or girls, men or women.
You should get through on www.economist.com. Their research page is excellent. Most shops stock the magazine.
This matter rests with Minister for Justice Equality and Law Reform.......perhaps a prompt to read the article is necessary
Michelle ends with a quote
Naomi Wolf (1962- ) US writer
GO FOR IT
'Let's be shameless. Be greedy. Pursue pleasure. Avoid pain. Wear and touch and eat and drink what we feel like.
Tolerate other women's choices. Seek out the sex we want and fight fiercely against the sex we do not want.
Choose our own causees. And once we break through and change the rules so our sense of our own beauty cannot be shaken, sing it and dress it up and flaunt it and revel in it; in a sensual politics, FEMALE IS BEAUTIFUL'
From New Internationalist Book of Quotes
having rambling, incoherent discussions with yourself under different identities? You've contributed nothing to the discussion, just clouded it and diverted it.
Joyce and every other student and thus most of the academia of XX century ireland including the generations of such luminaries as- Haughey, FitzGerald, our revered Gagesby and an English prince (technically not a tourist more a head of state) most probably visited Monto.
Ok.
The "regularisation option of self employment".
What a miserable suggestion. Has it not occured to those who suggest such, that self employment in all European States requires typically higher social security contributions and typically lower health service entitlements?
Also that to maintain self employed status one must make continuing contributions which in effect mean a proven commitment to that profession?
It seems to me, (the girls) roisín, tamara, and of course our resident moralist Ignatius that a regularisation option that would necesitate long term fiscal comitment to prostitution yet reduce their present health entitlements when not available to work is
"the result of small town bourgois semi formed ("fascist" did i get u right risible?)
and immature gender political attitude.
So. can the fine student body, since you're the most implicated in Monto's legacy, come up with a better Libertarian or Socialist or Religiously based solution.
Because your government can't.
I'd just like to add to the developing debate some questions I've wondered-
What is the difference between escort agencies that cater to the wishes (and needs) of higher income classes and (hypothetically legalised) recognised brothels and the situation this debate on the need to excite interest (forgive the pun) in the Irish Sex Industry started with-
Women who work a working class street.
Is it the somehow true, that in all this moralising of what is a capitalist free market activity, one facet of the Foucaltian dominance / submission exchange has been so far left unmentioned.
In short - the Car.
Little less than short - the array of Cars and what they represent in contemporary socio-economic relations.
Lot less than short - The first boy who tried to take me out, expected me to be interested because he had use of a car. With more than thirty years of age now, I don't think any man or woman who is my contemporary and has lived a sexually active life may truthfully say that they have never even wondered was any sexual encounter they had based on other than loving emotional expression or selective breeding choice.
Maybe Fr. igantius would remind us of the meaning of "be the first to throw the stone".
The reality is the same socio-economic inequalities that at macro level lead to War, at micro level lead to a society based on completely internalised capitalist values marketted almost solely with sexual connotation that allow some men and women to drive very expensive cars and other men and women to suck dick and earn their rent and food.
What solution may there be?
We almost all as users of this site, and the not insignificant hinterland of media and political opinion we seek to influence and coax into the XXI century mindful of the progress we have made as regards liberty and equality do not support the creation of a master race through selective eugenics that would guarantee all men and women a wonderful sex life based on alure and in Aldous Huxley's words "pnuematic attraction".
Nor do we seriously believe that sexual conditioning of either male or female will change in the foreseeable future, that the "oldest profession" and "oldest customer base" will cease to exist.
Nor do we take to heart a lesson tuaght us all regardless of religious background or humanist schooling almost to a one- That we all have "our price". A lesson generally given in early adolescence- "would you say yes for a million? for ten thousand? for one hundred? why not ten?"
Roisín said it. -
The majority of European citizens who work the street did not begin their careers in the sex industry on the street. Yet almost to a one they will end their careers there.
The majority of non regularised workers "paperless immigrants" who work European streets have begun their career there, after falling victim to criminal organisations who keep them in slavery.
Campaiging against expenisive cars on one street, discussing "naming and shaming" and reacting with lamentable small town prejudice and immature feminist or gender political cliché might re-assure some parents that their children are safer from molestation and that one age old gender indentity archetype has been properly learned with it's associated cultural economic programming. But it will not end the slavery of uncounted thousands of women in Europe. Nor will it even assist in a more general understanding of their plight or their suffering.
Roisín said it-
Are we ready for a debate on prostitution?
