A WOMAN WHO was trafficked to Dublin for sex when she was just 15-years-old has told the horrific story of her sexual exploitation in this country.
Hannah, whose real name has not been given, was sold by her brother-in-law in Moldova for €3,000 to a man who lived in Dublin. She started working at 15 at a brothel in Temple Bar. This continued for seven years.
“There was a guy, I remember a guy who used to come in and say “I want the youngest girl you have here” and he was really old, so to them it was fun,” she said. “You’d have a day where you would do like 15 guys a day.”
They used to get all that anger and everything they had and the way they were seeing it was ‘they’re whores, no one is going to listen to them, whatever we do is going to be in here’
(Video: TheImmigrantCouncil/YouTube)
“I had a guy once he was on top of me holding by [the] throat in bed, I had his fingerprints on my throat for weeks,” the woman explains. “I was lucky that his friend walked in and his friend just pushed him off the bed. I couldn’t breathe for half an hour I was sitting there, like I was in shock for weeks and weeks after that.”
She also tells a story of a time she was called to an old folk’s home, to have sex with a man who was about 80-years-old, who could “barely stand”.
Hannah did eventually escape from her pimp and now lives in Ireland with her daughter.
“She’s the only person that really loved me for who me, not for me because I’m giving them stuff,” she said. “I actually feel like I’m somebody now.”
The video was released by the Immigrant Council of Ireland, ahead of a day of action tomorrow to lobby politicians from all parties for laws targeting those who pay for sex.
“This recording makes for uncomfortable and disturbing listening,” said Denise Chartlon, Chief Executive of the Immigrant Council of Ireland. “Yet, it is a reality which is happening in our communities which we cannot ignore. For the first time ever the public and our policy makers will hear the truth about sex-trafficking, and not the ‘Pretty Woman’ fiction being peddled by vested interests in a €250 million trade.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say