{"id":10016,"date":"2023-11-28T15:08:15","date_gmt":"2023-11-28T15:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prfire.com\/news-releases\/increase-in-violence-against-sex-workers-denied-at-women-in-policing-conference\/"},"modified":"2023-11-28T15:08:15","modified_gmt":"2023-11-28T15:08:15","slug":"increase-in-violence-against-sex-workers-denied-at-women-in-policing-conference","status":"publish","type":"news-releases","link":"https:\/\/www.prfire.com\/news-releases\/increase-in-violence-against-sex-workers-denied-at-women-in-policing-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Increase in Violence Against Sex Workers Denied at Women in Policing Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\nUgly Mugs Ireland is extremely disappointed that a speaker at the International Association of Women in Policing (IAWP) Conference, currently taking place in Dublin , was yesterday permitted to use the prestigious event as a platform to try to discredit important Ugly Mugs data on violence against sex workers in Ireland.
<\/strong>\n<\/div>\n
Ugly Mugs (UM) Ireland, a sex worker safety scheme, has published statistical data and reports that show, comparing the two years pre and the two years post the adoption of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017 in Ireland, sex workers\u2019 crime reports to UM increased by 91% and violent crime reports specifically increased by 92%.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Lucy Smyth of Ugly Mugs says this increase in violence against sex workers should be being taken seriously by the Garda\u00ed. But, instead, the Garda and IAWP Conference permitted speaker Ruth Breslin of the Sexual Exploitation Research Programme (SERP) at University College Dublin to use their conference as an opportunity to try to completely discredit Ugly Mugs data.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Ruth Breslin said the idea that violence had increased was a \u201ca massive red herring\u201d primarily being put forward by Ugly Mugs which she described as \u201cA woman, a single woman who gathers a certain amount of data that no one else has oversight over.\u201d Ms Breslin continued to say that the data is \u201creally questionable and not subject to scrutiny\u201d and that her organisation\u2019s data (which says violence hasn\u2019t increased) is subject to scrutiny. Various other smears towards Ugly Mugs were also made by Ms Breslin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Ugly Mugs strongly refutes Ms Breslin\u2019s attempt to deny increases in violence against sex workers by using her privilege to try to discredit Ugly Mugs data.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Lucy Smyth clarifies that \u201cUnder data sharing agreements and with the consent of our members, Ugly Mugs has provided the Garda\u00ed with large volumes of our data over many years. The Garda\u00ed therefore well know that our data is genuine as they have analysed much of it themselves many times.\u201d Lucy says the Garda\u00ed allowing this data on serious violence against sex workers, which they know is real, to be rubbished at a conference they are running is deeply disturbing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Ugly Mugs has also previously requested that the Department of Justice review its data, or better still commission a full academic review of the data, though thus far the Department has declined to show any interest in doing so.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nUgly Mugs wants to make very clear that the data at hand relates to very serious crime and Ugly Mugs remains willing to have it reviewed by the Department of Justice or commissioned academics or the Garda\u00ed.
<\/strong>\n<\/div>\n
Ugly Mugs says they don\u2019t fully understand why the Irish authorities want to ignore this increase in violence against sex workers. But this situation is not acceptable. Ugly Mugs Ireland would ask the Garda\u00ed and the IAWP to immediately disassociate themselves from the comments made by Ruth Breslin at their conference on 9 March 2022 in order to prevent further damage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nLucy Smyth says \u201cSex workers in Ireland are experiencing horrific levels of abuse and violence. The Government, the Garda\u00ed in particular, needs to stop ignoring this reality. Instead of facilitating anti sex work campaigners trying to discredit Ugly Mugs data at their events, they should be addressing the very serious levels of violence sex workers are experiencing\u201d. She goes on to say that \u201cit is a very sad situation if events about women in policing are going to be places where punching down on marginalised women (in this case sex workers) is considered acceptable. The IAWP and women police could instead constructively engage with the sex work community and help us do something about the serious violence sex workers are facing.<\/p>\n

<\/strong>For a copy of this press release with references please see:
https:\/\/uglymugs.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/Women-in-Policing-Conference.pdf<\/a>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10017,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":""},"news-rooms":[5776],"press-tags":[5786,5780,5784,5785,5777,5778,5779,5783,3581,5781,5782],"press-categories":[2568],"class_list":["post-10016","news-releases","type-news-releases","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-rooms-ugly-mugs","press-tags-an-garda-siochana","press-tags-garda","press-tags-iawp","press-tags-international-association-of-women-in-policing","press-tags-police","press-tags-prostitution","press-tags-sex-work","press-tags-ugly-mugs","press-tags-violence","press-tags-women-in-policing","press-tags-women-police","press-categories-law"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prfire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-releases\/10016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prfire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-releases"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prfire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news-releases"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prfire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prfire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prfire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-rooms","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prfire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-rooms?post=10016"},{"taxonomy":"press-tags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prfire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press-tags?post=10016"},{"taxonomy":"press-categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prfire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press-categories?post=10016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}