There may have been at least one famous sex tourist ..... the then Prince of Wales later Edward VIII .....
http://www.tiscali.co.uk/cgi-bin/news/newswire.cgi/news/reuters/2003/04/12/odd/dublinbrothelfacesbulldozer.html
Joyce had no monopoly ..... he was only one of many satisfied customers .....
You might also have heard of Monto if you read or at least dipped into the 1906 Encyclopedia Britannica ....
http://indigo.ie/~kfinlay/General/monto.htm
Or indeed listened to the Dubliners for that matter ......
Now when the Tsar of Russia
And the King of Prussia
Landed in the Phoenix Park in a big balloon,
They asked the police band
To play "The Wearin' of the Green"
But the buggers in the depot didn't know the tune.
So they both went up to Monto, Monto, Monto
Take her up to Monto, lan-ge- roo,
To you!
http://www.netsoc.ucd.ie/~justy/frames/montoframe.html
moonwolf's point about the inconsistency of those who favour abortion and oppose prostitution, is well made.
The current attitude to prostitution reflects an unholy alliance between breast beating moralists and an anti-liberation segment of the women's movement. It is surprising that governments today are being forced by this alliance to introduce tougher laws not because they will work but only because it is difficult for politicians to make rational arguments when it comes to sex.
An editorial in this week's issue of the UK magazine 'The Economist' argues in favour of legalisation. It says that : 'The puritans have the whip hand not because they can prove that tough laws will make life better for women, but because they have convinced governments that prostitution is intolerable by its very nature.'
'Abolitionists make three arguments. From the right comes the argument that the sex trade is plain wrong, and that, by condoning it, society demeans itself. Liberals (such as this newspaper) who believe that what consenting adults do in private is their own business reject that line.
From the left comes the argument that all prostitutes are victims. Its proponents cite studies that show high rates of sexual abuse and drug taking among employees. To which there are two answers. First, those studies are biased: they tend to be carried out by staff at drop-in centres and by the police, who tend to see the most troubled streetwalkers. Taking their clients as representative of all prostitutes is like assessing the state of marriage by sampling shelters for battered women. Second, the association between prostitution and drug addiction does not mean that one causes the other: drug addicts, like others, may go into prostitution just because it's a good way of making a decent living if you can't think too clearly.
A third, more plausible, argument focuses on the association between prostitution and all sorts of other nastinesses, such as drug addiction, organised crime, trafficking and underage sex. To encourage prostitution, goes the line, is to encourage those other undesirables; to crack down on prostitution is to discourage them.'
The 'Monto' red light district mostly depended on large numbers of British troops garrisoned in Dublin.
I dont think kerbcrawling is not acceptable. And the kerbcrawlers themselves are mostly to blame.
Firstly, Cara's assertion that there is no need for anyone to engage in prostitution is really irrelevant - Reality is that worldwide in most major cities prostitution is commonplace. As for it being laziness - hardly - I imagine it to be quite hard work and extremely emotionally demanding!
As for the "if it's legalised, benefit claimants may be made to take it up! Simple - there is no obligation to start your own business on benefit claimants, furthermore if it were legal and one decided to go into it one could probably get the back to work allowance!!
As for naming and shaming! Shaming who, the wife who will be mocked because her husband has been named? Sure, if she had been giving him his needs he wouldn't be going with prostitutes!! The kids in the playground , being taunted about their daddy?
Thats a great idea!!!!
The only real solution to this issue is to adopt a policy that licences prostitution, but only as a self employment occupation. Designate a certain address where those operating under licence can do business from. Make it a requirement that in order to hold a licence one has to participate in a health monitoring process.In this way, the exploitation is removed, the kerb crawling is removed from residential areas and the health dangers are addressed.
Another point that strikes me about the feminist arguments around this, if women are entitled to choose what to do with their bodies regarding the issue of abortion, then it follows logically that they have also the right to choose to be prostitutes. To be pro abortion and anti prostitution is a hypocritical stance to adopt.
Of course all of the above does nothing to deal with the real issue, drug addiction, which is responsibile for a large proportion of the prostitution on Dublins streets.
Is a way for women to make way more money than on the checkout. If they really were in need they could go to a wimmins refuge and sign on
There's no excuse for selling your booty these days.
Now get this clear, the Church is very clear on prostitution. right there at the beginning of the Bible we get Tamar disguising herself as a prostitute and her father in law was her client. [genesis 36]
Then we have Rahab a prostitute who gave shelter (and what else?) to two Israelite spies. [joshua 2]
And do you know why these women are special?
