Decision to jail two women in prostitution case criticised

Laws against prostitution should be used to “tackle” sex buyers and ‘pimps’, a charity has said after a ruling saw two women jailed in Kildare.

Dedicated to supporting people in prostitution, Catholic-founded Ruhama has criticised a decision to jail two women for nine months for running a brothel.

A premises in Newbridge was raided in November last year following complaints by locals, which resulted in two Romanian nationals aged 25 and 20 being charged with keeping or running a brothel. Both were involved in prostitution and lived in the house, one of whom is expecting a child with her partner.

Policy and Communications Manager, Amanda Keane said: “We absolutely do not want to see women in prostitution being targeted under the law at all. That conviction, we don’t condone that whatsoever.

“We always advocate for resources to be targeted at everybody around the women in prostitution, the sex buyers, the organisers, the profiteers of organised prostitution. Those are the people that the law is there to target, not the women themselves, they shouldn’t be punished under the law.”

There were no sex-buyers found at the premises when it was raided and no significant money was found either.