Because they two of the only four women listed in the geneology of Jesus.
as you can read in the Holy Book-
Matthew 1:1-16
and now a word for the Magedelens-
Luke 7:37-50 "Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little." Though Luke describes the woman as a "sinner," she is commonly treated as a prostitute. As indeed is Mary Magdalene but you can't be sure about that.
Finally it might be forgotten by some of the younger readers, that harlotry is not confined to the fairer sex (the ones without souls), but has in Dublin affected mother Church in other ways.
Included in the list of Shame were-
the RC bishop of Dublin. - (gay sauna with boy)
Emmet Stagg - (phoenix park with boy)
Which brings me to "naming and shaming".
What lengths of harm might you do to a newly wed family by such vigilantisms?
Who would have to pay for the mortgage and vehicle then? This all started with the Ann Summers.
You know where I stand with your website, Indignant as ever.
You probably wouldn't have heard about "monto" if you hadn't read Joyce.
And to suggest that the abject poverty that led to most of the present day dublin 1 district being red light zone meant it was the "sex capital" of Europe is missing what "sex capital of Europe" means.
Did customers from many other places in Europe come to buy the services of Irish women?
No. They didn't. Dublin wasn't visited as such at all, which means the customer base for those women was a national one, there wasn't enough _money_ or enough middle class males to support a sex economy. In comparison London towards the end of the XIX century saw a ratio of three female prostitutes to a single middle class male (one with at least four servants in his household).
So Dublin might have been the sex capital of Ireland, but it didn't compete with other cities such as Amsterdam or Paris or as is most traditional :- the docklands of major ports or university towns with large single male student bodies. [remember there were no girls in UCD or TCD then].
Sex tourism however _does_ exist in Ireland now.
The peculiar brand of short fix service economy urban development chosen by the current FF/PD administration to "invest" European regional restructuring funds, led very quickly to the conversion of central Dublin from what is was in the 1980s to what it is now. One of the most popular destinations for stag and hen night weekends. This is low-key sex tourism.
As a model it has been copied by many other cities. Newcastle is another english speaking city that has chosen -the "eurostyle cafés", "expensive art galleries", and "stag and hen nights catered for" option. So Dublin went from two incidents of syphylis a year in the early 1990s to the highest rate of syphylis infection in the EU by the end of the decade. This is a curious indication of the client and worker base of the modern Irish sex iindustry. Due to the exceptionally high level of HIV/AIDS infection in the Irish State in the 1980s many heroin users and prostitutes had died by the mid 1990s. _this_ michelle is really what people need to open their eyes to, not some romanticised picture of a Molly leaning out the window of an Edwardian Dublin tenement.
The ratio of illegal imigrant to native sex worker is much lower in Dublin than in other cities and states of Europe.
At the moment most illegal migrant prostitution is concentrated on the Eastern frontiers of the Union. There are extensive networks of east european criminals who traffic in women from the former soviet union.
But the women who proceed from these gangs are to be found throughout Europe and live in virtual slavery.
Legal work, work available. However... unemployed on benefit are required to accept legal work, if it is offered to them, aren't they?
So what happens...
http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/ayaan.html
i heard a report ages ago that they were gonna make a website for shaming the kerb crawlers... obviuosly there were legal questions.. did it happen
Jenny : I am most impressed with your article and again people in Dublin take action on the streets and via the net to demand justice.
Kerb crawling is not acceptable. I once knew a woman in the 1980's who took such offence to kerb crawlers outside the offices at Fitzwilliam Square that she used her car to 'shame them' away.
I live in Dublin 4 and walk 'a little bit drukenly particularly at night' due to head injury. Let me tell you the kerb crawlers exist here.
What concerns me about your area is its proximity to the Phoenix Park. Several years ago I was asked to read a book by a sociologist on Rent boys, it was harrowing. I would suggest that Govt Departments who engage in research for Ministers in this area are aware of the content. Evidently, the Irish politicians continue to file it under denial category.
At all costs children must be protected. You mention Drumcondra and Castleknock, personally I believe kerb crawlers exist everywhere and children are susceptible no matter what location; but some are more susceptible than others.
Minister McDowell must be asked to review this issue. As you say Prostitution is the oldest profession in the world and the economics of supply and demands says there is need.
Public Health intervention is critical. Singapore albeit you say (towards Fascist in approach) at least deal with the issue. We need to register brothels. We need to protect women who are prostitutes, to monitor the HIV possibilities.
I lived in Zimbabwe in the early 1990's and I worked with two nuns who set up one of the first centres in Harare for women and their children with HIV - it was so sad, they had little or no future just people who cared to give them 'dignity in death'.
In Ireland, our ignorance and denial is astonishing. The documentation, the books of self-revelationary life stories exist, the daily news.......yet the denial says don't hear a childs hidden messages.......a vulnerable person's near silent plight.
Kerb crawling leaves anyone vulnerable susceptible. We need to take action. If someone has an addiction to sex and has the money to pay for their need.........contain it in an environment suitable........not venture into a random choice based on kerb crawling........
An aside comment by my little niece of five recently filled in the line about houses in the Castleknock area, 'with prostitutes dressed up as lawyers'. Who want's to spoil the innocence of any child for the mentality of a leery kerb crawler.
It is wakey wakey time for people. The women stood up in the inner city to the drugs in the 1980's; women again made a stand over pensions via the media several months ago and the relevant Govt. Department had to retreat...........
The 'Profession circulates money' but then the denial creates deviance that need not necessarily happen.
Let us open our eyes to the fact that Dublin was the sex capital of Europe i.e. the Monto only over one century ago.
The time has come register brothers, the 'Yellow Card' with thumb print and photo like Singapore.
Michelle always selects a quote from New International book of quotations - Great Women
You hold the Power - Aretha Franklin 1942 (US Singer)
'Cause a rose is still a rose
Baby, girl, you're still a flower
He can't lead you and then take you
Make you and then break you
Baby girl, You hold the power'
It would be interesting if you were in a position to talk to some of the women who 'work' the area to add to what you have done already.
I lived on Montpelier Hill from 87 to 93 and even then the area had problems. I remember many nights coming home from work or shopping and being propositioned by kerb crawlers. Even if I had shopping bags in my hands!
A lot of the women who 'worked' in the area were Grandmothers in their 40's and 50's whose daughters had heroin addictions. The Grandmothers were left to raise their grandkids as best they could. Often without Children's Allowance as their daughters would spend it on drugs. I think those women were doing what they could to feed and clothe the kids and I am not sure if I would have the courage to do the same if I were in their shoes. If 'courage' it was, perhaps desperation? I do think that the last thing they need is our scorn. Perhaps a little understanding would go a long way.
I also remember meeting a sixteen year old girl whose parents had put her out of the house. Her 'boyfriend' had taken her in and she was on the streets to help pay her way. I met her in the Chinese take away on Parkgate street and got into a conversation. When I was leaving I gave her some cigarettes and a lighter. She nearly wept with gratitude, she wasn't used to kindness.
>Society doesn't work unless people behave responsibly
Society doesn't work. Period. That is obvious if women are forced, by circumstances we can only guess at, to sell the only thing they have - themselves. If people behaved responsibly our government wouldn't criminalize women who are forced by necessity to debase themselves in order to survive.
>Nobody has to resort to prostitution these days
Cara must live in a lovely world, but it's not the real world. Remember that old adage... There but for the grace of God go you and I.
What about responsibilty. Society doesn't work unlesspeople behave responsibly.
Nobody has to resort to prostituton these days. It's pure greed and laziness.
The rights of a community to safeguard their children.
The rights of women to their autonomy.
The rights of women to secure work.
The rights of women not to be enslaved.
The rights of women as unalienable and equal regardless of "residency" or other tests applied to migrant workers.
The rights of women to proper health care.
The rights of problem drug users to proper health care.
The unsuitability of many current social policies as enforced by judicial establishment.
Are we ready for a debate on prostitution?
QUOTE: "One example where this type of system is in operation, which Dublin City Council could examine, is in Singapore. Singapore is a city-state with rules and regulations bordering on fascism; the media is heavily scrutinised and censored, even chewing gum is banned from sale. The Government has made prostitution - specifically brothels - legal"
Hmmmm..... wouldn't Amsterdam or Nevada (Bunny Ranch or whatever it is) be a better example?
Emma Goldman had some interesting thoughts on the "traffic in women", including the repeated sensational tabloid exposes
QUOTE: "Only when human sorrows are turned into a toy with glaring colors will baby people become interested --for a while at least."
and tied the phenomenon clearly to insufficient wages being available to women for other labour
QUOTE: "out of 2,000 cases under his observation, but few came from the middle classes, from well-ordered conditions, or pleasant homes. By far the largest majority were working girls and working women; some driven into prostitution through sheer want, others because of a cruel, wretched life at home, others again because of thwarted and crippled physical natures (of which I shall speak later on). Also it will do the maintainers of purity and morality good to learn that out of two thousand cases, 490 were married women, women who lived with their husbands. Evidently there was not much of a guaranty for their "safety and purity" in the sanctity of marriage."